Sugar Donuts

Saturday Night Sugar Donuts.

Can you eat one without licking sugar off your lips until you are finished...?

Sugar Donuts  (makes about 30)

5 dl lukewarm milk
50 g fresh yeast (or 2 bags / 15 g fast action dry yeast)
100 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
150 g melted butter
about 1 kg plain flour

2 litres oil for deep frying
sugar for coating

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.
2. Add sugar, cardamom and egg and mix well.
3. Start adding flour gradually.
4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add melted butter.
5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense so the donuts will be fluffier.
6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.
7. Divide the dough into 25-30 little balls.
8. To get ring donuts, make a hole in the middle of each ball by stretching the sides
9. Leave the rings to raise for about half an hour.
10. Heat oil in a thick pan (unless you have a deep-fryer) until it is 170-180 C. (I do not have a thermometer so I just check the temperature with a piece of toast - when it takes about a minute for the bread to become golden brown, the temperature is fine).
11. Deep-fry your donuts in oil about 2-3 minutes per side and put on plate covered with kitchen tissue so any extra oil will come off.
12. When the donuts have cooled down, dip them in sugar so that they become fully coated. I usually put sugar in a paper bag (an empty flour bag works great - I always save them for this purpose), then put two or three donuts in the bag together with the sugar and shake well.
13. If you do not eat your donuts the same day, do not coat them with sugar but freeze them right away and coat only after defrosting.