How To Make Homemade Doughnuts
How about if I told you that you could make these Homemade Doughnuts real quick, serving them warm and golden to your family, with no knowledge whatsoever of yeast or dough, no special equipment other than what you likely have on hand, and have them done start to finish in under ten minutes, including prep time?
Here’s How To Make Donuts at Home… You’re Welcome 🙂
We Southerners (and humans in general), love our doughnuts.
The most important thing about this doughnut making recipe though is that you begin with CANNED BISCUITS. No, they do NOT taste anything like a biscuit when you are done. They taste every bit as melt in your mouth good as they look!
Recipe Ingredients:
- Vegetable oil
- Canned biscuits for the doughnuts
- Butter
- Cinnamon
- And sugar for the coating.
TIP: For the biscuits, any style at all will do, just don’t get the flaky layers because they will absorb the oil whereas normal biscuits won’t if we get our oil hot enough before frying them.
- In a bowl, stir together cinnamon and sugar and set that aside.
- Melt a stick of butter in another bowl and set aside as well. Now they will both be handy as soon as the doughnuts are done.
Making the doughnut hole
Now you can go buy a doughnut cutter or some other fancy finagled device (which I actually have tucked away in the dark recesses of my kitchen drawers) but I like to show y’all how to do things the simple way. I’m a big fan of not over complicating a simple matter. For that very reason, we are going to just use a plain old 20 oz bottle cap to cut the centers of our doughnuts out.
- Cut out the holes in every doughnut, reserving them to cook along with the doughnuts.
- Voila, our doughnuts are done.
Pour your oil in a skillet. You need a little less than a half inch.
Heat your oil on medium to medium high for several minutes. We want it to be hot so that our doughnuts are instantly seared when they enter it. This prevents them from absorbing too much of the oil and being soggy. However, we don’t want it too hot so that the outside gets done before the inside.
TIP: To test my oil, I put a doughnut hole in it. It should sizzle and bubble around the edges and then you know its hot enough. You may need to turn your heat down a bit after testing it with some doughnut holes to see if it is just right. Once the doughnut hole is golden, remove it and let it cool a minute before taking a bite to make sure it’s fully cooked, not gooey, in the center.
Time to cook the doughnuts!
TIP: If your skillet isn’t big enough you may have to do them in batches. By the time you have put them all in, some may already be ready to turn. It takes less than a minute for them to be ready to turn over.
This is how they look, nice and golden.
- Turn them all over and let them cook until the undersides are this way. All in all, this should take less than two minutes.
- Remove cooked doughnuts from oil and place on paper towel lined plate or a drying rack if you’re feeling fancy.
- Now do the same thing with the doughnut holes.
- Here are our cooked doughnuts, now let’s add a little bit of heaven to them!
- The doughnuts should have cooled just enough so that you can handle them but they will still be very warm.
- Pick each one up and dip both sides in melted butter…
- Then press them down into the cinnamon sugar on both sides.
- Repeat with all doughnuts and doughnut holes.
- Eat them warm. They will positively melt in your mouth, they are so good!
No one will believe you started out with canned biscuits so lets just keep that little tidbit to ourselves 😉
Doughnuts in minutes! What a fun breakfast or evening treat when family is visiting!
Ingredients
- 1 large can Grands style biscuits or your preference, just not flaky layers
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 stick butter melted
- Vegetable Oil For Frying
Instructions
- Pour oil into skillet to the depth of a little less than 1/2 an inch and heat on medium to medium high for about five minutes. In a bowl, melt butter. In a separate bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar.
- Using a plastic bottle cap, cut the center out of each biscuit. Drop dough into hot oil, watching carefully and turning when golden. Once doughnuts are golden on both sides, remove to paper towel lined plate. Repeat until all dough is cooked, including doughnut holes.
- Dip both sides of each doughnut into melted butter, then press both sides into cinnamon sugar mixture. Serve warm.
Nutrition
You may also like these recipes:
Quick and Easy Jelly Filled Doughnuts
Biscuit Pretzels – AMAZING Pretzels From Canned Biscuits!
I made these with friends the other day and they were delicious. One problem though— our oil was apparently way too hot because they were completely RAW inside. We threw em back into the oil (even the ones that we had already cinnamon sugared) and fully cooked they were awesome!
Cooler oil and thinner donuts?
Sounds like you definitely needed cooler oil.
These donuts are what I remember most from my childhood! My mom and I would make these every Sunday after Church! Best.memory.ever.
I love to make these in the winter in the morning. Nothing tastes better than fresh hot donuts in the morning on a cold day. I’ve used everything from powdered sugar, cinnamon/sugar, to left over cream cheese frosting. Haven’t tried the dipping in sweetened condense milk though…Will definitely have to try it!
I am so glad to hear that you like them Chia!!! Let me know what you think about the ones dunked in sweeten condensed milk.
I have been making these once a month for several years for the residents at a nursing home where I am the activity director. They are a huge hit! I don’t use the butter though. I use the GV Grands biscuits. When they come out of the oil, I either put them directly in the cinnamon sugar mixture or let them drain on a cooling rack for a minute and then dip them in a powdered sugar/Milk glaze. Soo sooo good and the residents are always asking for more! Oh and I use a shot glass to make the hole.
I just wanted to thank you for sharing this recipe! My dd is allergic to eggs (in addition to peanuts, tree nuts, & shellfish) and I have been searching for a way to make doughnuts that are safe for her. She is going to be in for a big surprise tomorrow morning!
These rival Krispy Kremes! I use an old prescription pill bottle, just like my momma did, to make a perfect hole and donut holes… Good Times!
I am so glad you liked them Julie!!!!
OH MY GOODNESS!! My teacher in junior high used to make these donuts, and I haven’t eaten them since then. I got a random craving for these donuts tonight, so the first thing I did was Google the ingredients. Your blog was the first thing that popped up & your donuts were so beautiful, I knew I HAD to follow the way you made them. Let me say, THESE….WERE……AMAAAAAZING!!! I was a bit nervous at first (because I do NOT like to cook) but your directions were so clear and simple! I followed directions carefully, and mine came out exactly as yours did. I was so excited, and although I’m living with 9 other people right now.. it was hard for me to share! SOOOO yummy!! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!! Oh yeah, the soda cap for the holes was BRILLIANT!! 😉 Bless you.