Chocolate Doughnut Holes

With just one week left until our summer ends and we must return to work, Lindsey and I decided to have a Friday play day. The plan: garage saling, Value Village and chocolate doughnut holes!

We did some excellent garage saling, picking up bargains all around Tigard. Then we headed to my house to prepare our doughnuts. First, Lindsey whipped up this wonderful lunch - healthy to offset the pastries ;)
Doughnut time!!! I had found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen and knew Lindsey would be up for trying it with me. Today was the day.
2 3/4 c flour
1 c cocoa powder
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
1/3 c sour cream or buttermilk (we used buttermilk)
3 T butter, melted and cooled a bit
fat frying (we used canola oil)

Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, sour cream or buttermilk and butter. Stir wet ingredients into dry until well blended. Chill batter until cold, at least 1 hour.

Flour your counter generously (this dough is fairly sticky) and scrape dough onto it. Pat the dough out until it is about 1/2-inch thick. Use a round cutter to cut rounds from dough. Pat scraps of dough together and cut them again. We used the removable center from a biscuit/doughnut cutter - about the size of a quarter.

Put oil in large pot and heat to 375. We ended up cooking them for 45 seconds total - "flipping" once during that time. The recipe called for a much longer time, but I think our holes were smaller than hers. Because they are chocolate, it was hard to tell when they were done. But overcooking was not good. Keep oil at 375 during the process.

Drain doughnut holes on a stack of paper towels. Once cool, roll in glaze and let drain and dry on cooling racks.

Glaze:
1 c powdered sugar
3 T water, milk or buttermilk (we used buttermilk)
1/8 t vanilla extract

Whisk together until smooth. (We actually used 3 times this much glaze!)

~~~~~~~
These were much easier than I expected. When we figured out how long to cook these little beauties, they were very good. So good that we each ate WAY more than we should have. That's very easy to do when they are tiny and bite-sized.

After our kitchen adventure, we bagged up the holes and delivered doughnuts to friends and family around town. FUN! Then we hit Value Village (we called it "VV" in junior high) and found even more great stuff. Lindsey is my bargain-hunting lucky charm.

:)