YAY! 200!! I can't believe it! I am so thrilled on being at this mile marker. So cool! {pats self on the back}. I didn't think it would come so soon or in such a way. What better way to reach that marker than with a challenge post. And, a sweet one to boot! LOL
Ok, a quick pause for the official lines... The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.
Before we go on with the rest of this post, I must admit that I followed none of those recipes. When I first read the challenge, Lara Ferroni's book, dedicated to these fried bites of sugar, had just come out. I seriously contemplated buying it, or atleast renting it from B&N. But, then sense prevailed and I sensibly fell back on my tried and tested blog trawling.
Sense being that while I do get doughnut cravings they are few and so far between that you could call it rare. I avoid deep fried, especially sweet, items as much as possible. I mean, I don't even have to make an effort. I think, in general, baked >> fried. Now that bit of firm belief was to be shaken here.
I picked up one of the recipes around the net, modified (well.. of course!) it and set about baking and frying my doughnuts yesterday. I had been reading a lot about these baked doughnuts and decided this was perfect opportunity to test. Plus I was running low on oil at home :D.
For the purposes of fair (??) comparison, I used the same yeasted dough for both preparations. For the fried, I used a filling of homemade apple butter. I should have piped it in after frying but I thought I would try the ravioli method. It wasn't a big success as you can see. Nevertheless, there was a lot of apple flavor. The bits on top are dried apple pieces, slowly dehydrated in a low oven.
Verdict: I have to say that the fried ones trumped the baked in a decisive rout!! The baked, to me, tasted like slightly sweetened bread with fairy dust. Not satisfying at all! Having said that, even my fried donuts were no comparison to Krispy Kremes. So, the next time, I think I'll just head over to the neighbourhood store.. :)
Before you go, a gentle reminder that voting for Project Food Blog is ongoing. If you like my posts, please do vote for me to move to the next round here.
And, if you'd like the challenge recipe, here is a link.