Totally still obsessed with doughnuts.  Totally not sorry about it.

Let me introduce you to the newest member of the doughnut family....the Canadian!  Maple doughnut + maple glaze = delish.  I love that the doughnut base still isn't too sweet, and the glaze really rounds out the maple flavor.  Oh man, I am so grateful to have friends to give these suckers away to!  Tomorrow we'll eat vegetables.  Promise.

m a p l e   d o u g h n u t s   [w i t h   a   m a p l e   g l a z e]

by: Kelsey Siemens

ingredients:

1/4 cup hot water (not boiling)

1/2 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp yeast

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 egg

3 Tbsp shortening

2 1/2 cups flour

directions:

1)  In a small bowl, mix together hot water, sugar, and yeast set aside for about 10 minutes until nice and frothy.

2)  In a large bowl, whisk together yeast mixture, milk, sugar, salt, egg and shortening.

3)  Slowly whisk in 1 cup of flour.

4)  Gradually add in remaining flour (1 1/2 cups), half a cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon (or you can use your mixer and a dough hook) until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. *You may not need to use all of your flour!

5)  Knead by hand for about 5 minutes, or until your dough is nice and smooth.

6)  Place the dough into a greased bowl, cover with a clean dish towel, and place somewhere warm to rise until it has doubled in size (about half an hour).

7)  Turn the dough onto a floured surface, and use a rolling pin to gently roll it out to about 1/2" thickness.

8)  Cut dough using a doughnut cutter, or two different sized cookie cutters.  Cover all doughnuts with the towel again, and let rise until doubled.

9)  Heat oil in a deep-fryer or a large electric skillet to 350 degrees (you can use a large, deep skillet on your stove, but it's harder to control the temperature of your oil safely).

10)  Very carefully, place your doughnuts into the hot oil.  Fry doughnuts on each side until they are a very light brown.

11)  Remove doughnuts from hot oil, and place on a cookie sheet lined with paper towel.

12)  Repeat until all the dough has been used, including the doughnut holes, and allow doughnuts to cool before glazing.

Maple Glaze

ingredients:

2 cups icing sugar

1/3 cup maple syrup

*optional: maple extract - if you want a stronger maple flavor, you can add a tiny bit of maple extract.

*you can always substitute a bit of milk in place of maple syrup if the glaze is too sweet for you!

directions:

1)  In a small bowl, mix together icing sugar and maple syrup.

2)  Add more icing sugar or maple syrup until your glazes reaches the desired consistency.  (You want it runny enough that you can dip your doughnuts into it, but thick enough that it won't drip down the sides of the doughnuts).

3)  Dip doughnuts about halfway down into the glaze, and gently shake off excess glaze as you lift up.  Then flip doughnuts upright and let the glaze set.

*we added coarse sugar to make them pop a bit more.

-kels