Sugar Sisters Design: Brigham Young Doughnuts

Did you know Brigham Young used to eat donuts for breakfast? Not the typical pioneer breakfast, right? We think you should follow his example and make some in honor of him today. Because who doesn't love a good donut?

Turns out his recipe has been passed down through generations and the Lion House released the recipe in the Salt Lake Tribune about 5 years ago. You can read the article here. They are the easiest donuts you'll ever make! There's no better way to celebrate the 24th of July than having some of Brigham Young's donuts for breakfast (or lunch...or for a snack, or dinner).

You'll need:

5 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 cups buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups sugar

6 Tbs. butter, melted

Oil for frying

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.

In another large bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs and sugar. Add melted butter to liquid mixture and whisk again.

If you're like us and didn't have buttermilk, you can make your own if you have milk and lemon juice! You just need 1 Tbs lemon juice for every cup of milk. To make sure you don't end up with extra liquid, make sure you put the 2 Tbs lemon juice in your measuring cup before you measure the milk. We did this before we started, because after you combine them, it needs to sit for 10 minutes.

Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture and gently stir together with a spoon. Do not use the electric mixer.

Dough will be sticky. Let it rest for 5 minutes before rolling for easier handling.

In a large pot or deep fryer, heat several inches of vegetable oil to 375 degrees.

Roll out dough on a well-floured board until 1/4-3/8 in thick. cut with a 2 inch doughnut cutter.

You don't need to roll it out on a board, and we found it easier to pat it down to the thickness we needed rather than rolling. Just put some flour on the top because it is VERY sticky.

This is about how thick it needs to look.

If you have a donut cutter, great! Use that. If not, we used a mason jar lid (the smaller ones) to cut it out.

And then to make it so you don't have to have donut holes, you can just make the hole with your finger by spinning it around.

Carefully place three or four cut pieces of dough into the hot oil. When doughnuts start to crack on top, turn. Cook on the second side until golden and cooked through.

Remove from oil and drain on paper towels. Repeat until all remaining pieces of dough are cooked.

Ta-da!

Now for the toppings (is that what they are for donuts?) you can do whatever your heart desires. For some of ours, we did a glaze by mixing powdered sugar and milk together until you get a consistency you like, then spoon it onto the donuts.