‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond’s Homemade Glazed Doughnuts
Ree Drummond has mastered her recipe for homemade glazed doughnuts, though she admits it does take some time to whip them up. Thankfully, the effort is worth it for the tasty treat.
Ree Drummond shared her journey to make the perfect homemade doughnut
Drummond wrote about her glazed doughnuts recipe in a 2010 recipe post on The Pioneer Woman website.
“Let me begin this post by saying how excited I am to share this doughnut recipe with you. What can I say? Doughnuts are exciting. They thrill me to the bone,” she wrote.
“Second, let me lay one thing out on the table: Making good, raised doughnuts at home is not as easy as you’d think,” Drummond continued. “For years (yes, you heard me) I tried in vain to make the perfect homemade doughnut — not just a fat, bready wad of fried dough with a sweet glaze, but a delicate, light ring of love with a slightly crispy surface and a wonderful flavor.”
How to make Ree Drummond’s homemade doughnuts
Drummond demonstrated how to make the delicious homemade doughnuts on an episode of The Pioneer Woman. First, she poured warm milk into a bowl and added sugar and instant yeast. In another bowl, she beat eggs then slowly mixed in melted butter. In a third bowl, Drummond combined flour and salt.
“Now the mixer does all the work,” she explained.
The Food Network host added the butter and egg mixture to a stand mixer bowl, then poured in the milk, sugar, and yeast mixture, and turned the mixer on. She added ½ cup of the dry mixture at a time while the mixer ran on low speed. After 5 minutes of mixing, she moved the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, and refrigerated it for 8 to 12 hours.
After the dough was chilled, Drummond removed the bowl from the fridge and let it sit for an hour until it came to room temperature. She rolled the dough to ¼ inch thickness and used a donut cutter to cut out the doughnuts. She placed them on a sheet pan and covered them lightly with tea towels and let them rise for 2 hours.
To fry the doughnuts, Drummond heated shortening in a pot and dropped in the doughnuts. “I’ve learned the hard way that you do not fry doughnuts in vegetable oil,” she explained. “For some reason, they just absorb the oil and they become really heavy and clunky.”
Drummond noted the importance of frying at 350 degrees. “If it gets too hot, the doughnuts will burn right away,” she said. “If it’s not hot enough, they’ll just sort of fall flat.”
She cooked the donuts for 30 to 45 seconds per side and removed them to a paper towel-lined sheet pan.
Drummond gave the doughnuts a delicious glaze coating
Drummond finished the doughnuts by adding a layer of glaze. “Homemade doughnuts do require a little time commitment so don’t think that you’re gonna get a craving for homemade doughnuts and be able to eat them within the hour,” she shared. “It does take some time, but they are totally worth it.”
For the glaze, Drummond whisked together powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and cold water until smooth. She placed the fried doughnut holes on a sheet pan and then put a wire rack over the top. Drummond dropped the doughnuts in one at a time, coated both sides with glaze, and placed them on the rack. The glaze dripped from the doughnut to the holes below.
The full recipe is available on the Food Network website.
