Easy Homemade Donuts

It's Daylight Savings Time. Seriously. WHY?? I really do not adjust well to these days. I am on a schedule and I do not like to change it. And anyway, does it really serve any purpose at all? There is an old Indian saying that may or may not have been made up by my dad: "Only a White Man would cut the end off a blanket, sew it back on to the top and believe that it was longer." Kinda makes sense, don't you think?

The Boy wanted donuts for breakfast this morning and I really didn't feel like going out and getting any. Lucky for me, Carrie posted this a few days ago. I had some extra biscuits in the fridge and that just seemed like a good omen.

I had never made donuts before, so I had zero background knowledge to fall back on, which made for some interesting issues, as you will see shortly.

Get your oil heating up. If you have a fryer, you can use that. I have a specific old frying pan that I use when I require hot oil. You need a good couple inches deep, otherwise you won't be able to turn the donuts.

While you are waiting, mix up your glaze. The Boy wanted chocolate, so I added a handful of chocolate chips to 1/4 cup melted butter and 3 tablespoons of milk.

Whisk that together and mix in a cup of powdered sugar.

Open a can of refrigerated biscuits and lay out each individual biscuit. There are several directions you could go here. You could not worry about taking any dough out of the middle. I'm not positive, however, that you would technically be making donuts anymore. According to Ty Webb (you know, Caddyshack), "A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish." Since we are wanting donuts, we are going to cut out the middle. You can use anything round, like the lid from a pop bottle. The problem I had with this is that I didn't have anything circular small enough for my biscuits. I dug around and found my mini cookie cutters. Star centers it shall be.

Now, Carrie said she put her stove on "5" and it took 20 minutes to heat up. You can check this by tossing a VERY SMALL DROP of water into the oil. If the water sizzles, the oil is ready. I set my stove to medium and when I checked it after about 10 minutes, it nearly caught my kitchen on fire. If you have a kitchen thermometer (I apparently do not), you want the oil to be heated to 375. Anything over that and you are going to end up something like this:

These four unfortunate donuts were added to the oil and by the time I got the last one in (approximately 2 seconds), this had happened. A kitchen thermometer is now on my shopping list.

Even if you donuts do not actually become charcoal, if your oil is too hot, you will get them nice and brown on the outside, but not quite cooked on the inside. I'm not sure which is worse.

Cook for a few seconds on one side until you see a very light brown start to creep around the edges of the donut. Then flip it over and cook for a few more seconds.

After a few tries, I ended up with some nicely browned samples.

Dip these in your glaze.

Aren't the stars cute??
Let the glaze dribble off. Ideally, I would have had waxed paper under the cooling rack, but I seem to have run out.
These were devoured. Definitely keeping this recipe. Someday I might try "real" donuts, but these are so easy I don't know if it would be worth the trouble.

Click here for Printable Recipe

Easy Biscuit Donuts

2 tubes Refrigerated Biscuits

3-5 Cups Oil for Frying

1/4 Cup Melted Butter

3 Tablespoons Milk

1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips

1 Cup Powdered Sugar

Heat the oil to 375.

Whisk butter, milk and chocolate chips until smooth. Add powdered sugar. Whisk until mixture is again smooth. Set aside.

Cut centers out of biscuits. Place in the hot oil. Brown on both sides. Place on a cooling rack or paper towel.

Cool slightly and dip in glaze.