D - Doughnuts

Deep Fried Crunchy Goodness

My grandmother used to make the absolute best molasses doughnuts. She used a cast iron pan. And lard. Yup. LARD. And they were amazing. Crispy and hot on the outside, warm and fluffy on the inside. Nothing compared to them. I wasn’t old enough to have coffee while she was still making them, but I imagine they would have been incredible with coffee. 

 

Years later, when I was in culinary school, they put you though this torture called Baking lab, where you have to get up before 10am (More specifically you have to get up at 4am) and then go do complicated math problems. However. Part of this Baking Lab involved working in the Hotel with the actual bakers. A surly bunch to be sure. But interesting. 

There was one woman there who had been making the doughnuts, which the hotel had been known for, by hand, for Decades. Watching her roll and cut them was, well, nothing short of impressive.  Watching her FRY them was Dangerous! She used two long wooden dowels (that had probably been whittled by Jesus Himself), and would literally THROW three DOZEN doughnuts in the Fryalator at a time. Walk away. Do something else. Then come back, and flip them all so they were the proper perfect golden brown. Then she would skewer them through their holes and toss them haphazardly onto the drying rack and do it again, yelling hoarsely for some lowly intern (me) to get her useless ass up there and get the hot shit down to the display. Now!

    Second Best Doughnuts I’ve ever had.