Time to make doughnuts. It will be Fasnacht Day next week. Here’s what I wrote back in 2022:
When I was a child growing up in Pennsylvania, Fasnacht Day (the day before Ash Wednesday) was always a day when we ate doughnuts. Fasnacht Day was supposed to be a day to eat indulgent foods before the beginning of Lent – and doughnuts with their sugar and fat were considered the ultimate in indulgent foods. It is also known as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday.
Sometimes it’s tricky to make good doughnuts. Here are a few tips in a hundred-year-old cookbook for frying crullers, doughnuts, and fritters:
CRULLERS, DOUGHNUTS, AND FRITTERS
Facts to Remember
The products of deep fat frying have a reputation for indigestibility which is deserved only when there is something wrong with the procedure. One difficulty is that under certain conditions food absorb more fat in frying than can be easily taken care of by the digestion, and another, that at a certain temperature, differing with each kind of fat, a change takes place which develops an indigestible product called acreolin. This is recognizable by its acrid odor. Fat should never if used after it has reach this point.
The temperature of the fat is of upmost importance in frying. If it is not hot enough the food absorbs fat; if too hot the outside browns before the inner part is thoroughly cooked. A thermometer is essential for the inexperienced cook in controlling the temperature, and it is advisable in any case.
Next to the frying temperature, experience in handling the dough is the most important part of doughnut making.
Dough which has been chilled can be more easily handled and absorbs less fat than the same dough at room temperature. In putting doughnuts into the fat, have the part which has been next to the moulding board uppermost.
Only a few doughnuts or fritters should be fried at one time, because the cold dough cools the fat rapidly.
Fried foods should be drained on absorbent paper.
There is no marked difference in the amount of absorption power for the various fats and oils in common use.
Modern Priscilla Cook Book: One Thousand Home Tested Recipes (1924)
I had to look up crullers – I’d never heard of them. With us, Shrove Tuesday fare is pancakes, the thin sort, not your billowy ones. Traditionally with lemon and sugar, but these days, anything goes. Not with me. It’s lemon and sugar or nothing.
I don’t think that I’ve ever had pancakes with lemon and sugar, but it sounds lovely. I may need to give it a try.
I thought that was the original classic recipe? What’s your favoured flavour?
I think that the classic toppings in the U.S. would be maple syrup or some kind of jelly or jam.
Maple syrup sounds good!
Yum yum
Doughnuts are tasty!!
All good advice Sheryl!
Some things don’t change much across the years.
Now I want a donut! 😂
🙂
Oh no, just what I need, having a stressful week and trying to stick to a diet, lol! And DOUGHNUTS!! Now I may have to get some to kill the craving. Just the thought of ooey gooey goodness and well…I do believe I drooled on the keyboard a bit there.
🙂 – oh dear, I hope that I didn’t mess up your diet.
Lol, no, I had ice cream instead, worse yet! Oh well, it was good too.
Like you, ice cream is one of my downfalls. 🙂
Very interesting Sheryl!
I have wonderful memories of the doughnuts your church made. If you haven’t looked at the related post I did several years ago, be sure to take a look at it.
It all sounds reasonable.
I’m often surprised by how relavant and helpful the tips are in old cookbooks.