Dunk your own doughnuts

A change of owners at my favorite local doughnut shop has left me with a heavy heart and a lighter stomach.

The owner/baker who'd mastered the technique of making superior doughnuts - especially the raised, glazed variety - sold out to a hard-working successor who frankly lacks the touch - or at least the right recipe.

The doughnuts are still visually appealing, but I detected a difference even before my taste buds confirmed the fact. The honey-dipped beauties looked too uniformly "inflated." The best doughnuts, I'm convinced, should be a tad uneven and the glaze thick enough to provide more than a sheen.

So now I struggle to find a place that makes a doughnut that not only looks delicious, but is.

I've become pretty discerning over the years. Certainly I've raised my standards since college, when I'd down half a dozen store-bought doughnuts during evening study breaks.

But now while I await Krispy Kreme's arrival and possible impact on Dunkin' Donuts' local domination, memories of a long-ago afternoon spent making doughnuts in my grandmother's kitchen come to mind.

That was not only a fun and delicious experience, it showed me that doughnuts can be made at home. This possibility seems completely alien to most people, partly, I suspect, because commercially made doughnuts are so easy to find and partly because frying is a seldom-used and not altogether popular cooking technique.

The doughnut's history is a little mushy. Some trace its roots to Holland and Germany, where bakers made fry cakes of bread-dough scraps. The Dutch twisted the scraps into decorative knots and rolled them in sugar.

The Puritans, who loved these treats, took them to the New World, where they found native Americans already making a similar fried-bread goody.

Some believe the hole evolved from the Germanic tradition of placing holes in cookies and cakes. Others believe an American sea captain who disliked uncooked centers came up with the idea in 1847, perhaps spiking his doughnuts on the ship's wheel.

But whatever their origin, doughnuts are essentially fried dough, and have appeared in various forms around the world - be it as a fritter in the South, a beignet (French doughnut) in New Orleans, or a malasada in Hawaii.

Be that as it may, amateurs today don't have to leave the doughnut-making to the pros. Homemade doughnuts are doable. Making them may require patience and persistence, but watching raw dough transformed into golden, bobbing treats is visually alluring. And they are a pleasure to eat, especially when still warm.

Day-old doughnuts can be revived with a three- or four-second zap in the microwave. But the best strategy is similar to the one you'd use with pancakes: Simply make sure you have plenty of mouths present to eat them as they are cooked.

This recipe is for cake doughnuts, which are easier and faster to make than yeast doughnuts. Before getting started, make sure you have a good thermometer. Maintaining a temperature of 350 to 375 degrees F. is critical.

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, whole or low-fat, at room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup vegetable shortening, melted

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