I’m going to tell you a secret.
These are the easiest, most delicious doughnuts you’ll ever make. Seriously, they take less than 10 minutes to make, start to finish.
To me, doughnuts seem like things that are complicated to make. It seems like it would be difficult to do, but it’s really not as intimidating as it seems. But these, these are special doughnuts. Almost magical.
My mom made them frequently when I was growing up, and they are so easy that a child could help you make them. Except for the frying part. Probably not a good idea to let your child do the frying, unless they’re an older child!
So. Step one. Open up a can of biscuits. Any refrigerated biscuits in a can will work for this, but I really like Grands, since they make the biggest, fluffiest doughnuts. I try to avoid any flaky biscuits because they just aren’t the same, but like I said, really almost any kind of biscuit will work.
Just get out your biscuits and separate them out, into individual biscuits.
This is where it kind of depends on your own style of doing things. I like to use my mini circle cutter to cut holes out in the doughnuts, making them more of a traditional shape. My mom likes to just take a knife or kitchen shears and cut the biscuits in quarters. You can leave them whole, you can take a cue from my mom and I and cut them however you prefer, or you can cut them any other way you desire. You could even use cute tiny cutters to cut out a fun shape (like a star or heart!) out of the middle of the biscuit and make creative doughnut holes to nibble on.
Grab your favorite frying pan and pour some oil in it. This is where I’m kind of funny. We have a whole slew of quite expensive frying pans, and instead of choosing to use those, I prefer to use this $10 pan we got on sale one time. It seems to be the most non-stick of all of my pans, so I always use it when I fry things. I wish I remember where I had purchased it, because I’d buy a whole flock of them and get rid of most of my expensive pans.
Pop those puppies in the frying pan on medium heat, and start preparing your cinnamon sugar mixture. Mix cinnamon and sugar in a bowl until you feel like you have the right amount of each. You can also play with spices here, if you’d like– sometimes I add nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice, cinnamon maple crunch, whatever sweet yummy spices I have in the cabinet, I tend to cycle through them on days I make doughnuts. Keep an eye on your doughnuts!
From here, things will go very quickly. When the side of the biscuit puffs up and starts to rise, it’s time to flip them. You’re going to want them to be golden brown on the side you were frying, like the biscuits in the upper right corner of the photo below.
The ones on the bottom left aren’t quite ready, so I flipped them back over to get them a little more golden on that side.
As you pull the biscuits that are golden on each side out, drop them into the cinnamon sugar mix and coat them on each side with the mixture, then put the coated biscuits on a paper towel to drain off any extra oil.
Then, serve the whole pile of biscuits to your family or friends, or eat them all yourself, like I’m prone to do. They’re delicious plain, but I especially like mine drizzled with warm maple syrup. Honey also works, or even chocolate sauce or even topped with a pile of whipped cream or fresh or frozen fruit.
Delicious!
