Classic Glazed Donut

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• ¾ cup milk
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• ¼ cup sugar
• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 whole egg
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 cups vegetable oil
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. 1

   Warm the 0.75 cup milk until it's just cozy on your wrist — like bathwater, not hot. If it steams, let it sit and cool, because heat that's too high will kill the yeast and you'll never know why the dough sat there sulking. Melt the 4 tbsp butter into the warm milk and let it slip in.

2. 2

   Stir the 1 tbsp yeast and the 0.25 cup sugar into that warm milk and walk away for five minutes. When you come back it should look foamy and puffed on top, like the head on a root beer. That froth is how you know the yeast is alive and hungry. No froth means dead yeast — start that bit over.

3. 3

   Crack in the 1 whole egg, add the 0.5 tsp salt, then add the 3 cups flour a big handful at a time, stirring after each. It'll go from a wet batter to a shaggy, sticky mass that pulls together and starts leaving the sides of the bowl. That's your cue it has had enough flour.

4. 4

   Tip it onto a lightly floured counter and knead — push with the heel of your hand, fold, turn, and repeat. Give it a good eight minutes. It'll turn from lumpy and tacky into smooth and springy, like an earlobe. Poke it and the dent should ease back slowly. That spring is the gluten waking up.

5. 5

   Set the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turn it once so it's coated, cover with a clean towel, and leave it somewhere warm and out of a draft. Give it about an hour — you want it doubled in size. Press two fingers in gently; if the holes stay put and don't spring back, it's ready.

6. 6

   Roll the dough out about half an inch thick on a floured counter. Cut rounds with a glass, then cut a small hole in the middle of each with a bottle cap or a little cutter. Lay them on a floured tray with room between them, cover, and let them rise again until puffy and pillowy, around 45 minutes. Handle them gentle now — they hold air like a cloud.

7. 7

   Pour the 4 cups vegetable oil into a deep, heavy pot — no more than half full — and heat it slow over medium. You're after 350 degrees. No thermometer? Drop in a pinch of dough; it should sizzle up and float in a couple seconds without scorching. Too smoky and it's too hot; back it off.

8. 8

   Slide in two or three donuts at a time, never crowd them, or the oil cools and they drink it up greasy. Fry about a minute a side. When the bottom is a deep honey-brown, flip once with a slotted spoon or chopsticks and do the other side. You'll see a pale band around their middle — that's the mark of a proper risen donut.

9. 9

   Lift each one out and set it on a rack or a plate lined with paper towel to drain and cool a few minutes. Glaze them warm, not screaming hot — piping hot dough just melts the glaze clean off.

10. 10

    Whisk the 2 cups powdered sugar with the 1 tsp vanilla extract and add warm water a teaspoon at a time until it ribbons off the whisk like thin honey. Too thick and it sits in a clump; too thin and it runs right off. You want it to coat the back of a spoon.

11. 11

    Dip each warm donut face-down into the glaze, give it a little twist, and lift it out. Set them back on the rack and let the glaze set for a few minutes — it'll firm into that thin, shiny shell that crackles when you bite in. Eat the first one standing over the counter, same as I always have.

Tools you’ll need

• large mixing bowl
• whisk
• wooden spoon
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• rolling pin
• round cutter or drinking glass
• small cutter or bottle cap
• clean kitchen towel
• baking tray
• deep heavy pot
• slotted spoon
• cooling rack
• paper towels

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