These old-fashioned molasses doughnuts aren’t uniform in shape or shade, but they disappeared fast when our test cook took them to the newsroom.
Roger DuPuis | Times Leader
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The way she rolls out the dough, our test cook admits, is the way a preschooler might play with Play-doh.
Roger DuPuis | Times Leader
Mary Therese Biebel
Times Leader Test Kitchen
Roger DuPuis | Times Leader
Times Leader reporter Kevin Carroll enjoys his third molasses doughnut after Mary Therese Biebel brought some in for the taste testers earlier this week. ‘It makes me feel very warm and cozy inside,’ Carroll said. ‘It melts in your mouth, almost.’
Our test cook is intent upon removing the doughnuts from the hot oil before they burn.
Roger DuPuis | Times Leader
I can’t claim to be an expert at deep frying, but when I made some old-fashioned molasses doughnuts in the Times Leader Test Kitchen this week, I had a bunch of happy taste testers on my hands.
One of them, page designer Toni Pennello, was starting to tell me how she “loved the spices, and the way the doughnut was so soft inside, maybe from the molasses” when she interrupted herself to gesture across the newsroom.
“Oh, look, Kevin’s in heaven!”
Indeed, reporter Kevin Carroll appeared sublimely content as he ate his third — or was it fourth? — doughnut.
“I love it; it’s so warm,” he said of the fresh-from-the-kitchen creation. “It makes me feel very warm and cozy inside. It melts in your mouth, almost.”
“It reminded me of holiday baking with my mom,” reporter Ryan Evans said after his first of several doughnuts. “I almost felt innocent again.”
“They’re so good,” Toni said. “So fresh.”
“It reminds me of carnival food, like a funnel cake or a beignet,” page designer Lyndsay Bartos said, invoking images of the Bloomsburg Fair.
“I would’ve liked a little more powdered sugar on the outside,” she told me, adding that the blend of spices — ginger, ground cloves and allspice — made her think of autumn.
But for some traditional cooks, especially in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, doughnuts aren’t necessarily a fall snack.
They can be a heading-toward-spring treat that you make in time for Fat Tuesday (March 1, this year), in order to use up your sugar and fat before Lent starts.
In Lancaster County, bakeries as well as home cooks often make fastnachts which, based on my internet reading, usually contain mashed potatoes and yeast.
The doughnuts I made don’t have those particular ingredients, so I won’t call them fastnachts. But I’m pleased that many taste testers called them good.
“Oh, so good,” obituary clerk Ashley Bringmann said. “Super moist.”
“I like it that they’re not too sweet,” intern Jordan Daniel added.
“They get better and better,” Kevin said when he was on his third doughnut.
“Better and better with each bite,” said Ryan, also when he was on his third doughnut.
“I knew from the start they were going to be good, and they were,” said news editor Roger DuPuis, who visited the test kitchen to record the shaping of the dough and the frying of the doughnuts for a video, which you should be able to see at timesleader.com/.
Roger was shooting away as I went about rolling and shaping the dough— that’s where not much has changed since I was a preschooler with Play-doh.
He also shot some of the actual frying, where my inexpert timing resulted in some doughnuts coming out darker than others.
“What’s the difference between the dark ones and the light ones?” columnist Bill O’Boyle asked when I brought a bowlful of doughnuts to the newsroom.
“I might have fried the dark ones too long,” I told him.
“The light ones are better,” he said later, adding: “I’m not getting a real strong sense of molasses, but they’re very good.”
“Perfect for a rainy day,” Roger said.
“If you want to just leave the bowl here,” Ryan said. “I’ll eat them all.”
Without further ado, here is the recipe, which I found at CDKitchen.com/. The recipe is supposed to yield 12 doughnuts; I tripled it and ended up with a little more than 36.
Molasses Donuts
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine
1 3/4 cup flour
1 dash salt
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sour milk
oil or melted shortening, heated to 360 degrees F
Oil needs to be approximately 4 inches deep. Use fryer or cast iron Dutch oven.
Mix egg, sugar and butter. Add molasses and stir. Add flour and spices. Stir baking soda into sour milk and add to dough. Mix in gently and refrigerate for at least two hours.
Turn chilled dough out on floured surface and roll out to 1/2 inch thickness.
Cut out with donut cutter (or just shape it with your hands if you want to be like the Times Leader Test Cook) and fry, turning once (Do about four at a time). Drain on paper toweling. Roll in cinnamon sugar if you like.
