Donuts for National Doughnut Day!

Today is National Doughnut Day. You can't pass through this day without a really great doughnut, right? I know this recipe is really a form of cheating...but that's why I call them Donuts and not Doughnuts. I'm sure you understand my reasoning! Truth is, though, these amazingly simple, amazingly delicious little tidbits of joy are so good, no one will know that the dough started in a lowly refrigerated biscuit tube!! Yum! So, in honor of National Doughnut Day...

Donuts

refrigerated biscuit dough (each can has 10 biscuits - one is never enough)

oil for frying

*powdered sugar

*a bit of milk

*cinnamon sugar

*chocolate

(*whichever you desire, one or all)

Separate biscuits. Using your thumbs, gently press a hole in the center of each biscuit. Do this slowly and gently, stretching the dough into a doughnut shape. Be careful not to tear the dough or you'll just have to halves of a biscuit! Some use a tiny round cutter to cut the center from the biscuit. There is no reason you should or shouldn't do this. If you do, you'll have donut holes to eat. If you don't, you won't. =) Make hoes in all the biscuits before you start since they turn golden very rapidly. If you make holes in between batches frying, your oil can get way too hot. Be careful!

Make powdered sugar icing (or cinnamon sugar or chocolate icing) before you start frying the donuts. The cinnamon sugar won't adhere to cold donuts. Plus, everyone wants to eat warm donuts!! Prepare everything first, fry the donuts, dip them in icing or in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar, eat!

To make powdered sugar icing, pour a cup or 2 of powdered sugar in a large bowl. (The amount will depend on how many donuts you are making.) Add milk ONE TABLESPOON AT A TIME and stir after each addition. Keep adding milk until you get a thick white pasty icing. Add melted chocolate chips or cocoa powder to the icing to make it chocolate. To make cinnamon sugar, add about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon to about 1 cup sugar. 

Heat oil in a deep fryer to 375 degrees, or in a shallow pan, heat about 2 inches of oil until it lightly sizzles when you touch the edge of biscuit to the oil. Place a few biscuits in the hot oil, leaving plenty of room for them to float around. Don't leave them, and watch them carefully. As soon as they turn golden on the bottom, use a meat for to turn them over. Let the other side turn golden and remove them from the oil and let them drain on paper towels. If the oil gets too hot the dough will brown too quickly and they don't puff up and cook all the way through.

As soon as all the biscuits have been magically transformed into hot donuts, dip each one in a bowl of powdered sugar icing or in powdered sugar or in cinnamon sugar. We normally dip one side of each in powdered sugar icing. It is our favorite. When I dip them in cinnamon sugar, I coat the entire donut!

Spectacular! I love these. My husband loves these. My kids love them so much they beg for me to make them. So give in! Make doughnuts (donuts) the easy way. Toss a little flour on your face. No one will know you didn't slave all day for these. Plus...a tube of 10 biscuits = 10 donuts = about 50 cents!! How great is that.