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North Star Doughnuts
One and a half cups sugar, one of sour milk, half cup butter, three eggs, a level tea-spoon soda, spice to taste, and flour to roll. - Mrs. A. J. Palmes, Minneapolis, Minn.
A terse contributor recipe of the kind Buckeye Cookery is full of: the cook is expected to know that doughnuts are fried, and at what point the dough is stiff enough to handle. The two things left unsaid are the flour quantity and the fat temperature.
- "Flour to roll"Expect somewhere in the range of 4 to 5 cups, but the original genuinely leaves this open. Work in flour only until the dough stops sticking to a floured board; every extra cup past that gives a tougher, breadier doughnut.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thick and acidic. Cultured buttermilk is the closest supermarket equivalent; failing that, a cup of milk with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice, stood ten minutes.
- The sodaA level teaspoon is deliberate — heaped soda in a doughnut leaves a soapy, faintly yellow taste. It needs the acid in the sour milk to work, so do not swap in sweet milk without adding baking powder instead.
- "Spice to taste"In kitchens of this period this most often meant nutmeg, sometimes with cinnamon or mace. A teaspoon of grated nutmeg for this quantity is about right.
- Frying fat and temperatureThe book's period fat was lard; any neutral oil or lard works. Hold it at 365–375°F. Below that the dough drinks fat and goes heavy; above it the outsides colour before the centre sets.
- Chill before rollingA soft egg-and-butter dough handles far better after 30–60 minutes in the refrigerator, and needs less added flour. Roll about 3/8 inch thick and cut with a doughnut cutter.
- TimingRoughly 1 to 1 1/2 minutes a side, turning once when the underside is deep gold. Break the first one open to check the centre before committing the batch.
- YieldAbout two and a half to three dozen doughnuts and holes, depending on cutter size. They are best within a few hours of frying.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping was assembled from contributions solicited from housewives across the Midwest, and the attributions read like a gazetteer of the region — this one from Mrs. A. J. Palmes of Minneapolis, whose home state gives the doughnut its name. Sour-milk doughnuts belong to the era before commercial baking powder was universal: dairying households often had milk turning on the pantry shelf, and pairing it with saleratus or soda was the cheap, reliable way to raise a fried dough. The distinction between crullers and doughnuts was loose then as now — both are sweet dough cooked in deep fat, differing mainly in shape and in whether the dough is cut in rings or twisted in strips.