Alrighty. I promised, and now I’m delivering. The goodies I’m writing about today, they’re completely gluten and dairy free.

Can I be honest though?

I’m not sure how much I like these things. Sure, they fit into 2 of the top 10 categories of deliciousness as they are deep fried and sugar coated, (The ten  catagories are- Deep fried, sugar coated, butter laden, chocolate covered, peanutbutter filled, gooey in a good way, caramelly, smells as good as it tastes, drool factor,  or marshmallow) And from all outward appearances there seems to be nothing wrong with them. I even like how they taste. I don’t know exactly what I don’t like about them, really.

It could probably be explained by the fact that I really just don’t like donuts all that much.
So I guess I’m not the person to ask whether or not a donut is good.

I limit my donut eating to a local donut shop in Portland Oregon called Voodoo Doughnut. I figure if I’m going to eat one, it’s going to come from there.  Seriously, who could pass up a maple bar with bacon on it, a grape donut, donuts dipped in icing and then in cereal, an apple fritter the size of a human head, or a bavarian filled donut covered in chocolate that just happens to be shaped vaguely like a penis/hammer. WHO!?!?! and if that wasn’t enough, They also have VEGAN DOUGHNUTS!

They do not, however, have gluten-free donuts. Maybe there’s something to that, maybe not. Maybe they just haven’t thought about it.

Anyways…

So here are the photos of my creations. Little gluten/dairy free donuts. some in powdered sugar, some in cinnamon sugar, even a few glazed with sugar sprinkles (I don’t know if regular sprinkles are gluten free, anyone else know?)

Of all the flavours I made, these were my favourite. The cinnamon really helped out the flavour.

Here you can sort of see the texture of the inside of the doughnut. It really didnt feel as grainy as it looks though.

All in all it was a learning experience. I made some good donuts, and I’ll be sending them to work with my husband tommorrow. The good thing about them not being yeast based donuts is that they will not go stale in one day. They’ll be just as good tomorrow as they were today, and I’m sure my husband’s co-workers will like them.

For the record- The only reason I made gluten-free donuts first was because I’ve been making a heckuva lot of cupcakes lately and wanted  to switch it up a ilttle. I may not like donuts, but that’s not really a reason for me to not make them

So here is the recipe. Note that beside it there are suggestions for alternate ingredients if you’d rather not have the recipe be vegan or corn free. Anyways- here it is-

This is my own recipe. I have only tried it once, and the picture above is the result. I was happy with the result, but because I have only made this recipe once, it might need some fine tuning on your end if you’re going to attempt it. Just remember, if the dough is too soft and sticky, add more rice flour (or tapioca flour) if the dough is too dry, add a little bit of soymilk and try to knead it again.

Because there is no gluten in this recipe, you can knead the dough to your hearts content and it will never make the dough too chewy or hard. yay!

So here goes…

You will need-

3 cups rice flour ( I used 2 cups white and 1 cup brown)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup organic “raw” sugar
1 tablespoon potato starch (you can use cornstarch if you’re not worried about this recipe being corn free.)

mix all of that together in a large bowl.. meanwhile, in a smaller bowl whisk together-

Ener-G Egg replacer equivelent of 3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla soymilk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
(if you’re not making this recipe vegan, you’ll want to whisk together 3 eggs, 1 tablespoon milk and 1 tablespoon vanilla)

Whisk these three ingredients together until liquified, then add them to the dry ingredients.

once you’ve incorporated the liquids into the dry, begin to knead the dough slightly. Once the entire recipe is formed into a ball of dough, sprinkle a board or clean sanitized countertop generously with rice flour or tapioca flour. knead as much flour into the dough as necessary to form a soft dough that is not sticky or tacky. You’ll roll it out about 1/2 inch in thickness, then cut small circles out with a 3″ round cookie cutter, and then cut the centers out with a small cookie cutter, or use a knife to cut a small square out of the center. You want it to LOOK like a real donut with a hole in it. I tried to make some so they were solid, and the centers DID NOT cook. This recipe is much too dense to hope that the centers will be light and airy so you can fill them. This is more like a batter donut.

after you’ve got all your donuts cut out, lay them on a lightly floured plate and bring them to your stove top. You’ll want to heat up enough oil or shortening to fry them. You can use any sort of oil that has a high smoke point. If you want these to be corn free- do not use corn or vegetable oil. Use canola oil (canola oil is made from the mustard plant *EDIT* It has been pointed out that canola oil is actually a genetically altered form of rapeseed that is from the same plant family as mustard. Not that it matters to anyone, because seriously, only people with entirely too much time on their hands feel the need to point out my slight mistake. If you would like to know all about the canola oil saga, feel free to read it here on wikipedia.)

You know your stovetop best, so here are the guidelines for frying-

-use a pan with high sides. Expect the oil to double in volume when a cold item is introduced to the hot oil. You want at least 3 inches of space above that doubled volume before the pan ends.

- shake any loose flour from the item you are frying before introducing it to the oil. The flour will come off in the oil and burn, causing the oil to rancid faster, also causing the oil to turn the fried objects a darker shade of brown than desired before being fully cooked.

-Bring oil to temperature (roughly 300-350 degrees) before introducing objects to the oil. If you place a food item in the oil before it is ready to cook, the oil will be absorbed into the food, changing the texture of the food and making it taste, look and feel oily. You want the hot oil to seal the food once it hits the oil, not absorb it.

- Do not walk away from the fryer while food is in the oil. watch it carefully.

-If at all possible, keep people out of the kitchen while you’re frying. You definately don’t want any children around, but make sure that adults know not to sneak up on you. Accidents do happen, and the slightest bump can cause injury or fire. Hot oil and stovetops can be dangerous together. Be careful.

-Never turn the heat on your stovetop over medium high when frying. The oil can and will burn!
It shouldn’t take very long at all for the donuts to cook. 2-5 minutes depending.

because of the outside texture of the donuts, you can wait until all of the donuts are fried before adding sugar to them. If you want them to have a clear glaze, mix powdered sugar and soy milk together to form a thin glaze, then pour it over the hot donuts. I recommend waiting until all of them are finished, but the glaze will be slightly more milky coloured because the donuts aren’t hot enough to melt the glaze. It doesn’t matter though, whatever you’re most comfortable with.

Another thing, powdered sugar has cornstarch in it. If you’re making these donuts corn-free, you can place regular granulated sugar in a food processor blender and make your own powdery sugar, though it will never be as fine as powdered sugar. If you want, you can even add some potato starch to it before blenderizing the sugar.

I dipped some of my donuts in powdered sugar (so those ones arent corn free) some of the donuts I shook in a bag full of granulated sugar and cinnamon, and the rest I glazed with homemade powdered sugar glaze (blenderized 1 cup granulated sugar+1 tablespoon potato starch) and 1 tablespoon soymilk, dipped the donuts in and sprinkled some coloured sugar on top.

So there you go. Good luck with trying this recipe! It’s not foolproof, so like I said, you might have to tweak it around a little, but it did end up tasting pretty good.

-A. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 1:33 am and is filed under April 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.