an instagram doughnut adventure

Several years ago I decided as a goal in life, to become a doughnut connoisseur.  I wanted to "master" the doughnut and open up my own doughnut shop.  Original? No... but fresh, natural doughnuts does sound good, doesn't it?  At first I wanted to call this doughnut shop "O'Henry's" mainly because I wanted to tagline to be a reference from Gilmore Girls when Rory says "More twists than O'Henry!"  That line satisfies the English major in me and both the television geek in me. I would stick with it, except for the fact that O'Henry is a famous candy bar.... but I digress.  After a couple failed attempts at some doughnuts recipes, fried, baked and all that - I stopped making doughnuts.  The inside was either undercooked, or the outside too brown, the texture wasn't soft and airy... I could go on.  Finally on a whim, I bought Seattle's Lara Ferroni's doughnut book.  You may have remembered the sour cream doughnuts I blogged about here.  Those were okay.  These basic raised doughnuts, however, are AMAZING. Unfortunately the lighting was particularly bad when I photographed these, so, you'll have to bare with the instagram look.

BASIC RAISED DOUGHNUTS

with

VANILLA BEAN PASTRY CREAM

+ the recipe +