These are very chocolaty doughnuts, and the recipe comes from my book, Baking in America.
Questions from my Readers: Measuring Flour
I received an email from two avid bakers who had baked several yeast breads from the book with great success and then moved on to this recipe. They said that in their hands the dough became quite firm even before they had added all of the dry ingredients. Well, the baking wizard needed to get to the bottom of this. I went back to my original notes and manuscript and found no errors. So there was only one thing to do: Make the doughnuts again. The dough turned out exactly as I had described and the doughnuts were light-textured and scrumptious. I am guessing the problem my baker friends had was because they used too much flour; so I have modified the measurements by providing weights. You will hear this plea from me often: For greatest accuracy, please weigh your ingredients.
Recipe Tips
When all of the dry ingredients are stirred into the dough, you will find that the dough is quite wet and you may think it is not firm enough to work with, but it will be. Chilling the dough makes it firm and exceedingly manageable.
You will need a doughnut cutter about 3 to 3 1/2-inches in diameter with a 3/4-inch hole. Or you can cut the doughnuts with a 3 1/2-inch round cutter and a 1-inch cutter for the holes. These are cutters I use. Be sure to use fresh vegetable oil for the deep frying. Peanut oil is my first choice because it has a higher smoking point than most oils. Grapeseed and safflower oils are good, too. I don’t use canola oil because it is highly refined. You will also need a deep fry/candy thermometer or digital probe thermometer to monitor the temperature of the oil.