Fried Angel Biscuit Donuts Recipe on Food52 (2024)

When canned biscuit dough can produce a donut of passable quality, can you imagine what honest-to-goodness homemade biscuit dough would do? And what if that dough had the best qualities of both a good, buttery biscuit and a yeasted donut? I couldn’t help myself. I had to find out.

I was not disappointed. As soon as the first round hit the oil, I knew I was in for a treat. I could see the layers of dough puffing up into a crispy, tender, yeasty donut. I could smell the butter in the dough sizzling and taking on nutty, caramelized notes. When I cut into one, still-warm, I could see all the flaky layers separated out. It looked like a poor-man’s cronut. And it tasted even better. —Sarah Coates

Directions

1. Mix the yeast into the room-temperature milk. Set aside while you assemble the rest of the ingredients.
2. Place all of the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Mix briefly to combine.
3. Cut the cold butter into 1/2-inch cubes, and add them to the dry ingredients. Work the mixture on a low speed for about 2 minutes, or until the butter is mostly incorporated into the flour, with some larger flakes of butter still visible. Mix more than you would for traditional biscuits or a pie dough: Most of the butter should be incorporated into the flour.
4. Add the milk and yeast to the mixer, and mix on a medium speed, just until the mixture starts to cohere and there is no dry flour in the bottom of the bowl.
5. Dump the mixture out onto a floured surface, and pat and knead it together until it forms a smooth ball. Roll the dough out to about 1/2-inch thickness, and use a doughnut cutter (or a biscuit cutter and a piping nozzle) to cut out as many donuts as you can. With a 3-inch cutter, you should end up with 10 biscuits, re-rolling the dough scraps twice.
6. Set aside your donuts and donut holes in a cool place for 30 minutes. Unlike traditional yeast baking, you do not want to put this in a warm spot -- that would cause the butter in the biscuits to melt and would make these very tough to work with.
7. When the donuts have had their 30 minute rest, heat about 2 inches of oil in a wide, deep pan, and bring it up to 350° F (170° C). Alternatively, you can place one of the donut holes into the cold oil. When it turns golden brown, the oil is hot enough to fry in.
8. Place a few donuts at a time into the hot oil (fewer is best -- you don't want the oil to bubble over). They need about 1 1/2 minutes per side. When they have turned a dark golden brown and have puffed up to about twice their size, the donuts are ready. Carefully remove the donuts from the oil, and place them on a cooling rack or some paper towel to drain.
9. Once they're all cooked, you can either toss the donuts in cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar, or glaze them. I used a mixture of puréed blackberries and icing sugar to top mine.

Recipe by: Sarah Coates