Finally, I made them! I begin the introduction of today’s recipe like this: the fried donuts, recipe without potatoes, soft and delicious like those at the café! Do you know why I start this way? Because this is one of those recipes I wrote down in my big notebook years and years ago, but then every time I read it, I would move on. The excuses were the following: four hours of rising, come on, do something else because we can’t waste so much time. Then you have to fry and the smell lingers in the house all day! And then I told myself the story that they wouldn’t turn out well anyway, that I wouldn’t be satisfied with the result, and so on. Well, I was wrong and lying to myself, clearly knowing that all these were obvious, and blatantly, excuses!
In the end, however, I decided to give it a try, and do you want to know why? As a Christmas gift, Luca gave me a Kenwood planetary mixer, a tool that was missing, or rather, I had a planetary mixer but it was outdated. The leaf hook was no longer there, and the movements were limited; the poor thing had many years of service behind it. I haven’t scrapped it yet, out of affection and gratitude; I keep it in its box in the garage. But I had to try the new one, and so this forgotten recipe came back to mind. I obviously waited for my day off from work because, let’s admit it, four hours of rising is no small feat, and here I am telling you, showing you, and guiding you in the recipe of the super soft fried donuts without potatoes!
Why donuts without potatoes? Because my grandmother Licia always made them this way, without potatoes and super soft, with sugar that makes them even more delicious and that vanilla aroma that makes them irresistible! Try it, of course, to believe it! Do you call them fried doughnuts? We don’t; the word doughnuts for Carnival never became part of our family life, our kitchen jargon as women, in short. So I’m very curious to know what you call this dessert. At the core, we’re talking about a brioche-like dough that’s fried instead of baked. If you’d like, let me know in the comments.
Since Carnival is approaching and the fryers, pots with oil, or air fryers are warming up, I thought of leaving you other Carnival recipes to try. Think of the Carnival fritters or castagnole, the krapfen or cream-filled bomboloni, the Carnival chiacchiere or Carnival lies, ending with the Carnival peaches with Nutella and the Marchigiani Carnival rice balls fried or baked.
All these recipes can be found in the links below. Each link is clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you choose to read. Additionally, of course, there’s the collection of recipes where you will also find the Mask-shaped Carnival treats filled with Nutella, super delicious and easy to prepare with the little ones.
Now, since I’ve talked a lot before the recipe of the fried donuts, I would say let’s get straight to the matter.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 4 Hours
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 20 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Carnival, All Seasons
- Energy 579.02 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 24.48 (g) of which sugars 7.18 (g)
- Proteins 3.96 (g)
- Fat 52.96 (g) of which saturated 10.16 (g)of which unsaturated 40.13 (g)
- Fibers 0.67 (g)
- Sodium 63.20 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 44 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients to make 20 soft and delicious fried donuts without potatoes
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups Manitoba flour
- 2 eggs (medium at room temperature)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup butter (at room temperature)
- 3/4 cup milk (at room temperature)
- 1/4 cup water (in my case dried)
- 2.5 tsp fresh yeast
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 pod vanilla (or a vial or a packet)
- 4 1/4 cups peanut oil (or frying oil)
- 1/3 cup sugar
Tools to prepare soft fried donuts without potatoes like those from the café
- 1 Planetary Mixer
- 1 Kitchen Scale
- 1 Work Surface
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Dough Cutter
- 1 Stovetop
- 1 Frying Pan
- 1 Slotted Spoon
- 1 Tray
- 1 Absorbent Paper
- 1 Plate
- 2 Tea Towels
Steps for the fried donuts recipe without potatoes
I start by weighing all the ingredients and placing them on the work surface near the planetary mixer, so I can proceed with the preparation of the donuts dough without potatoes quickly. Remember, where specified, ingredients must be at room temperature. I pour the milk, water, and the dose of sugar into the bowl. I crumble the fresh yeast by hand and start the machine by choosing the leaf hook for this preparation. I let it work until the yeast is completely dissolved.
Now I can proceed by adding the flours, breaking the two eggs, adding the vanilla pod seeds. I let the planetary mixer work the dough and, in the meantime, start adding the butter. Piece by piece until it is fully absorbed. Lastly, I added the pinch of salt. I turn off the planetary mixer and detach the dough from the leaf hook.
I flour my hands and sprinkle the work surface. I deflate the dough by pressing with a fist in the center. In the video recipe, you can clearly see all the steps I’m describing. I take the dough from the bowl and, with the help of my hands first and then the rolling pin, in my case silicone, I roll out the dough creating a nice rectangle about 3/4 inch thick. I take a small dough cutter and cut out many dough disks. Then, with a smaller dough cutter or, as in my case, with a nozzle, I cut out a hole in the center of the disks.
Waste-free tips: don’t throw away the scraps. The small circles from the holes of the donuts, I fried and got super delicious and soft little bombs. I don’t like waste, so I also reused the leftover dough, making another ball with my hands and rolling it out again to create more donuts. This way, I used all the dough I created and made 20 donuts, not too large.
Now I arrange the donuts on two baking sheets, covered with parchment paper. I cover them with a tea towel and let them rise for another hour. After this time, I can proceed with the cooking. If you don’t want to pick up a donut at a time with your hands because you think they might break, you can cut the parchment paper with scissors and gently place the donuts in the oil with the help of the paper.
I place a frying pan on the stovetop and fill it with a quart of peanut oil. I recommend choosing a high oleic oil, like sunflower or peanut oil. These are oils with “good fat”, if you can say that since we’re still talking about oil, which helps to achieve crispy, dry fries, in short, a quality frying.
Now the most delicate phase: cooking. We have to fry one or two donuts at most in the pan to prevent them from becoming dark on the outside because we can’t flip them easily. Then they won’t be as soft as we wanted. So I take a slotted spoon and a fork to flip them with one motion. I let them cook for a couple of moments per side, flipping them very often. Then, one by one, I drain them and place them on the tray where I arranged a sheet of fry paper, then dip them in the plate where I poured the sugar.
Performing this step when the donuts are still warm is crucial, otherwise, the sugar won’t stick to their surface.
I finished the donuts cooking that I had prepared and, after taking photos, I gave them to relatives and work colleagues, who, in both cases, devoured them all. I can only wish you a good appetite and remind you that I look forward to seeing you here on my blog every day with many easy, quick, and delicious recipes like this one!
Don’t want to fry? You can bake the donuts without potatoes or graffe without potatoes in the dough in the oven. After the second rising on the tray, proceed in this way. Turn on the oven to 350°F with static mode and let it reach temperature. Then brush the donuts’ surface with beaten egg or milk using a kitchen brush. Bake and let cook for 20 to 25 minutes. One baking sheet at a time and placed in the middle part of the oven. You should get beautifully puffy and golden donuts. Then, while hot, roll them in sugar and let them cool on a wire rack or on a tray covered with fry paper or kitchen paper towels.
Tips, Storage, and Variations
Recipe tips: as mentioned earlier, ingredients must be at room temperature where indicated. The dough preparation is crucial, as is adding the butter in pieces, waiting for it to be absorbed slowly. Keep an eye on the oil temperature during cooking to prevent the donuts from becoming dark and hard instead of soft like those at the café.
Variations: if you don’t have Manitoba flour, you can use all-purpose flour, but I recommend always mixing flours and choosing those with strength above W300 when preparing doughs that rise for more than two or three hours, as in this case. If you don’t want to use butter, you can replace it with 50-60 ml of seed oil. Don’t skip the vanilla: the aroma of the donuts is also due to the presence of this ingredient. If you want to use dry brewer’s yeast, the kind in dehydrated yeast sachets, you will need to add about 10-12 grams. Read the dosage indicated on the sachet for 500 grams of flour because it often varies from yeast to yeast.
Storage: you can store the fried donuts in a cake container with a lid, being careful to close them only when they are completely cold, otherwise, they will soften too much. You can store them for a couple of days.
