Home › Novel Dromedary Dishes › Cocoanut Doughnuts
Cocoanut Doughnuts
1 cup Dromedary Cocoanut 1 cup sugar 1 cup buttermilk 1 egg 3 tbsp. butter 1 teasp. baking soda 1 teasp. cream of tartar ¼ teasp. salt Flour Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the egg well beaten, the buttermilk, cocoanut, soda, cream of tartar, salt and enough flour to stiffen. Roll out, cut with a doughnut cutter and fry in plenty of smoking hot fat. Drain and sprinkle with fine sugar.
A buttermilk cake doughnut with shredded coconut worked into the dough. The recipe leaves flour open-ended, which is normal for the period but means the dough has to be judged by feel.
- Fat temperature"Smoking hot" is the one instruction to ignore: fat that smokes is past its useful range and will scorch the outside while the centre stays raw. Cake doughnuts want 365-375F, checked with a thermometer, and the fat needs to be deep enough that they float and turn freely.
- How much flour"Enough to stiffen" works out to roughly 3 to 3 1/2 cups for this quantity of liquid. Aim for a soft dough that just holds a rolled sheet about 1/3 inch thick; more flour than that gives a dry, bready doughnut.
- The leavening pairSoda plus cream of tartar is a homemade baking powder, and the buttermilk adds further acid. Mix the dry leaveners into a portion of the flour rather than dropping them straight into the wet batter, and get the doughnuts into the fat promptly once the dough is mixed.
- Salt quantityThe salt reads as 14 teaspoons, which cannot be right for this quantity of dough. A quarter to a half teaspoon is the sensible amount.
- The coconutDromedary sold packaged shredded desiccated coconut. Any packaged shredded or flaked coconut stands in; if you use the sweetened kind now sold in most shops, cut the sugar to about three-quarters of a cup.
- Rest the doughDried coconut absorbs moisture from the dough, so the shreds may soften if the dough stands briefly after mixing. Keep any such rest short: the soda and cream of tartar start working as soon as they are wetted.
- Finishing'Fine sugar' is not specified further; it most likely means a fine granulated or caster sugar, though powdered sugar was also called fine in this period. Drain on a rack over paper and sugar them while still warm so it clings.
- YieldAbout two dozen doughnuts plus the holes, depending on the cutter.
This comes from a promotional booklet issued by the Dromedary brand, then best known for dates and shredded coconut, and the purpose is plain enough: to move a pantry staple into recipes where nobody expected it. Coconut reached American kitchens in quantity once desiccated shred could be packed and shipped, and by the early twentieth century it had spread well beyond cakes and macaroons into puddings, breads and fried doughs like this one. The doughnut itself is the older, plainer sort -- a buttermilk cake doughnut raised with soda and cream of tartar rather than yeast, which is why it needs no rising time and goes straight from the board to the fat.