Old fashioned apple cider doughnuts

Homemade doughnuts are easy to make. You don’t need any special equipment, you just need a frying pan deep enough to hold an inch or an inch and a half of very hot oil and a candy thermometer. The fall is the perfect time for homemade old fashioned apple cider doughnuts.

The recipe that I have always used for doughnuts is not one that I created but rather one that I adapted. I got the original from my Betty Crocker Cookbook shortly after I got married in 1968. I have modified it a little but it is just about the most perfect old fashioned style doughnut you would ever want to make. what I mean by old fashioned is a non-raised doughnut, there is no yeast in this recipe. I used to make this recipe for my children especially in the fall, for some reason in our house Halloween and fresh homemade doughnuts seem to go hand in hand. 

I now have a whole new generation of children to delight with homemade doughnuts and they certainly enjoy being allowed to help by cutting out the doughnuts. I never allow them anywhere near the hot oil but they love to help with the cinnamon sugar after the doughnuts have cooled.

Apple Cider Doughnuts

• 3 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup apple cider ( if you don’t have cider use milk)
• Vegetable oil for frying

  Coating

• 1/4 sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Mix the flour with the baking powder and salt. In a large bowl mix the eggs, sugar, and shortening with an electric mixer. Add half the flour mixture and beat. Add the spices and the rest of flour. If it gets too thick use your hands to turn it out onto a floured board. Knead it lightly. Roll it out with your rolling pin. Don’t roll it too thin, you want chunky doughnuts.
If you have a doughnut cutter, that is perfect but if you don’t have one don’t despair. All you need is a glass and a pill bottle. The glass is the doughnut and the pill bottle the hole. Follow the same directions for the glass and pill bottle as you use for the doughnut cutter.

Dip your doughnut cutter into the flour and start cutting doughnuts. Keep dipping it into the flour every few cuts so it won’t get stuck. Let the doughnuts sit while you get some oil, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep up to 375 degrees in your pan. Use your candy thermometer to determine the correct heat. If you don’t have one you can test the oil with the doughnut holes to make sure they don’t brown too slowly or too quickly.

Carefully place the doughnuts into the fat, I like to use a long handle fork to avoid getting burned. This will also help you turn the doughnut when it has browned. Have a plate prepared with paper towels so that you can absorb the grease from the doughnuts.

Allow to cool. These are very good plain, they are even better tossed in some cinnamon sugar. Serve these with a glass of apple cider on a cool fall day and impress your family and friends.

I save the oil in a jar to reuse, once you try these you will want to make them again soon.

Homemade pizza dough

I grew up on homemade pizza, my mother was an expert. I am not quite sure where she learned how to make it probably from one of her Italian friends but I do know that she and my Uncle Jerome had a competition of sorts about who made the best homemade pizza. lol In my opinion, who cares, both of them were great. 

Making homemade pizza dough is so easy, you are going to be asking yourself why you haven’t tried this before. This is a very easy dough recipe that requires absolutely no skill to make. The proof is that I can do it at a moment’s notice.

• 5 cups of white flour, it does not need to be sifted
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 2 cups warm water
• 2 packs of dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted Crisco

Measure the flour and the salt and add them to a large mixing bowl. Put this to the side.
In a two cup measuring cup add the warm water, it should feel warm, not hot when you test it on your wrist. Measure the sugar and add to the water. The yeast goes in last and just stir lightly. When it has dissolved completely add slowly to the flour mixture and blend, I use a large wooden spoon. The oil goes in last and this is a good time to get your hands into the mix.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and start to knead. You will want to work this dough with your hands until it has developed elasticity. There is an art to kneading, press down on the dough with the palm of your then pull the dough over the indentation you made with your palm. Keep rotating the dough until it is well mixed. This will take between five and ten minutes. Think of it as culinary therapy. I love kneading dough; it allows me to work out a lot of frustration. Add more flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the board.

If it is a cool day, set your oven to 250 degrees long enough to get warm then shut it off. You want your dough to have a nice warm spot in which to rise. Pour a little olive oil into the bowl and coat the bowl well. Put the dough back into the bowl and rub the top of the dough with a little additional olive oil. Cover the dough with a clean dishtowel. It should be kept out of drafts. which is why I like a just slightly warm over.

Let it rise for an hour or two, then check on it. When it has doubled in size punch it back down and let it rise again.

When it has risen a second time it is ready to start making your pizza.

Split the dough in half, put one piece aside, take the other piece and roll it out on a floured surface. I use my wooden cutting board but any clean, floured surface will do. Your crust should be about an inch and a half bigger then you pan on all sides. If you are using a pizza pan, lightly cover it with olive oil. If you use a pizza stone, this step isn’t necessary. Roll the edge of the crust back to make a higher edge, this gives the crust it nice high rim.

I make a very simple sauce for my pizza:

• One large can of tomato puree
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1-teaspoon garlic powder
• A splash of olive oil

Spread a thin coat over the pizza with a large spoon. Add thinly sliced onion and green peppers, arrange ground beef or Italian sausage on top and cover with handfuls of mozzarella and cheddar cheese grated and mixed. I worked at a pizza parlor as a teen and this is the cheese combination they used. Add a little olive oil over the top and you are ready for the oven.

Repeat with the second piece of dough.

Bake your pizza in a 400-degree oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes or until your crust is golden brown.

This recipe makes two good size pizzas.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees

This same dough can be used to make schiacciata. When my children were young this was one of their favorite meals.

• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage
• 1 can sliced potatoes
• 1 can stewed Italian style tomatoes
• 1 cup fresh grated mozzarella cheese

Squeeze the sausage out of the casing and into a lightly greased frying pan and saute until brown. Open the cans of potatoes and tomatoes. Drain both of them, really squeeze as much water out of the tomatoes as possible. Drain the sausage and mix it with the potatoes and tomatoes.

Roll out half of the pizza dough. Place on a greased pizza stone or pan. Spoon the mixture onto half of the dough cover with the cheese. Flip the other half over the mixture and seal the edge.

Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

Take it out of the oven, cut into slices and serve it to your adoring family. They will be hard pressed to believe that you made this all by yourself from scratch. Only you will know how very easy it was.

Creating a sourdough starter

A good sourdough starter is a thing of beauty, and creating a sourdough starter has almost reached mythical proportions. There was a time when it was a popular thing to have one whose name was Herman growing in your kitchen. Herman was the base for a variety of delicious cakes and bread.

The idea was that Herman grew and then you shared Herman with your friends. At one point in the 70s there were no more friends to share Herman with and he died out, at least in this writer’s neighborhood. It seems that Herman is still alive and well and helping cooks create delicious baked goods.

To welcome Herman to your home you have two choices, you can receive Herman from a friend or even order him on the Internet or you can create your own Herman. To make your own Herman you don’t need very much. Herman has a simple base of 1 cup of flour, one cup of milk and ½ cup sugar. The milk needs to be warmed to at least 110 degrees and then combined with the other two ingredients. Choose a bowl that you are not going to miss and make sure it is a lot bigger than the original ingredients.

Once the ingredients are all combined mix them together until the mixture is smooth. Place a clean dish towel over the bowl and set it in a warm location, at least 70 degrees is up to 80 is ideal. It is now a game of watch the mixture ferment. Don’t leave the mixture alone, it will enjoy your company, stir it often. What is happening is that yeast will begin to develop and this is where the fun starts. It is also possible to start Herman with yeast which gets the process going faster.

It can take two to three days for the process to get to the point where you need to start feeding Herman. On day four give Herman a cup each of flour, milk, and sugar. Stir for the next four days and then on day 10, feed Herman again. It is now time to start to bake with Herman and at this point, you may also want to start giving away some of the sourdough starter to some of your friends.There are many things that you can bake with sourdough starter, bread, cake, muffins, and bars.

A favorite recipe is called the Friendship Cake and the recipe is usually given with Herman when he is shared with friends. If you end up with more starter than you can easily use, you can freeze the starter and it will become dormant. The 10-day process for Herman continues for as long as he is alive and well on your counter so he will grow at quite an alarming rate. It is a good idea to really enjoy baking or to have a very large circle of friends when you decide to have your own sourdough starter.

Additional reading:

Friendship cake recipe

Oven roasted beef brisket

Brisket is one of the toughest and most flavorful cuts of beef. It lends itself well to corning, which we all know, and goes great with cabbage. In order to make an oven cooked beef brisket, it should be cooked slowly to allow the connective tissues in the meat to break down. 

This cut should have plenty of fat to baste the roast as it is cooking so choose your piece of meat accordingly.

4 pounds of brisket
1/4 cup olive oil
1 onion sliced thin
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 cups beef stock
2 cloves of garlic whole
5 red potatoes cut into 4 pieces
4 large carrots cut into 4 pieces each
2 small purple turnips cut into chunks
2 parsnips cut into chunks
1 sweet potato cut into pieces

Place the roasting pan on the stove burner at medium heat. Add the olive oil and meat and brown the brisket on both sides. Browning adds a lot of flavor to the meat and makes it a more attractive color as well. Add the next five ingredients into the pan and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Place in a 325-degree oven for 2 hours.

Raise the temperature of the oven to 400 degrees, place the vegetables in the pan and replace the aluminum foil back on tight. Cook for an additional half hour and then remove the foil. Cook for an additional 30 minutes. This is important to give some color to the vegetables. Remove the pan from the oven and let the meat rest for five to ten minutes.

Take the brisket out and slice at an angle. 

Put the meat on a large platter and arrange the vegetables around the meat. Pour any juice that is left over top and serve. You can deglaze the pan with red wine if you enjoy that in your sauce. If you want your sauce to be a gravy you have two options. First, you can flour the brisket before you brown it or you can add flour to the sauce to thicken it. Either works, it is simply a matter of personal taste.

With long slow cooking, the beef brisket should be literally falling apart. This is a meal that is perfect for a fall or winter dinner with it long-cooked flavor and all the nutrients supplied by the vegetables. It is as comforting as it is delicious. It is also economical and can feed a large family.