If At First You Don't Succeed Try Again: Gluten-Free Donuts

Last week Tiffani from Dancing Branflakes sent out a plea for real gluten-free donuts.  You know, like, real donuts that are fluffy and light vs. cake donuts.  She tugged at my heart strings (and truth be told read my mind. As a former Krispy Kreme visitor and child of a donut maker life just isn't quite the same) and memories of growing up with a mom and grandma who made the best homemade donuts in all the land.  So many times after school I would walk through the door and find fresh made glazed or sugar donuts waiting for me.  Sigh.  Those were the days.

So with these things fueling me I worked up the courage to find a recipe that looked like it just might work.  Now I'm not a professional baker by any means and a lot of gluten-free baking is by trial and error.  With the Chef backing me (read: egging me on) I set out making the dough on Saturday.  It appeared to work and, following instructions, I set it in the refrigerator overnight with dreams of donuts dancing in my head all that night.

Cut to scene and there I was Sunday morning.  It was donut time!  The Chef bought me a little gift:  candy thermometer for the side of my deep fryer.  There was no way I could fail now.  It was go time.  Go donut time. Whatever.

Step one: roll out the dough.  Was it going to hold together?  Could it handle it?

Why yes, yes it could.  Sigh of relief.

I took it back to the old school and rolled the dough out on my dining room table just

like my mom and grandma used to do.  Everything was on track.

I laid the donuts and donut holes out to rise for an hour or so (lightly covered) and crossed my fingers.

The rest was kind of a letdown.  After an hour and a half the dough had only risen maybe half as much as I wanted it to.  Chances are (and my gut was telling me) gluten-free dough may work better without that time in the refrigerator slowing the yeast down.  At the end of it all I decided to deep fry a few donuts just to test the texture of a finished product.

Here's what I got:

Pardon my giant thumb and not so fancy plate.  

By that time I was pretty much traumatized and disappointed that I wouldn't be having any of the 

super light and airy donuts that had filled my dreams just hours before.

What I can say is this:  the taste is there.  The texture on this batch was a little heavy, but lighter than a cake donut so maybe, just maybe, if I tweak the recipe just a bit there may be a chance for a donut that is a little closer to the fluffy ones of days gone by.  Wish me luck!  I'm hoping to go in for round 2 this weekend if I can manage to get the Christmas tree purchased at some point this week.  And then there's always that Christmas shopping that isn't near done...or even significantly started yet.  Where is this month going??