Recovering Perfectionist

Being a novice does not come easy to me. Does it for you? Can you give me hints about how to make being a novice not feel so novice-y?

It’s the lack of perfection that comes with learning something new that gets me. I like stuff to be Right. Really Right. In every area.

I once had a therapist tell me I should purposely burn a cake and bring it to a party in order to work on this perfectionist tendency.

Me: Um, no. I cannot do that.
Therapist: No? You can’t? Not even just a little burned?
Me: Nope. No. Cannot.
Therapist: How about you pick out a gross ice cream and bring that to the party?
Me: Like, purposely?
Therapist: Yes. Purposely. And don’t apologize. Don’t say anything about it. Just put it out there with no comment.
Me: (look of horror)
Therapist: Yeah, like cheap Neopolitan ice cream or something. I bet you no one even notices.
Me: (look of horror deepens at the prospect of both bringing Neopolitan ice cream to a party and NO ONE NOTICING I DID NOT BRING SOMETHING AWESOME.)

I never did it. Trying to overcome perfectionism and vanity with subpar ice cream was too big a task at the time.

Well, 10 years have passed, and I am ready. Finally. But instead of burning a cake and bringing it to a party, I burned donuts and am posting photos of them on the Internet to live in perpetuity. (So maybe it was unrealistic to expect me to conquer perfectionism and vanity at once?)

I made my first batch of actual fried donuts (a batch of Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Donuts) and they were... not good. They did not even come close to meeting the “THAT WAS WORTH EVERY BITE” standard. They were too skinny and sorta dry and some of the donut holes were so overcooked they looked like they were chocolate (see: above photo, bottom right). They were totally not chocolate.

I will not let this dissuade me from my Donut Quest, however. I have a sign that hangs in my house that reads, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” I believe that sign. I’m not after perfect donuts. I want Good Donuts. So, I will carry on with the donut making, armed with the knowledge that failure can bring.

Here’s what I think went wrong.

The skinny, stretched, sad donuts before their trip to the fryer. Even being bathed in early morning sun can't save them.

My cutters were not the right size. Rather than using a donut cutter, I opted to use biscuit cutters (I highly recommend this lovely set! Multipurpose kitchen tools for the win!). I followed the recipe’s instructions to use a 2.5” cutter for the donuts and a 1.25” cutter for the holes. I could tell as I was cutting that the proportions were off. The donuts looked thin rather than plump. And I don’t really think that thin is a word that ever goes with donuts. I also got significantly more donuts than the recipe said I would, an indicator that mine were too small. Next time, I will use a 3” cutter with a 1” cutter for the holes for delightfully plump donuts.

Donuts should be cut in batches. I rolled out my dough as instructed, cut it all with my donut cutter and hole cutter and then tried to move the cut donuts to a baking sheet. I got sad, stretched, misshapen donuts, which exacerbated the skinny problem. Next time, I will make sure to flour my cutters before every cut (donut dough is sticky!) and to cut just a few donuts right before moving them to a baking sheet to wait to be fried (or right before frying). 

I fried for too long. I’m a seasoned enough baker and cook to know that if my donuts were smaller than what the recipe said they should be, they will require less time to cook. I still cooked them for the full amount of time called for in the recipe. I have no excuse other than I have recently had to give up coffee, I was making these in the morning, and tea just isn’t the same, y’all. Next time, I will adjust the cooking time appropriately if my yield is different than the recipe.

Undercooked middles, overcooked outsides, a result of too hot oil.

There is also a question of proper temperature. It all started off on the right foot. Per the recipe, I used shortening and heated it to 375 degrees, as measured by my candy thermometer. The temp dropped a bit with the addition of donuts as it should, and I made sure to let it come back up to temp before adding my next batch. 

And then I started frying the donut holes and it all went bonkers. The temp went way, way up. I had to turn off the heat entirely to bring it down because no one wants their Donut Quest to turn into a Put Out The Kitchen Fire Adventure. Then, it was difficult to get the temp steady again after turning the heat back on. And it smoked! After doing a bit more research, I found that this particular recipe had the highest frying temp of any recipe I looked at. Most recommended a frying temperature of 350 to 370. But other sources do say the proper frying temp is 375. 

What is this perfectionist to do? Research more! Avoid making a decision until the last minute!! Decide later!!!

If you’re interested in the recipe I used for these donuts, you can find it in this book. I am usually a great big giant fan of Cook’s Illustrated recipes. They are impeccably researched and precisely written. But, as you can tell, I had some issues with this one. Some issues were definitely (my) user errors, but I found some of the instructions to be misleading.

So for my next stop on the Donut Quest, I’ll be trying a slightly different recipe for the traditional cake donut, this one from a pastry chef who bills himself as “Mr. Doughnut.” 

This bodes well.