Well hellooooo and happy national doughnut day!  

As if any of us need another excuse to eat doughnuts....right?  Ha!  But, today is as good a day as any to stuff your face with some delicious doughnut-y goodness.

Now, this flavour combo was inspired by a doughnut I ate from Lucky's Doughnuts in Vancouver on a breakfast date with the ever lovely Amy of Constellation Inspiration!  It was orange and pistachio heaven.  There was crunch, sweetness, and a fresh, subtle citrus twist.  I was in love.

That was also the morning after the very traumatic cake chaos of 2016, where you can read more about here.  We were running on less than three hours of sleep, and the thought of doughnuts had kept us going all night.  (Not even kidding!)  Running late, we rushed into 49th Parallel, ordered drinks and doughnuts, CHUGGED our drinks (mostly me...Amy was much more ladylike), and then hustled over to her parents house to meet with Victor and take photos of our cake!  (Our cake that could have been a disaster, but was miraculously....not a disaster).

SO, long story short, these doughnuts are incredibly delicious and also bring up hilarious (and fond) memories of my second baking date with Amy.

Orange Pistachio Doughnuts

recipe by: Kelsey Siemens

Ingredients:

1/4 cup hot water (not boiling)

1/2 tsp sugar

2 1/4 tsp yeast

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup white sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

3 Tbsp shortening

1 tablespoon orange zest

2 1/2 cups flour

Glaze:

2.5 icing sugar

1/4 cup cream 

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp orange zest

*chopped pistachios for topping

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, shortening, and orange zest.

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 with a doughnut cutter (or you can use two round cookie cutters, one large and one small).  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 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 leftover doughnut holes from the middle of the doughnuts!

For the Glaze:

Mix together icing sugar, cream, vanilla, and orange zest until combined.  Dip doughnuts into glaze once cooled and top with chopped pistachios.

*I suggest testing one doughnuts with the glaze and then adjusting the thickness of the glaze until you're happy with it!

These doughnuts are best served the same day, but we found that they freeze very well when unglazed!

Happy National Doughnut Day!  Now go on and eat some doughnuts!

-Kelsey