Finally I made them! This is how I begin the introduction to today’s recipe: the fried doughnuts, recipe without potatoes, soft and indulgent like the ones from the bar! Do you know why I start like this? Because this is one of those recipes I wrote down in my big notebook years and years ago, but then every time I would read it and move on. The excuses were the following: four hours of rising, come on, do something else — we can’t waste that much time. Then you have to fry and the smell will linger in the house all day! And 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 I lied to myself, clearly knowing that all of these were obviously, and blatantly, excuses!
In the end I decided to do it, and do you want to know why? As a Christmas gift, Luca gave me a Kenwood stand mixer, a tool I was missing — or rather, I had an old mixer but it was outdated. It no longer had the paddle attachment and its movements were limited; the poor thing had many years of service behind it. I haven’t retired 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 not a short time, and here I am to tell, show and guide you through the recipe for very soft fried doughnuts without potatoes!
Why doughnuts without potatoes? Because my grandmother Licia always made them this way, without potatoes and super soft, with the sugar that makes them even more indulgent and that vanilla aroma that makes them irresistible! You have to try them to believe. Do you call them “graffe fritte”? We don’t — the word graffe from Carnival never really entered our family kitchen vocabulary. So I’m very curious to know what you call this sweet. Basically it’s a brioche-like dough that’s fried instead of baked. If you like, let me know in the comments.
Since Carnival is approaching and deep fryers, pans with oil or air fryers are warming up, I thought I’d also leave you other Carnival recipes to try. Think about the Carnival fritters or castagnole, the krapfen or cream-filled bomboloni, the chiacchiere, and finishing with Carnival peaches with Nutella and Marchigiani Carnival arancini.
You can find all these recipes in the links below. Each link is clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you choose to read. There’s also a collection of recipes where you’ll also find Carnival Masks filled with Nutella, super indulgent and easy to make with little ones.
Now, since I’ve already talked a lot about the fried doughnuts recipe, let’s get straight to the point.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Budget-friendly
- Rest time: 4 Hours
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Cooking time: 10 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 indulgent fried doughnuts without potatoes
- 2.5 cups 00 flour (all-purpose flour)
- 1 2/3 cups Manitoba flour
- 2 eggs (medium, at room temperature)
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 3 1/2 tbsp butter (at room temperature)
- 3/4 cup milk (at room temperature (200 ml))
- 3 1/3 tbsp water (at room temperature (approx. 50 ml = 3 tbsp + 1 tsp))
- 3 tsp fresh brewer's yeast (about 10 g)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 pod vanilla (or one vial or one packet)
- 4 1/4 cups peanut or frying oil (or oil for frying (about 1 L))
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar (for coating (about 60 g))
Tools to prepare fried doughnuts without potatoes, soft like the café ones
- 1 Stand mixer
- 1 Kitchen scale
- 1 Work surface mat / rolling mat
- 1 Rolling pin
- 1 Cookie cutter / round cutter
- 1 Stovetop
- 1 Frying pan
- 1 Skimmer
- 1 Tray
- 1 Absorbent paper
- 1 Plate
- 2 Kitchen towels
Steps to make fried doughnuts without potatoes
I start by weighing all the ingredients and placing them on the work surface near the stand mixer so I can continue with the dough preparation quickly. Please remember that where specified, the ingredients must be at room temperature. Pour the milk, water and the measured sugar into the bowl. Crumble the fresh yeast with your hands and start the machine using the paddle attachment for this preparation. Let it work until the yeast is completely dissolved.
Now proceed by adding the flours, breaking the two eggs, and adding the vanilla seeds. Let the mixer work and, meanwhile, start adding the butter in small pieces, bit by bit, until fully absorbed. Lastly, add the pinch of salt. Turn off the mixer and remove the dough from the paddle.
Leave the ball of dough to rise in the mixer’s bowl for at least 3 hours, covered with a kitchen towel. It should double in volume. After this first rest you can proceed.
Dust your hands with flour and lightly flour the work surface. Deflate the dough by pressing a fist into the center. In the video recipe you can clearly see all the steps I’m describing. Retrieve the dough and, with your hands first and then a rolling pin (I used a silicone one), roll the dough into a nice rectangle about 3/4 inch thick. Take a fairly small round cutter and cut out many discs of dough. Then, with a smaller cutter or, as I did, with a small piping tip, cut out a small hole in the center of each disc.
Waste-saving tip: don’t throw away the scraps. The small rings taken from the centers can be fried to make tiny super indulgent and soft little fritters. I don’t like waste, so I also reworked the scraps, forming a new ball and rolling it out again to make more doughnuts. That way I used all the dough and got 20 doughnuts that are not too large.
Now arrange the doughnuts on two baking trays lined with parchment paper. Cover them with a kitchen towel and let them rise for another hour. After this time you can proceed to cooking. If you don’t want to handle each doughnut by hand for fear of deforming them, you can cut the parchment paper with scissors and gently lower the doughnuts into the oil using the paper as a guide.
Place a frying pan on the stovetop and fill it with about 4 1/4 cups of neutral frying oil. I recommend choosing a high-oleic oil, such as high-oleic sunflower or peanut oil. These are oils with more of the so-called “good fat”, if you want to put it that way, which help obtain crispy, dry fries — in short, a quality frying.
Now the most delicate phase: cooking. You should fry one or at most two doughnuts at a time in the pan to avoid them darkening on the outside because you can’t turn them easily. They will not remain as soft as we want. Take a skimmer and a fork so you can turn them with one movement. Let them cook a few instants per side, turning them very often. Then drain them and place them on the tray where you’ve laid an absorbent frying paper, then toss them in the plate with the sugar.
It is essential to perform this step while the doughnuts are still hot; otherwise the sugar will not stick to their surface.
I finished frying the doughnuts I had prepared and, after taking photos, I gave them to relatives and colleagues at work who, in both cases, cleared everything away. I can only wish you a good appetite and remind you that I expect you every day here on my blog with many easy, quick and delicious recipes like this one!
Don’t want to fry? You can bake the doughnuts without potatoes (or graffe without potatoes) in the oven. After the second rise on the baking tray proceed as follows. Preheat the oven to 356°F (180°C) in static mode and let it reach temperature. Then brush the surface of the doughnuts with beaten egg or milk using a kitchen brush. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. One tray at a time, positioned in the middle of the oven. You should obtain well-risen and golden doughnuts. Then, while still warm, roll them in sugar and let them cool on a cooling rack or on a tray lined with frying paper or kitchen absorbent paper.
Tips, storage and variations
Recipe tips: as already mentioned, ingredients must be at room temperature where indicated. The dough work is fundamental, as is adding the butter in small pieces and waiting for it to be absorbed gradually. Monitor the oil temperature during frying to avoid the doughnuts becoming dark and hard instead of soft like the café ones.
Variations: if you don’t have Manitoba flour, you can use only type 00 flour, but I recommend mixing flours and choosing those with higher strength (W 300 or above) for leavened products that require two or three hours of rising, like in this case. If you don’t want to use butter, you can replace it with 50-60 ml of neutral oil. I would not remove the vanilla: the aroma of the doughnuts also comes from this ingredient. If you want to use dry active yeast (the sachet type), you should add about 10-12 grams. Check the dose indicated on the sachet for 500 grams of flour as it often varies from yeast to yeast.
Storage: you can store the fried doughnuts in a covered pastry container, taking care to close it only when they are completely cold; otherwise they will become too soft. You can keep them for a couple of days.
