Homemade Glazed Donuts
Homemade Glazed Donuts
If you follow me on social media, you know that last week I was neck-deep in donuts. If you were lucky you might've gotten to taste one of these donuts too! These donuts are perfectly tender, sweet, and airy on the inside.
Some people are scared away by the yeast donut and stick to a baked cake donut. I'm here to tell you that yeast is not scary, yes it's alive and can easily be killed but it's probably easier than keeping a plant alive. As long as you buy high-quality yeast, and don't overheat your water, everything will be fine!
TIP: I always try my best to get the blooming liquid at exactly 115* because that's where I've had the best success. Any hotter than 115* and you will kill your yeast and any cooler than 110* your yeast will not activate.
If you stick around to the end of the post I'll give you the rundown of my donut glazing experiment. In the experiment, I glaze and store 13 donuts- 13 different ways. For the recipe below I'll include a standard glaze which is just sweet enough, however, I found that the donuts start to absorb their glaze after about 9 hours. So if you're not going to eat all the donuts in one day (no judgment if you do), read till the end to find out my glazing and storing tips! My standard recipe is from Sally's Baking Addiction, and by the way I love her recipes!
Glazed Donuts:
Yield: 12 donuts and 12 donut holes
For the Glaze:
Glaze Method of Procedure:
- Combine all the ingredients over low heat, whisking frequently until smooth. Keep warm.
Donut Method of Procedure:
- In the bowl of your stand mixer with the dough hook attachment- add the heated milk. (Yeast tips above.) Sprinkle the yeast and 1/2 tsp (from the 50 grams) of the sugar over the milk. Give it a gentle stir and allow the yeast to activate for 5-10 minutes.
- Add in the eggs, butter, vanilla, sugar, and 1/2 of the dry ingredients. Allow it to mix until the dry ingredients are just combined then add in the second half.
- Mix on medium-low until the flour has been fully incorporated and a ball begins to form. It should be sticky but not wet. If it seems overly wet add in more flour about 1 TBSP at a time.
- Place the dough onto a floured work surface and knead 2-3 times or until a dough forms. It should be soft and just a little sticky.
- Rest the dough in a well-oiled bowl covered in plastic wrap for one hour, or until the dough has doubled in size. The ideal resting area is warm, but not hot. I typically just leave mine on the kitchen counter and let the Florida heat do the rest. But, if your house is especially cold you can heat the oven to 200* then turn it off. Place your dough in the warmed oven.
- Redistribute the air bubbles that your yeast has formed during the rising, by gently punching your dough out onto your floured work surface.
- Roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thick. You can now begin to cut out your donuts using a donut cutter. If you DO-NUT have a donut cutter you can always substitute it with two circle cookies cutters, or a cup and shot glass even. Note: Once you cut out the smaller circle it will be difficult to lift the donuts without mangling their perfect shape so you might want to transfer them onto a piece of parchment paper before cutting the smaller hole.
- Allow the donuts to do a second rest for 30 minutes, they should puff up just a little bit, but don't be startled if they look pretty much the same. This step ensures a tender donut.
- While your donuts are doing their final rest, heat your oil to 350*F and make your glaze.
- After your donuts have done the final rest, fry them for about one minute per side, or until just golden. Glaze immediately, hot glaze onto a hot donut. You can either dip the donuts in a bowl of glaze or put your donuts on a wire rack and pour the glaze over. I will warn you that the pour-over method does waste a lot more glaze and you might even want to double the glaze recipe if you choose this method.
- Allow the glaze to set for about 3 minutes, and enjoy.
Oh, you wanted a video?
The Great Glaze Experiment:
The idea for this food science experiment came the day after my first donut trial. I woke up took a big bite of my day-old donut to find a dry, sad, crumbly donut. When I observed the outside of the donut I could visually see that the donut had absorbed the glaze into the donut. Making them naked on the outside and cakey on the inside. I needed a solution to this problem in order to deliver my donuts to all of you! So I began "The Great Glaze Experiment".
13 donuts, 5 different types of glaze, and 6 different storage vessels. I'll begin with the glazes.
| Glaze Type | Recipe Adjustment |
Original Glaze (O.G.) (Baseline) | 1/3 Cup Heavy Cream 2 Cups Powdered Sugar 1 tsp Vanilla Extract |
| Simple Syrup | 1 Cup Water 1 Cup + 1/3 Cup Sugar |
| Thick Glaze | Original Glaze + 1/4 Cup Powdered Sugar |
| Thin Glaze | Original Glaze + 3 TBSP Heavy Cream |
| Xanthan Gum Glaze | 1/4 Cup Heavy Cream 2 cups Powdered Sugar 1/4 tsp Xanthan Gum |
Storage Vessels
- Pastry Box (Baseline)
- Vacuum Sealed Container
- Brown Paper Bag
- Brown Paper Bag w/ a paper towel
- Refrigerator (Brown Bag)
- Freezer (Brown Bag)
For the experiment, all of the donuts were made in one batch using the standard recipe above. The first 6 donuts all were finished with the original glaze. Then each one was stored in a different vessel. I did this to create a baseline test for the storage alone, with the glaze unaffected. That took care of 6 of the 13 donuts. The other 7 donuts had different combinations of the 6 glazes.
- Xantham glaze over a hot donut
- Simple Syrup and then the xanthan glaze over a hot donut
- Simple syrup followed by the OG over a hot donut
- Thin glaze and then the OG over a hot donut
- Thin glaze and then the thick glaze over a hot donut
- Hot OG glaze on a cold donut (there was actually 2 of this one- one was stored in a pastry box, the other vacuum sealed)
Then we waited 24 hours and taste-tested each one. How did we pick our favorite out of 13 donuts? We began by tasting each donut with the same glaze side by side. This included all the OG donuts, compared to the different storage types. Then we tested each of the different glaze combinations side by side. Each time we elected one a winner of a category the other half of the donut and its label went onto another table. In the end, we compared the "best of the best" winner donuts against each other to decide the overall winner.
All 6 OG Donuts were compared to decide the best storage vessel
The brown paper bag donuts were a little dry and as you can get from a visual- these donuts absorbed a little more glaze than the OG donut. The freezer donut pretty much didn't change visually, and that remained the same when we put it up to the taste test. This donut was the closest to the original donut. The vacuum-sealed donut was super moist because it didn't have the chance to get stale.
The Winners: Vacuum Sealed & Frozen
Xanthan Glaze vs. Simple Syrup then Xanthan Glaze
The science behind the xanthan glaze was that if I thickened it with this stabilizer it would have less of a chance of absorbing into the donut. Xanthan is not a chemical but a sugar created by natural bacteria in corn. It acts as a thickener and stabilizer- in my case, I used it for both but mostly the stabilizer in hopes that the glaze would stay in the same state. It did work in this sense although it was sacrificing flavor and texture of the glaze. It was just odd and didn't pour on as smooth. The simple syrup helped save the flavor and it was just a little moister.
The Winner: Simple Syrup then Xanthan Glaze
Thin Glaze then OG Glaze vs. Thin Glaze then Thick Glaze
The thick glad was overly sweet as it was thicker because I added a touch more sugar too it. It was also a little lumpy, similar to the xanthan gum glaze.
The Winner: Thin Glaze then OG Glaze
Hot OG Glaze on Cold Donut VS. Hot OG Glaze on Cold Donut but Vaccum Sealed
These two were both very good flavor and texture-wise. I'm definitely not a scientist however, I do believe that something about the donut being cold stopped it from absorbing the glaze, and remained, for the most part, the same visually. There wasn't much of a difference between the pastry box and vacuum sealed one. (I need to add that the vacuum-sealed one didn't absorb the glaze, it was the last one and I was almost out of the glaze. That's why it looks different.)
The Winner: None, both were super moist!
We then took all of the winners and compared them to each other to find the best of the best.
The final results?
The answer: Glaze the donut right out the fryer to ensure that it's still hot. Then add a thin layer of the simple syrup. Wait about 2 minutes or until the donut is sticky to the touch and it appears as though the donut has absorbed the syrup. Then apply a generous coating of the original glaze. Why the simple syrup? By coating the donut in simple syrup first you're giving the donut something to absorb that isn't the glaze. You're basically making mends with the donut. You can absorb the simple syrup so you don't need to absorb the glaze. It also made them a touch sweeter which I liked. Allow the glaze to set and store in a pastry box, or Tupperware container.
Won't be eating the donut within 9 hours? The freezer is the way to go! The donuts should be defrosted for about 45 minutes to one hour before enjoying. Oh, you wanted it warm? Pop it in the microwave for 5 seconds.
Thank you so much for reading this kind of lengthy post! I had a lot of fun doing this experiment, and also learning how to make donuts! What fun things did you learn to make during quarantine? I hope that your friends and family are staying safe!
From My Kitchen To Yours,
MallaryMade
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