Whole Wheat Doughnuts...yum!

Well, one thing our family knows for sure as of today is that we will not be having a November baby. The girls were counting down the hours yesterday and hoping that I would go into labor. Didn't happen.

A few days ago my friend, Andrea (your can visit her over a dreawood.com...she also posted her recipe a few days ago), brought over our family some delicious whole wheat doughnuts. I have always thought of doing them, but never took the time to actually give it a try. She told me how it went for her. It seemed easy enough. A couple of days after that it was time for me to bake some bread, so I just split the dough in half ( I make enough for 4 -2lb. loaves) and used one half for 2 loaves of bread and the other half for our doughnuts. I rolled  it out to about an half of an inch thick and cut them using a cup. I cut the center out using a bottle lid.  As I waited on them to rise, I began to heat up the oil to 365 degrees. Once the oil was ready I placed about 3-4 doughnuts in the pot at one time. I cooked them for approx. 30 seconds on each side. We then dipped them into a chocolate glaze made with organic raw cacao and sucanat, a sucanat with honey glaze, and powdered sucanat with honey. This gave our children 3 different choices and for a few moments I felt like I was running a Krispy Kreme!

They were fantastic. We had enough for a snack before bed and Morgan actually said she liked them better cold :). I am sure this is not the healthiest snack out there, but I felt pretty good about using freshly ground whole wheat and using a much more natural and less refined sweetener for the topping. I also was thankful that our kids (who never get doughnuts...Joshua didn't even know what a doughnut was until his Wed. night class at church last year introduced him to them....he is almost 6 years old :) ) got to indulge a little on a forbidden food that I felt okay with nutritionally.

We had fun with them and we will definitely be doing them again.

Whole Wheat Doughnuts

1 1/2 cups of hot water

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup raw honey

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoon Real salt

3-4 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour

1/2 cup freshly ground flax seed

1 tablespoon yeast

2 teaspoons of rice bran (optional)

Mix first 5 ingredients well. Add a couple of cups of flour and then all the flax seed along with yeast and rice bran. Begin to mix and knead. Continue to add flour until the dough is workable. Knead for 5-10 minutes.  Put into lightly greased bowl. Cover. Let rise until double in size. Punch down and lay onto floured surface.  Roll into large rectangle about a half of an inch thick. Begin to cut out doughnuts and let rise again (make sure dough is not sticking to surface or you will have a time getting them off).

Bring a quart or so of peanut oil to 365 degrees. Once the oil reaches 365, begin to carefully place doughnuts into oil and flip after about 30 seconds. Cook on opposite side about 30 seconds and then take them out of oil and place them onto a dish or cooling rack covered with paper towels. Once they can be touched, begin to dip them into desired glaze or sprinkle them with powdered sucanat with honey.

Chocolate glaze

1 teaspoon butter or extra virgin coconut oil melted

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup or so of powdered sucanat

Tablespoon or so of sifted raw cacao

1 teaspoon at a time of cream or milk

Whisk all ingredients together and slowly add the milk, adding more to create the consistency you like best. We kept ours pretty thick.

Sucanat with honey glaze

1 teaspoon of butter or extra virgin coconut oil melted

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup or so of powdered sucanat with honey

1 teaspoon at a time of cream or milk

Whisk all of the ingredients together and slowly add milk. You will want this to remain pretty thick, but add more milk to make the consistency that you like the best.

Powdered sucanat with honey

1/2 cup or less or more of sucanat with honey powdered

I used my little coffee grinder to powder the sucanat with honey and then sprinkle liberally onto the entire doughnut. Soooo much better than those little white things from Sunbeam! Most of the kids actually liked this way the best. Over chocolate....I couldn't believe it!

Thankful for...... doughnuts for lunch :),

Nichole

BTW, sucanat and sucanat with honey can be purchased over at the Bread Becker's website: http://www.breadbeckers.com