The Donuts

I should just come out and say it already.
I’d do anything for my son. I love him so much. I work hard to spoil this crazy kid. He’s five years old and one of those kids with the memory of an elephant. He will remember that thing that he asked for that I never bought him over a year later.

True story: I bought him the smoldering zombie groundbreaker from Spirit Halloween online because he faithfully asked for it once a week for fourteen months.

After a particularly rough day at school, he asked me for a pumpkin shaped donut with big ol’ crocodile tears in his eyes.
(Is it becoming abundantly clear that he loves Halloween stuff yet?)
I did not have a pumpkin donut. No one was serving pumpkin shaped donuts. He’d had one in his whole entire life and it was at the beginning of October which was almost four months ago. I did not want to go to Dunkin’ Donuts (nothing against them, I just was in no mood).
I explained to him that no one had pumpkin donuts anymore. Halloween was over.
He tried reasoning with me every way he could, including trying to convince me that Wednesday, January 24th was, in fact, All Hallow’s Eve. I sadly shook my head. It just wasn’t happening.
Then his face lit up.
“Mommy can make one. Can you make one mommy?”

Challenge accepted, you devilishly cunning child.

Let me explain.
My son frequently walks up to random people I’m conversing with to tell them that “mommy can make with a needle”. To him, I can make anything under the sun. I spent all last summer sewing together small, rag doll stuffies of his favorite, obscure video game characters that were impossible to find at a reasonable price.

Why, oh why, don’t I have a child that’s interested in something basic like idk, nerf guns or hot wheels? Like mother like son, I guess.

I love doing crafts for him. It keeps my hands busy and my son enthralled (read: out of trouble). He tells me which materials he wants me to use and how he wants them to be attached, be it needle and thread or hot glue. He has the makings of a pretty neat mixed media artist if he wants to be.

Well, I pull up this wonderfully perfect, just the right texture and taste Krispy Kreme doughnuts copycat recipe that you can find HERE and I set to work in the kitchen.
In comes Mr. Complainer/Go-Getter who decides that not only does he want to make them himself, he doesn’t need me at all. He doesn’t even need a recipe!
I eye him warily and set him up with a bowl on the table and my own bowl in the corner with the promises of pumpkin-lookin’ donuts. I spent the next short while scurrying from my bowl to his, giving him the ingredients he asked for in random increments and carefully measuring mine.
Suddenly he starts crying, “Orange, orange!” and in my bewilderment (completely forgetting that the end game is yes, of course, orange pumpkin frosting) hand him some orange flavoring. He (who seemed just as confused as I was) sniffed it, decided he liked it and dumped it right in.
We worked like this until I had to explain that the dough needed to rise. I carefully put mine away under a kitchen rag and was just about to throw his scrap batch out when he, in the most appalled manner imaginable, told me I needed to make that one nice too. I stared at the goop (and goopy goop it was compared to my fine dough!). It was watery and “icky” and reeked of orange.
And then I remembered that Mommy can do anything.
I salvaged it somehow (by adding a little of this, a little of that and a package of yeast) and just about chewed my nails right off. I was so nervous that the dough would not rise or that it would taste like poop.
I was so proud of the little man. He didn’t fuss (not once) for the whole hour it took to rise.
The alarm went off and he helped me roll out the dough and cut out circle shapes with a glass cup. This was probably the most amount of focus and determination I’ve ever seen in him at home!

We waited while they rose the second time.
He began to grow impatient just as I was heating up the oil to fry the dough. He started to whine for his favorite youtube videos and music. I set him up on the couch to cook and before you know it, we were suddenly drowning in donuts.
Donuts that my son does not recognize as donuts.

They have no holes, no icing.
I, for one, think they’re splendid. My grandmother calls them “dunkers” because they’re plain donuts for dunking in coffee. They’re airy and fluffy and just heavenly to break into.
Even my son’s batch of fritter-donuts turned out scrumptious with barely a detectable difference (besides the orange flavor of course!).
The only icing we had in the house was a can of icing for cupcake decorating that I (lacking any orange icing) made little jack-o-lantern faces with.
After all that.
After all that.
My son took one look at those cute little faces, cried at their hideousness and fell asleep.

I ate donuts alone that night but the next morning he woke up and was so pleased that they were waiting for him.
My grandmother made hers into the best darn french toast I’ve ever had.

And that, my friends, is the story of the donuts.
The recipe is 10/10, I 100% recommend to anyone wanting to try their hands at donuts. It’s a no fuss recipe and I think I substituted the milk for a half and half and water. There is definitely room for error here.

Thank you for reading my nonsense!
Have you ever made donuts at home before?
If so, what recipe did you use?
If you try this one, let me know!

Thank you again,
Bun Mom