(upbeat music) - Today is the day I've been waiting for for a very long time because my dear friend and
donut (indistinct) is about to make me a big batch of
homemade yeasted donuts. - You know it. Now, you know we have traveled for how many years together, and I'm always searching out good donuts. And I've made so many donuts
over the years commercially and also at home. And they always lead to disappointment. Yeasted donuts sometimes
are just so heavy and bready and we want really light
ethereal pillowy donuts. - Oh, okay. - Yeah.
- So it's a texture thing. - It is a texture thing. We want them to be tender and delicious enough that we
keep piling them in our mouth. - Gotcha. - All right. So the first thing that a lot of recipes go wrong is they
start with a bread dough. Bread dough makes bready donuts. - Hello?
- Yeah. And then one of the problems
is they use bread flour. We're starting off with all purpose flour. So it's a little bit softer,
a little bit less protein. So this is four and a half
cups of all purpose flour. That's 22 and a half ounces. And we're going to add some sugar. I've got a half a cup of granulated sugar. Sugar is going to help with the tenderness and the softness of the donut. And I've got a teaspoon of instant yeast. All right. Just give this a quick mix by hand just to break up the flour there, incorporate everything. And now a little liquid. Now, this is one and a half cups of milk and just one egg. This is a large egg. So I'm going to give
this a mix just by hand, giving it a little head
start here for the mixer. All right. Got the dough hook on. Lock it in place. Gonna mix this on medium low, really until it just becomes
a kind of homogenous mass. That's gonna take only two
minutes at medium low speed. (mixer whirring) All right. Cohesive. - Mm-hmm. - So we're gonna leave this there. Thank you if you wouldn't mind handing me that bit of plastic wrap. And I just actually go ahead
and I wrap it right around, - [Julia] I do the same thing. - the beater and everything. - [Julia] Mm-hmm. - And we're gonna leave
this for about 20 minutes. We want a little bit of gluten
development to start here. Now, these are not gonna be tough donuts, so we're gonna keep that gluten
development to a minimum. - [Julia] Okay-doke. - So 20 minutes. All right, so now I want to add the salt. Salt competes with the flour
for the moisture in there. And that's why we waited to add the salt. That's one and a half
teaspoons of table salt. Now we're gonna let the
mixer run on medium low. We wanna give the salt time to incorporate so about five, maybe seven minutes. And it's going to start to
look a little elasticky. - Okay.
- That's a real word. - Starting to look like a
pretty little dough in there. All right, so that was five minutes. Let the salt incorporate. And now we're gonna add butter. This is eight tablespoons, just one stick of unsalted butter cut into these smaller pieces here. And these have slightly softened. We're gonna work this into the
dough as the mixer's running. So I'm gonna put this back on medium low. (mixer whirring) Gradually add the butter
few pieces at a time. And then we're gonna let the mixer run for another 7 to 13 minutes. (mixer whirring) Oh, what a difference! - [Julia] That is gorgeous. - [Bridget] Yeah, what a difference? - This only went seven minutes and it came together. - [Julia] Oh, it's so soft. - Yeah, check this out. It's really stretchy and elastic. Okay, that is great. And it cleared the sides of the bowl so we can get this dough out of there. All right. Bowl is greased a little
bit of vegetable oil spray. I'm gonna flip it over just
to make sure it's all greased. And then I'm going to shape it into kind of a rough ball here. Don't need to knead it on the countertop. So now a little bit of plastic wrap there. So we're gonna put this into the fridge and you wanna leave it in the fridge for at least overnight up
to 48 hours in advance. It's gonna help to firm
up this dough later on. It's gonna be so easy
to stamp out our donuts. So on the counter and
then into the fridge. The dough is well chilled. All right. - May I? - Please do. - [Julia] Huh! - [Bridget] Yeah. - It's really firm. - That's a sturdy dough. It's gonna be so much easier to roll out and stamp into donuts. All right, but it sometimes
it needs a little coaxing to get out of this bowl. So just using a bowl scraper here. Put a little bit of flour. And the great thing about this is pushing in it is a really good thing. We wanna get rid of any
big air bubbles here. - Right.
- So I'm just gonna start - to mold this into a square about an eight inch square. All right. - So now looking pretty good.
- Mm-hmm. I am going to just
lightly dust the top here. And get out my rolling pin. And I'm gonna roll this out to about 10 by 13 inch rectangle. And this is just a really forgiving dough. - [Julia] Look at that. - [Bridget] It's just, it's
not snapping back at me and I am working from the middle out. - [Julia] Mm-hmm. - And this...
- Look how smooth that is. - And you can really handle this dough. You couldn't do this with a warm dough. So I'm looking for a
10 by 13 inch rectangle and it should be about a half inch thick. All right, let's check this out. 10. All right, we got 13 this way. So it's time to start stamping. I've got a three inch biscuit cutter here. So I just wanna make sure that
I get 12 donuts out of here. And I'm gonna go ahead and cut them all. Spacing them pretty close together. That's 12 of the three inch rounds. And now I've got another
tiny little biscuit cutters. This is a one inch biscuit
cutter right in the center. Let me get the donuts
onto a rim baking sheet. We've lined it with parchment and then sprayed it with
vegetable oil spray. Beautiful, lovely. But we can't forget our
little donut whole plugs. So, all right, that looks great. Now these need to rise a
little bit by about 50%. So we are gonna put these in the oven. The oven is turned off. We're gonna use it as a proofing box. So I've got a little bit of hot water. So I'm gonna need you to
take that to the oven. You're gonna pour a cup of water into a loaf pan that I've
already placed in there. Gonna close the door. And we're gonna leave these in there again until
they've risen by about 50%. That's gonna take anywhere
from 45 minutes up to an hour. All right, so our donuts
are out of the oven. - Mm-hmm.
- I just wanna give it a knuckle test. That's where you just press
gently with your knuckle just like that. And it should slowly spring back. Okay. All right, these are proofed beautifully. So I've got two quarts of vegetable oil and this has been heating to 360 degrees. It's a good idea anytime
that you're frying, that you want to heat
the oil really gently. I'm gonna use two hands here and just softly lower them into the fat. And you see that it's just
a really lovely simmer here. - [Julia] Yeah. - [Bridget] Just wanna know
where your fingers are, of course. All right, so I'll get all four in here. So we're gonna cook these on this far side and we wanna maintain an oil temperature of between three 350 and 365. - [Julia] Okay. - All right. So it's been about a minute. I'm gonna peek under
the first one I put in. Oh, that's a nice, - [Julia] Beautiful. - [Bridget] a tan color there. And I'm just using a
skimmer to flip these over. I'm gonna show you another trick. Oh, gorgeous. - Mm. - All right. - Now when I was making
donuts commercially, they had donut sticks. These are just little chopsticks. I use them at home when I'm making donuts. They're great for flipping. So just about a minute
on that second side. All right, let's take a
look on that second side. You see that beautiful second side. - [Julia] Oh, it's gorgeous. - All right, I'm gonna flip it over so you can see how gorgeous that is. That's a good color there. Let's get these out of the oil. These are going on a
triple layer paper towels that we put over a rack, over a rimmed baking sheet. The paper towels do a
great job wicking away all of that extra grease. And now I am gonna let the
oil come back up to temp'. Again, we're looking for about 360 and we're gonna fry
the rest of the donuts. - [Julia] (indistinct) - [Bridget] What do you
think of my donut shop? - [Julia] I think I really
wanna eat these right away. - I know, but they're
gonna get even better with a beautiful glaze. Now, these will cool
for about five minutes. - They're safe to handle.
- Oh my goodness! - I know they're like
feather light already. - Oh, if I touch them,
they're mine, right? (both laughs) - I like the way you think. Now, for some of these,
we're gonna coat them with a pretty classic glaze. And I've got here three and a quarter cups of confectioner sugar. I've got a half a cup of hot water. - Okay.
- I love this little trick, the hot water just melts
that sugar right away. - [Julia] Oh, that's fun. - You don't get any of that graininess. And this is just a pinch of salt. We'll whisk this together. And you can see it's a
very, very loose glaze. - [Julia] It is. - That is absolutely by design. Gonna glaze four of these
with our plain glaze here. I'm just going to add the donut right in. And for the plain glaze, I like to get these back out. You can use your fingers
and just flip them over. But then I do this to make sure that every last little
bit is covered with glaze. - Even the midriff. - That's exactly right. - You've definitely
done this a time or two. - We're gonna leave
these on our wire rack. This is just set over rim
baking sheet to catch any sugar. - Oh my goodness! - All right. - [Julia] The smell of a
warm donut going in glaze. Wow! - [Bridget] It's almost like caramel. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - [Bridget] We just move this over there. You like this method though? - [Julia] I do. - We've got some gorgeous glazes here. We're gonna glaze four of
these with a chocolate glaze. - Mm. - And we've got a raspberry glaze here. - [Julia] Oh. - And we've got so many
other kinds of glazes and even fillings on our website so people can go check that out. But what would you like to glaze first? - I'm gonna glaze chocolate. - All right. - All right, show me how to do it. - [Bridget] Pick 'em up, dip 'em halfway in. - [Julia] Okay. - [Bridget] Just to the midriff. - [Julia] Oh, I see. - [Bridget] Yeah. And then let some of
that excess drip down. Look at that. - [Julia] Haha, that was fun. - Expertly done. I'm gonna show you our
beautiful raspberry glaze. Same thing. There we go. - [Julia] Oh, that is sweet. - Pretty in pink. If you would join me here. - [Julia] Mm-hmm. - [Bridget] Just a little sprinkle. I like to still be able to
see the glaze underneath. - [Julia] Oh, the sprinkles are fun. - These need to set up, that glaze needs to harden a little bit. It'll get nice and matte. And that's gonna take anywhere
between 15 to 30 minutes. - Oh wow. - And then we can eat them. - Yay. - I've been waiting for
this for a long time, years, in fact. You've been talking
about making me donuts. - [Bridget] I know. - Let's eat them.
- Okay. - [Julia] The hard choice
is choosing which one. - [Bridget] Now here's the good news, you don't have to choose one. - [Julia] I would just think of, I'm just gonna have one of each. - [Bridget] Classic glazed. - Oh my goodness. - [Bridget] Mm. - That is so fluffy inside. This is pillowy. - [Bridget] Mm. - [Julia] Let's see how this one is. - Mm. That tastes like a donut and a
tall glass of chocolate milk. - Mm-hmm. - [Bridget] Grand finale, little sprinkle. - It tastes like fresh
raspberries have been pulped down and just lightly glazed
over the top of the donut. That's incredible. - [Bridget] Yeah, this
is a real raspberry one. - Bridget, these donuts are
magnificent worth the wait. It was, thank you. - You bet. So there you have it. If you want to make the
ultimate homemade donuts, make an enriched yeast
with milk and butter and let it rise overnight in the fridge. Gently roll out the dough. Then cut out both donuts and donut holes. And fry them in hot oil
before coating with glaze. From America's Test Kitchen, a killer recipe for yeast donuts. - These are just the best
donuts I've ever had. - (indistinct) amazing. We're gonna need a bigger plate. - Thanks for watching. America's Test Kitchen. What'd you think - Well, leave a comment and let us know which recipes
you are excited to make or you can just say hello. - You can find links to
today's recipes and reviews in the video description - And don't forget to
subscribe to our channel. - See you later. - I'll see you later.
