Joy the Baker

A Recipe For Two Doughnuts

by 62 Comments

Here’s the thing:  when my brain convinces me that I need a homemade doughnut, it’s not telling me that I need a dozen homemade doughnuts.  As a solo person in a houseful of cakes, I’ve come to hack desserts to half their size for my own sanity.  Remember ages ago when I made Single Lady Pancakes? Yup:  spot on.  I even remade them here with a massive amount of blueberries The Single Pancake. Not a single regret. 

I’d also like to remind you of French Toast For One (or Two), which is a tremendous idea any day of the week.  

Which brings us to doughnuts – a recipe for just two.  Both for you or a wonderful opportunity to display your unlimited generosity.  

They’re twisted, yeasted doughnuts (not a bit of dough is wasted) drenched in cinnamon sugar.  

How ’bout it? 

Here’s what you’ll need doughnut friends:  

•  a cup of flour

•  an egg, a pat of butter, and a dash more than a splash of whole milk

•  yeast and warm water, sugar, and salt

•  oil for frying

•  cinnamon and sugar for dredging.  

We’ve made all sorts of doughnuts around here.  For a step-by-step of doughnut dough in the making see Banana Cream Pie Doughnuts.  

I use an electric stand mixer with a dough hook to bring the dough together.  It’s actually very simple, once the yeast is combined with the warm water to activate it, the rest of the ingredients are just combined in the bowl and mixed to smooth.  

The fat will make a velvet smooth and pliable dough. 

Allow the dough to rest in a warm place in the kitchen for an hour or so.  It will puff and double in size. It’s really very satisfying. 

Now let’s make two doughnuts! 

Divide the risen dough in half. 

Roll each half into a 15-inch dough rope.  

I find that I needed a bit of flour, but really not much at all.  You want the dough to stick to the counter just a bit, giving it enough resistance to stretch.  

Fold the dough rope in half so the ropes are parallel. 

And start to twist.  

This is where it also helps to have the dough be just slightly sticky.  It will help the dough ropes stick together once twisted.  

Twist to the end and tuck the edges under, sealing with a pinch.  

Let the twists rest for about 30 minutes.  The dough will puff up lightly and the inside twist will start to stick together. 

While the dough rests and rises we can whisk together the cinnamon and sugar in a large bowl.  

And we can start to heat the oil.  

I used 1 quart (that’s 4 cups) of oil in a 3 quart saucepan.  Even though we’re only making two doughnuts, we need enough oil, and depth of oil, to fully submerge and float our frying doughnut.  

What I’m saying is, don’t try to skimp on the oil.  We need this.  

For best results, exercise extreme patience and fry one doughnut at a time. 

The dough is cooked in hot hot oil (355 degrees F to be exact – get thyself a fry thermometer) to golden brown.  

From hot oil to a cinnamon sugar bath, and maybe an extra cinnamon sugar shower. Get it on there. 

All that hard work? 

We deserve a second cup of coffee and some quality time with this twist.  Call a friend, or you know… don’t. 

Print

A Recipe For 2 Doughnuts

  • Author: Joy the Baker
  • Prep Time: 120
  • Cook Time: 2
  • Total Time: 2 hours 2 minutes
  • Yield: 2 1x
Scale

Ingredients

For the Doughnuts

  • 3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 1 tablespoon warm water
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup warmed whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • pinch of ground cinnamon

For Frying and Topping

  • 1 quart (4 cups) canola or neutral oil
  • a 3 quart saucepan
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • small pinch of sea salt

Instructions

  1. Stir together yeast and warm water in a small bowl until yeast is dissolved. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If yeast doesn’t foam, discard and start over with new yeast.)
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine flour, milk, butter, yolks, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and yeast mixture. Use a spatula to quickly bring the ingredients together then mix at low speed until a soft dough forms. Increase speed to medium-high and beat 3 minutes more.
  3. Scrape dough down side of bowl (all around) into center, then sprinkle lightly with flour (to keep a crust from forming). Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
  4. Turn dough out onto a very lightly floured surface. You won’t need much flour at all because you want the dough to stick to the counter just a bit. The resistance helps the top elongate and the doughnut twist stick to itself and stay coiled during frying.
  5. Divide the dough in half.
  6. Roll each half of dough into a 15 to 18-inch rope. Fold the rope in half, creating two 7 1/2 to 9-inch strands parallel from one another. Twist the dough ropes over each other, creating a twist, pressing and folding the two strands of dough together and under to seal the doughnut. Repeat with the second half of the dough.
  7. Place the two twisted doughnuts on a parchment lined baking sheet. Allow to rise for 30 minutes.
  8. While the doughnuts rise, mix together sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl large enough to toss around the cooked doughnut.
  9. When you’re ready to fry the doughnuts, place 1 qt of oil into a 3 qt saucepan. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pan so that the bulb is submerged in the oil to register the temperature. Heat over medium-high heat until the oil reaches 355 degrees F.
  10. Fry one doughnut at a time.
  11. Gently lower the doughnut into the hot oil and allow to fry and brown for about 1 minute. Flip to the other side and fry for about 1 minute more. Rotate the doughnut through the oil for 30 more seconds, making sure that every bit of the doughnut is moistened with very hot oil. The twist can make the doughnut thick so do you best to make sure the doughnut is cooked through. Remove and quickly transfer to the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Quickly toss to coat on all sides and remove from the sugar and place on a wire rack.
  12. Return oil to 355°F between batches and fry second doughnut. Quickly transfer to sugar mixture, coat generously and allow to rest on the wire rack.
  13. Enjoy with coffee! You did great!

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 2

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tan

    Those look lovely! Can I make the dough at night and fry them fresh in the morning. Do you think that would be just fine?
    Thank you

    Reply

  6. Tina

    Yay, yay, yay! I loved this at first sight, but then the frugal gal in me said, whoa, can I use all that oil for two doughnuts? Yes, I can. And then the wise grandmother in me said, yes, you can, and you can even strain and save that oil to fry another day, farm kitchen style, if you want. Whoa! Thanks for all the love and real goodness, Joy. Plus, hello Hanukkah!

    Reply

  9. Arin

    Tried these this morning – I am horrible at frying (great at baking, horrible at frying) and this was no different. They were gorgeous, but doughy inside. Popped them in a 350 degree oven for about 8 minutes to finish them. ??? I will def be making these again and ? they fry all the way through for me next time.

    Reply

  10. Elizabeth @ Take On E

    Brilliant! I love when you do these smaller-portioned recipes. I mean, I’m all for going to town on a dozen donuts all by myself, but It’s nice to have an alternative when I actually want to accomplish something other than napping for the rest of the day. You rock!

    Reply

  11. MarkC

    JoytheBaker;
    This should be your next book – microbaking. I’ve often wanted to bake something, but there’s only three of us, and the recipes are enough to feed an army. I don’t know what I’d do with all that food (actually, I do, which is why I don’t bake).

    Reply

  13. Heidi S.

    This was a perfect recipe! It happens to be my day off and report card day. I whipped them up in no time and they were waiting for my daughter when she came home on this windy, cold day. I added a bit of cardamom with the cinnamon in the donut. I will be making these again!!

    Reply

  17. Bennie

    Yes, please to more single serve recipes!! For those of us who live alone, dozens of cookies and an entire two layer frosted cake is not practical and prevents us from making home-baked goods. Would love to have a scaled down cake recipe for a small 4″ or 6″ cake from you.

    Now if I can get over my aversion to deep frying and fear of bubbling oil to make these two doughnuts….

    Reply

  18. Monica

    Love it! I have a couple blogs that I love simply because they offer smaller batch recipes. I know I could do the calculations for most recipes, but it’s not only easier but sometimes ones that include things like yeast are tough to divide up. Thanks for this, I can’t wait to make them!

    Reply

  20. Holly

    These look delicious and so easy, yummy! It is so hard to be in a house full of temptations, but I love the idea of these & I will definitely be sharing them!

    Reply

  21. Sina

    Hi Joy, this recipe is so great – yay for small batches! Even someone with family needs something only for them from time to time. Thanks for the reminder. If only I could bring myself to conquer frying. I imagine the smell of oil lingering in the appartement for days and I cave…
    I really enjoyed your writing in this one! It made me smile (“not a single regret” – “call a friend. Or you know, don’t”). Love it! :-)

    Reply

  24. emily

    i’m not sure if i’m sad or mad about not seeing these when i got home from work earlier to make after a disaster of a day, but i do know what i’m doing tomorrow afternoon when i get home.

    Reply

  25. Andy

    Joy, for someone who’s never met me, sometimes I think you’re the only one who GETS me. Thank you. These look wonderful.

    Reply

  27. Cyndi

    Oh my goodness Joy – these look and sound amazing! You are exercising a tremendous amount of discipline if you can stop at two ;).

    Reply

  28. Anna

    Important non-morning person question: Could I go through step 3 the night before and do the initial rise in the fridge overnight? Then the morning work would be shaping and the second rise, after letting it come up to room temp for a bit first? Starting a yeasted dough first thing in the morning seems like too long a wait.

    Reply

  29. Adriana

    The single lady pancake is how I found your blog! I absolutely fell in love with it (the pancake and blog, obviously) and convinced my picky husband to try the pancake – he asks for it every single Sunday. Now I have to try the doughnuts and create a new tradition. Thank you!

    Reply

  32. Seana Turner

    What a great idea to make a doughnut recipe for two! So often I avoid recipes that will make too much and end up with my eating more than I want. These look delicious.. perfect for me and my husband:)

    Reply

  33. Claire, UK

    Oh my. I may have to conquer my aversion to deep-fat frying this weekend. As a single lady, I say yes please to as many single lady recipes as you can provide. I have been making a recipe for two scones (two scones = one single lady portion!) recently which is great for three reasons. Firstly, better for my waistline. Secondly, scones are only really good on the day they are baked so I don’t then have to munch my way through less-good older scones. Thirdly, I have problems with my hands and have given up on recipes that involve rubbing in, but even I can manage to rub in 10g of butter! My scone recipe is a scaled down variation of a Dan Lepard one: rub 10g butter into 80g self-raising flour (or plain flour with leavener added). Add a pinch of salt and 5g sugar. Add 50g plain yoghurt (or slightly watered down Greek yoghurt). Combine into a dough with minimal fiddling (add a splash of water if needed). Divide into two rounds. Plonk on baking tray in oven at 200C (with or without a milk wash/sprinkling of sugar) and bake for 14 – 16 minutes, then let cool a little before eating (or just dive in, with or without butter/jam/clotted cream). It takes mix-ins really well – you can get 60g of chopped dried fruit (two portions) in without affecting the dough’s ability to stay together.

    Sadly, the doughnuts will have to wait until the weekend because I will need to buy some appropriate oil (my, local, rapeseed oil isn’t very neutral – I think I’d need something lighter), but then my cast iron dutch oven is getting the best seasoning ever! Really very excited about these :-)

    Reply

    • Paula

      Fantastic! Thanks for sharing this – you’re so right about scones really only being good on day 1. I so rarely make them for this reason.

      Reply

    • Vicki

      Thank you so much for sharing the Scones for Two recipe as I love them and my husband doesn’t and I agree they are really only good the day your make them. Just on a side note, canola is a hybrid of rapeseed and coming from Canada and now living in the UK, I would say rapeseed would be just fine to fry with.

      Reply

    • Mary Jane Gardner

      I am happy to report that scones can be frozen unbaked and then popped into the oven when needed! Just add a few extra minutes of baking. I also have arthritis in my hands, so I grate cold butter into the flour with a grater. Hope this helps !

      Reply

  34. Sarah

    Since my daughter is newly diagnosis with a dairy sensitivity I will make these with full fat coconut milk. Some days our little girls need something special just for them. Thank you for doughnuts for one.

    Reply

  36. Jana H.

    I may have doughnuts for supper tonight…YUM.
    Love the small scale/small batch recipes. I’m a fan of your single lady pancakes and the single molten lava cake in your first cookbook. It’s one of my go-to desserts. :-)

    Reply

  39. Cara

    This is the recipe that will get me to make doughnuts! Batch size is the biggest part of what has held me back. Thanks so much for scaling things down for us small households!

    Reply

  42. Andrea

    Yay for single serve recipes! I make single lady pancakes all.the.time. I’ve even found a recipe for single serve cupcakes made from a box mix using the toaster oven. Excited to add these doughnuts to my arsenal – treat yo’self 2018!

    Reply

  46. Taste of France

    Bless you. Too often, satisfying an intense craving leaves us with a choice of feeling guilty for wasting the rest or feeling guilty for eating the rest.
    Reducing a recipe isn’t always that simple, especially for baked goods. Thank you for figuring this one out.

    Reply

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