Doughnuts
3 tablespoons Mazola 1⅓ cups sugar 2 eggs 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 cup Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 4 cups flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1 cup milk Mazola for deep frying Beat the eggs. Add the three tablespoons Mazola, the sugar, salt and spices and stir till well mixed. Sift together the flour , cornstarch and baking powder. Add the milk to the first mixture. Beat in the flour mixture, turn on a slightly floured board, roll to one-third inch thickness, shape with a doughnut cutter and fry in deep Mazola heated to 350 degrees F. or until a bit a bit of bread will brown in one minute. Turn as soon as they rise to the surface and cook about four minutes, turning occasionally. Drain on crumpled paper, dust with confectioner's sugar mixed with a little cinnamon if desired and serve warm or cold. To freshen, place in a hot oven three or four minutes.
A corn-products advertising recipe, so Mazola and Argo cornstarch appear by name throughout. Both are still sold, and both are easily substituted.
- MazolaCorn oil, then as now. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil works for the three tablespoons in the dough and for the frying. The cornstarch, likewise, is generic; it is there to soften the crumb and keep the doughnuts tender.
- Fry temperature350F is correct and worth holding with a thermometer rather than the bread test. Much below that and the dough tends to absorb oil and go heavy; much above and the outside colours before the centre sets.
- Total frying timeFour minutes at one-third inch thickness is generous by modern practice, where cake doughnuts are often given rather less per side. Cut one open from the first batch and judge from there; adjust rather than trusting the clock.
- Dough handlingThis is a soft cake dough, not a yeast dough. Chill it 30 minutes before rolling if it fights you, and work it as little as possible — extra flour on the board and extra kneading both produce tough doughnuts.
- Depth of fatDeep frying here means at least two inches of oil so the doughnuts float and turn freely. In a shallow pan they sit on the bottom and scorch on one face.
- Draining"Crumpled paper" would have been whatever plain paper was to hand, such as newspaper or brown paper. Use a wire rack over a sheet pan; paper towel directly under them traps steam and softens the crust.
- SugaringConfectioner's sugar goes on once the doughnuts are cool enough to stop steaming, or it dissolves into a glaze. Granulated sugar with cinnamon can go on hot.
- YieldFour cups of flour plus the cornstarch gives roughly two to two and a half dozen doughnuts, plus holes.
This comes from the era when American food companies published their own cookbooks as advertising, and Corn Products Refining Company -- maker of Mazola oil, Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, and Karo syrup -- was among the prolific producers of them. The brand names in the ingredient list are the point of the booklet, not incidental. The recipe itself is a straightforward cake doughnut: leavened with baking powder rather than yeast, and mixed and fried in short order. The cornstarch replacing part of the flour is a characteristic touch of these promotional books, and it does genuinely lower the gluten and give a shorter, more tender crumb. Nutmeg is the traditional spice in American doughnuts, and is often linked to Dutch fried-dough cookery in the colonial northeast, though that connection is traditional rather than documented.