This year, we transformed our usual sugar cookie decorating “station”
design into a donut decorating station—and set up a variety of simple decorations,
frostings, and donut toppers for a twist on our usual, semi-homemade,
cinnamon-sugar donuts. We also opted for
a bit of fat and sugar moderation by making only donut holes instead of the
large biscuit donuts so that the girls could sample a few different donut
styles without a sugar coma.
Ready to cook with the kids and make this fun biscuit donut hole
recipe and decorating station?
Pick a donut hole
recipe. Pick the recipe—and even
prepare the donut dough--but, set up your decorating station before you fry or
bake the donuts!
If you are so inclined to make your own donuts from
scratch—this is one of my favorite yeast donut recipes—just skip the glazing
and use our decorating station idea instead!
You may also opt to make some baked sugar donuts—we haven’t tried baking them—but, the
option is there for those ready to break the fried donut cycle!
If you are looking for a quick, fried, donut fix—as we were on a
busy, Friday afternoon--try these simple biscuit donut holes.
Ingredients for Refrigerator Biscuit Donut Holes
1 Can Refrigerator Biscuits (I use Pillsbury Homestyle)
Cooking Oil (Enough to yield about 2 inches of oil in a
Dutch Oven or a deep frying pan)
You will also need: a
large slotted spoon, paper towel lined plates for draining
Cut the donut holes or donuts. Since we chose pre-made dough, we were ready
to cut the donuts in less than a minute.
We placed the refrigerated, biscuit rounds on a large cutting board and cut
approximately 1½ inch donut holes from the dough. We used double shot glasses for our
donuts—but, the little medicine cups that come with children’s cold or pain
medicines work well also--they just make larger holes. If you are
just making donut holes—you will have a bit of scrap dough left from each
biscuit round. Simply combine those
dough scraps to form a similarly sized ball of dough and gently shape into a
lumpy ball. You won’t notice the shape after the donuts fry—and the less than
perfect, “lumpy” ones actually stand better for display!
- 2/3 can Buttercream Frosting, divided into four small bowls with spoons for each. Next time—we’ll use a small bowl of chocolate frosting as well.
- Food Coloring. We chose purple, blue and green—and left one bowl of frosting uncolored.
- Plates of Candy Sprinkles, Jimmies, Chocolate Sprinkles, Chopped Almonds, etc.
- 1 Bowl of Powdered Sugar with a lid for shaking, if desired
- 1 Bowl of Cinnamon Sugar (1 tsp. Cinnamon to 1/3 c. Table Sugar) with a lid for shaking, if desired
- A few drops of Mint Extract (Added to the green frosting and used with chocolate sprinkles.), and a few drops of Lemon Extract (Added to the plain, buttercream and used with chopped almonds.)
- Set up a platter for the finished donut holes.
Fry the donuts. Heat
the oil to approximately 350F—hot, but not smoking. Drop the donut holes or donuts into the hot
oil. Fry until golden brown on one side,
flip and fry on the other side until brown.
Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and allow them to drain
slightly on paper towel covered plates. We
slowed down the process. We dropped 7-10
donut holes into the oil—drained them, decorated them and then cooked another
group.
Decorate and Serve. We
did plain, powdered sugar and cinnamon sugar donuts first when the donuts were
warm from the oil. Frosting will melt on
warm donuts. We used this to our
advantage on some donuts—creating a glazed-like, drips-down-the-sides
appearance. For other donut holes, we
let them cool before applying the frosting and sprinkles. Because the donut holes will be mostly
rounded—you will need to press the bottoms gently to allow the ones with
decorated tops to stand on a serving tray.
Get creative, have fun—and take lots of pictures. You will notice that our donut holes are not
necessarily picture perfect—they probably won’t be appearing on a cooking
magazine cover any time soon. Rather
than showing what we adults can do--the purpose of our “cooking with kids”
style recipes and ideas is to show what the kids can realistically learn and accomplish on their
own. We aren’t out for the perfect images—we are out for the
perfect family afternoon!
Enjoy!
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