Semi-Homemade Donuts

Hanukkah is here and while I havn’t been celebrating the festival of lights for long I am super excited about learning all sorts of traditions about the holiday. Last year cousin Deb taught me about the traditions of having donuts on Hanukkah to help remember the oil that burned for eight nights. So this year I decided to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah by making our own donut treats. Traditionally they are filled with Jelly but I couldn’t find my pastry tip so they ended up just sugar glazed treats. Because I used readymade biscuit dough the whole process took a lot less time (about 30 minutes from start to finish) for the entire batch. I wont say that they were "easy" since frying is never easy to me (I really need to get a thermometer for this stuff) 

I found a recipe for biscuit donuts on the blog How Does She and figured it would be way easy to adapt it to make donut holes which means I could use less dough and have twice as many treats!

1-2 packages of biscuit dough (I read the flaky dough does not work as well so I used buttermilk)

3 C of powder sugar

2 C coconut oil

Set up your cooking station. Have one area for your raw dough, one bowl full of powder sugar and then a cookie sheet or baking pan for the donuts to cool in. Heat coconut oil until liquid and glistening. For those of you who have not used coconut oil before, it comes in a jar and has s similar consistency to Crisco. Once you heat it, the solid will melt and you will have the perfect frying oil. I used a small deep pot for my oil to minimize splattering and oil usage. While you are heating the oil, open the biscuits and cut them into fourths. Lightly roll them in the palm of your hand to remove some of the corners. Drop the donuts into the oil one or two at a time. Since I did not completely submerge them in oil I rolled them from side to side until they were completely crispy golden brown on the outside.

I used a slotted spoon to remove them from the oil and roll them in the powdered sugar. Once completely covered with sugar, tap the access off and then set the donuts aside allowing them to cool completely. Repeat this process with all the other dough balls and then enjoy!

*If you would like to fill your donuts you will need a pastry tip and bag. Fill the bag with your filling of choice, poke a small hole into the center of your donuts with a knife or tooth pick and then fill with pastry bag through that hole.