Pour one out for my homies. A dream died today. I have always fantasized about owning a little bakery or restaurant. True story, my first “dream job” was waitress! I would get to wear pretty dresses (they used to), I would work around those amazing dessert cases all day, and of course I would get rich with people just leaving cash RIGHT THERE on the tables for me! Bless my heart… Fast forward 40 years, and I learned, unequivocally, that a bakery is NOT in my future. At least not one that serves donuts!
My first attempt at post-surgery, “seated cooking” saw me making Syrian Donuts. I chose this recipe because I was not thrilled with the fried donuts I made a couple weeks ago, and also I could take my sweet time. If I moved slowly, no matter. There’s no one here to feed but myself today. I was surprised see this recipe when I originally paged through Magnolia Table. Everything else had been all-American, midwestern food. I got to the “Mom’s Bulgogi” later, but that made sense since Jo is half Korean. If you had made me stake a bet on it, I would have guessed her nationality background was Native American, perhaps Lakota or Sioux. Wow, was I way off! Apparently her grandfather is Syrian, and she included some favorites from his side of the family. I admit I have very little experience with Middle Eastern cuisine, and I can’t claim I was overly excited about trying it. Plus it was a long, drawn-out cooking process, with a two-hour dough rising time. I’m really selling this, aren’t I?? But trust me, it gets worse!
As always, I started by gathering up all the ingredients I would need, and again, I was *this* close to having everything. I was equally certain I already had 100% of the ingredients on hand. FAIL. Since I still can’t drive, there is no “running to the store”! Much like my lack of vanilla beans caused me to change gears on the Vanilla Cake Donuts, the absence of ground anise seed or star anise pods, or even a stray bag of black jelly beans kept me from following the instructions to the letter. Not gonna lie, licorice is not my favorite flavor anyway, but I really wanted to see what Syrian food is supposed to taste like. To the Google! I looked up what was an acceptable substitute for anise seed, and came up with a couple options. I didn’t think fresh fennel was the way to go for a breakfast pastry, so I decided the next best choice was Chinese Five-Spice. Because when you want to make Syrian… you go Chinese… Well, maybe not usually, but five-spice actually has been woefully underused in my kitchen. It is a blend of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and TWO types of anise, so now that I know that, I will be reaching for it more often when I want to add a sweet/spicy kick. The second swap-out was pistachios instead of walnuts. I have no idea why, other than for some reason pistachios just seem vaguely Middle Eastern to me, and I had no walnuts on the shelf! Other changes were for practical purposes; Jo wanted me to use EIGHT CUPS of flour, resulting in three dozen donuts. Since that would be a dozen apiece for the members of this household and one of us doesn’t like nuts in his food, I figured I should cut the recipe in half at the very least! Had I known then what I know now, I would have cut it into quarters…
As you can see, my attitude going into this was not the best; I wasn’t impressed by the cookbook picture, the ingredients list didn’t inspire visions of a tasty treat on the other side of the baking time, and I was already making substitutions that I hoped wouldn’t ruin the end result. The only thing this recipe had going for it is that it did not require me to deep-fry anything! Mixing dry ingredients together: easy. Mixing wet ingredients: challenging. How exactly do you add “half an egg”? Well, I could have whipped it all up and poured half into a separate bowl, but I just allowed half the white to fall in and then poked the yolk and pulled half out with my hand. Messy, but effective. I now had something akin to half-mixed wet cement. Her instructions said, “the mixture will be dry.” No, Jo, I take issue with your description. The Sahara Desert is “dry”. The surface of Mars is “dry”. This mixture was downright desiccated! But did I panic? No, I did not! I still had melted butter and milk to add, along with a packet of yeast. In my head I pictured a soft, puffy cloud emerging in a couple hours. You know what I got? Sculpting clay. The directions further stated, “the dough will be very dense.” Ya think?? There was ZERO rise from the yeast, y’all. I suppose it’s possible I murdered it with milk that was too hot, although I used a thermometer to make sure it didn’t get above 115 degrees. The resultant lump of concrete in my bowl certainly argued that I did something wrong. With an “it can’t get much worse” shake of my head, I set to shaping the dough into logs, which I would then attach end to end, uroboros-style. (That’s the snake-eating-its-own-tail thing, for visual reference). This was not to be. While the dough was flexible, it was also so parched that it would not stick to itself. I threw caution to the winds and added more whole milk until I could at least get a consistency that would hold together long enough to be baked. And here they are… Just as appetizing as I imagined!
Ugh. They were in the oven for 15 minutes and in theory should have browned slightly on top, but clearly that did not happen. The bottoms actually did turn a nice, golden color, but that was little comfort! The only thing I thought might save these doorstops, er, donuts from total failure was the sugar glaze. I heated up milk, sugar, vanilla, and butter and boiled it for the prescribed time. Hey, guess what, that didn’t turn out quite right either! Jo claims this concoction eventually turns clear, so since mine never did, it could be my fault for not just simmering longer. Actually as I sit here typing this, I realize I forgot the additional cup of water. So… definitely my fault!
I soldiered on, dunking the warm donuts into the glaze and laid them on wax paper to set up. I think I made it to #8 before the sugar had just about completely re-crystalized and I was forced to abandon the operation. RIP, extra donuts.
Ok, with all the whining and complaining I’ve done thus far, I’m sure you’re dying to know… how did they taste?? To be honest, they tasted just like a cinnamon spice… bagel. Covered in sugar. As in, “I felt the ‘diabeet-us’ coming on by the third bite” amounts of sugar. I ate the whole thing because there was an interesting flavor to the donut itself, and it made me want to go back for another taste. I came. I saw. I ate the Syrian Donut. And now I’m happy to say I will never have to go through that again. “Interesting” is not a high enough compliment for a recipe that I found to be fraught with difficulty from beginning to end, so I am cheerfully placing this one firmly in the rear-view mirror. Here’s looking forward to the next recipe, which quite honestly can only go uphill from here!
Have Book, Will Cook 