There are many intimidating elements to frying donuts. Maybe you're worried about getting the oil temperature right so you get crispy, golden mushrooms instead of pale, greasy, and dense ones. (Psst… a good thermometer helps.) Or maybe you don't want to deal with what comes AFTER: oil used for frying. (We have a solution for that! See our post: How to reuse and eventually dispose of your frying oil.)
However, the step that always stresses me out comes before all of this. It's time to transfer my soft and delicate raw donut dough to the pot of hot oil. I don't want to get too close as I try to gently stretch them for fear of dipping a digit in the oil. Nor do I want to drop them from a great height and risk severely deflating the dough or sending a splatter of hot grease.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
But thankfully, there's a baker's trick for this step: For cut doughnuts, simply place the dough in small squares of parchment paper. For tube donuts such as these donuts, pipe dough directly onto the paper squares. When it's time to fry, lower the donuts, still in the parchment, directly into the frying oil. (A slotted metal spoon or spider comes in handy here.) As the donuts fry, the paper will naturally separate and float away, at which point you can fish it out with tongs.
This tip first came to my attention via Claire Saffitz, who demonstrated it in a YouTube video featuring her Sour cream donuts. As she describes in her video, “Parchment is like your vehicle. You can lift the whole square up and place the donuts in the oil without any problems. It's very clean – no oil splashes.” This is especially helpful for her sour cream donuts, because the loose, dough-like dough rolls into circles and is also sticky, making it difficult to lift and lower without help.
But this tip is useful for all types of donuts, including yeast-raised ones. Recently, it has been put into use in our new Sufganiyot recipe with olive oil. Recipe developer Sarah Jampel calls it “a magical carpet ride for your baked dough.” She explains: “For sufganiyot, the dough has quite a high hydration, so it tends towards the sticky side, and grown-up donuts are so puffy that you run the risk of deflating them if you handle them too much. The parchment paper allows you to easily transfer the donuts without deflating them, which means a more airy donut.”
Nervous at the thought of dropping paper into hot oil? Because parchment paper can usually withstand temperatures up to 450°F and most fried foods are cooked in oil ranging from 350°F to 375°F, it's completely safe—no burnt paper and tan.
So grab some parchment paper and try this tip the next time you fry, no matter what you're doing Sufganiyot olive oil, Sour cream donuts, Classic French Crullers, or more. And if you need more tips on overcoming your fear of frying, see baker Vallery Lomas' top five tips for frying.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Liz Neily.
