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Raised Doughnuts
Peel and boil four good sized potatoes; mash fine, and pour boiling water over them until of the consistency of gruel; let cool, add a yeast cake, and a little flour; let rise till light, then add one pint sweet milk, one and a half cups sugar, one-fourth cup (large measure) lard, a salt-spoon salt, a little nutmeg and cinnamon; stir in flour until stiff, let rise again, then add a half tea-spoon soda dissolved in a little milk, pour out on molding board, mix stiff enough to cut out, and roll to half an inch thickness; cut in long strips two mches wide and divide diagonally into pieces three inches long, set where it is warm, let rise on the board until light, and then fry. These do not cook through as easily as others, and it is safer to drop in one, and, by breaking it open, learn the time required for them to fry. A very nice variation of this recipe may be made as follows: Roll part of the dough about half an inch thick, cut into small biscuit, let rise, and when light, roll down a little, lay a few raisins rolled in cinnamon in the center, wet the edges by dipping the finger in cold water and passing it over them; draw them together and press firmly, and drop them in the hot fat. A tea-spoon of applebutter or any kind of jam may be used instead of the raisins. When made with the raisins, they are the real German "Olly Koeks." - Mrs. J. L. H.,
A potato-sponge yeast dough, closer to a sweet roll than to the modern cake doughnut. The flour is never measured, so the dough is built by feel in two stages.
- The hinge: fry them slower and longerThe original says plainly that these do not cook through as easily as others, and that is the whole difficulty. A rich yeast dough half an inch thick needs fat around 350-360F; hotter and the outside browns well before the center sets. Frying one as a test and tearing it open is still the right method.
- Yeast cakeIn the nineteenth century "yeast cake" could mean either compressed fresh yeast (a cake of roughly two-thirds of an ounce) or a dried homemade yeast cake; this recipe does not say which. One packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast is a reasonable working substitute, though the potato sponge will take a little longer with dry yeast.
- The potato spongeFour medium potatoes mashed and thinned with boiling water to the texture of thin porridge, then cooled to lukewarm before the yeast goes in. If it is still hot it will kill the yeast. The starch keeps the doughnuts moist and is the reason they stale slowly.
- Salt-spoonA salt-spoon is a quarter teaspoon. For this much dough that is very little salt; a full teaspoon is closer to modern taste.
- Flour, unmeasuredThe total cannot be fixed from the recipe, since it depends on how thin the potato gruel is; expect several cups across the two additions and go by texture: stiff enough to roll and cut without sticking, no stiffer. Erring toward a slack dough gives a lighter doughnut.
- The sodaThe half teaspoon of soda at the end would help neutralize the sourness of a long-risen sponge, though it also contributes some lift. Dissolve it in the milk as directed so it does not streak the dough.
- Lard and frying fatA quarter cup, generously measured, of lard in the dough; shortening or butter substitutes without trouble. For the frying itself lard, shortening or a neutral oil all work, and you want at least three inches of depth so the pieces float.
- The final riseCut pieces rise on the board, uncovered in a warm spot, until visibly puffy. Lift them with a floured bench scraper rather than your fingers; deflated pieces fry heavy and greasy.
- YieldThe batch is large by modern standards, likely three to four dozen pieces. They are best the day they are made.
The name at the end is the interesting part. Olykoek is Dutch, literally "oil cake," the fried sweetened dough that Dutch settlers brought to New Netherland and that is generally traced as an ancestor of the American doughnut; Washington Irving mentions oly koeks in his History of New York. Filling the ball with raisins or preserved fruit is often described as part of the older practice, and is sometimes said to have been done because the center was the part least likely to cook through. That Mrs. J. L. H. calls them German rather than Dutch reflects a long-standing looseness in English between Dutch and Deutsch, the same usage usually invoked to explain "Pennsylvania Dutch," though that explanation is itself debated. The potato base belongs to a different tradition again: potato sponges were widely used to raise rich doughs, and they persisted in community cookbooks long after commercial yeast was reliable, cooks holding that they produced a softer crumb that kept.