Cardamom-Sugar Doughnuts

Mmm donuts. Homemade fried donuts are the best. It's been years and years since I've made donuts. And I'm not sure why. I've made a few different kinds of donuts now- The Simpsons inspired donuts, baked chocolate donuts, and beignets. They were so good you won't catch me eating commercial donuts. Dunkin donuts, store donuts, Krispy Kreme are all nasty.

These donuts were inspired by an Afghan recipe for Khajoor. I don't have  much luck with their baked recipes on the site I've grabbed most of mine from....so I decided to make a completely different recipe. The recipe on the site seemed to have way too much sugar. So I went to the King Arthur Flour website, found a recipe, and decided to make their donuts and coat them in a sugar- cardamom mixture. Cardamom is the flavor for desserts in Afghanistan. And I really like it. It's one of my favorites too. 

Anyways, I made the dough. It comes together easily. I actually halved the recipe. I didn't want the temptation of dozens upon dozens of donuts hanging around. And I was right. Because this is THE donut recipe.

The only difficult thing about it was that the dough is super sticky. It's definitely easier to kneed less sticky dough- by hand at least. And I've learned the best way to measure out ingredients is by scale.That's usually how you can guarantee you are not using too much flour. 

When I first started frying them I was a little scared. They turn brown almost immediately, but they aren't burning. I think that's just the nature of home made donuts though. 

I wasn't sure what to expect. But almost as soon as they were out of the oil I dunked them in the sugar mixture and ate one. And they were light, airy, and fluffy. Perfect. 

I'm keeping this recipe forever and ever. You can use it to make almost any donut you could want. I want to make Boston Creams one of these days. Those are my favorite donuts. But not sure I'm ready for all the work that is making the cream filling and chocolate glaze.

Anyway these came out great. The cardamom flavor was light. I did freeze some of the dough...because it was still more than I wanted to fry in a single go. I think I will coat the next batch in cinnamon sugar though.  

Also forgot, this recipe makes donut holes too....or they do if you have a donut cutter. 

You can check out the recipe for yourself here.