In particular, canned fruit works well in donuts, the fruit is already cooked giving a full cooked blueberry flavor in spite of a quick fry. The juice from the canned blueberries is used to make an intense purple blueberrylicious glaze.
Ingredients
Donuts:
3 3/4 cups Flour, with additional flour for generously dusting
1 cup granulated sugar
Zest of 2 Lemons
½ teaspoon Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Kosher Sea Salt
¾ cup Buttermilk
4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, melted
2 Eggs + 1 Egg Yolk
1 15 oz can of Blueberries, drained, juice reserved for glaze
2 lbs Vegetable Shortening for frying
Glaze:
8 cups Powdered Sugar
Juice of 2 lemons + 1 Cup reserved Blueberry Juice
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
Sparkling Sugar or other Sprinkles - Optional
Prepare
FOR THE DONUTS:
In the bowl of standing mixer whisk together sugar and lemon zest.
Mix 1 cup flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the sugar mixture and attach bowl to standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
In another bowl, mix buttermilk, melted butter, and eggs (I mix with an emersion blender to completely combine).
Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix on medium speed until smooth, without overmixing, for about 30 seconds.
Lower mixer speed and add all but 1/4 cup of the remaining flour.
Mix until combined, for about an additional 30 seconds.
Remove from stand mixer and stir blueberries into the dough. Dough will be very wet.
Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup of flour over wet dough and mix to ensure that all liquid and flour is incorporated.
The dough will be sticky and moist so you will work the dough with additional flour.
Turn the dough out onto a generously floured work surface.
Pat dough out into a rectangle with well floured hands then roll with heavily floured rolling pin to completely smooth to 1/2" thickness.
Cut dough rings with heavily floured donut cutter (or other cutters), re-flouring between each cut. Transfer dough rounds and holes to a well floured jelly roll pan or large surface.
Ball up dough scraps and gently press out with hands.
Repeat rolling and cutting process until all the dough has been cut.
The cut donuts can be covered with plastic wrap or a floured towel and stored at room temperature up to 2 hours.
TO FRY:
Fit candy thermometer to side of cast-iron Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot.
Gently heat shortening over medium-high heat to 375 degrees. TIP- you can reserve some of the shorting to use to cool the heated shorting if it gets too hot. The fastest way to bring down the temperature on heated oil or shorting is to add additional unheated oil/shortening.
Carefully drop dough rings into hot melted shortening 3-5 at a time, depending on pot and dough ring size (if you don't want to use this much shorting, you can use a much smaller pot and fry one at a time).
Turn donuts as they rise to surface with tongs, a butter knife, etc. Fry donuts until golden brown, about 50-70 seconds per side.
Drain on paper towel-lined jelly roll pan or wire rack.
For donut holes, carefully drop 8-12 dough balls into hot melted shorting. Turn as they rise to the surface and fry for about 30-60 seconds per side.
Repeat frying, returning fat to temperature between each batch.
FOR THE GLAZE:
Into a 1 cup measuring cup add juice from two lemons and top up with reserved blueberry juice.
Whisk powdered sugar, breaking clumps, in a large mixing bowl.
Pour Juice over powdered sugar and whisk until smooth.
Whisk in cinnamon.
Dip or roll donuts and donut holes in glaze and transfer as coated to cooling rack.
Sprinkle with sparkling sugar or other sprinkles as desired and allow glaze to dry.
Makes 24-36 donuts + donut holes depending on cutting size.
