Donuts

So I made a batch of donuts. The book was right: even though I made 16, in two days time they were all gone. Gone! But the only problem was that the outside was not so golden coloured as should be. It was a bit too dark coloured for my liking. Tasted okay, but technically I had failed. So what say you? What should I have done? Lower temp? But how would that affect the inside? I'm crap at frying tbh. :-(

Also when they say you have to keep the dough in a warm place (to rise), do they mean room temp or should I put it close to a heater? Yes, yes, I am a MORAN. Teach me please! I want to turn into a fat blubber. ;-)

What kind of fat did you use for frying?

Yeast dough will rise more slowly if it is in a cooler location, faster if it is warmer. So, it will rise at room temperature, just may take a bit longer. Slower rising gives the yeast more time to develop extra tastiness (nice in bread doughs, not required for donuts).

Tasted okay, but technically I had failed.

Sort of does not compute -- taste is the ultimate test, yeah?

Not to me. If it looks like crap and has a bizarre texture and smells like garbage (hello durian!), taste isn't going to salvage it for me.

xpost Well, technically I failed because teh outside was too hard to make it a proper donut. Also the colour wasn't golden. It turned into an "oliebol" (typical Dutch thing), I guess. :-)

I used butter (as stated in my bread making cookbook). Should I have used something else?

Yes - try using a lighter neutral oil, like safflower or canola. Butter has a low smoke point, so you really can't get it hot enough and it turns dark brown quickly. The hotter you have the oil, the less gets absorbed by the dough too. If you miss the flavor of the butter, you can add some to the lighter oil.

Wait, butter in the dough or butter as the frying fat? I begin to see the problem...

...as Jaq already said, obv.

I'm assuming butter as the frying fat, which would be a major issue.

Eh sorry, I meant frying oil. Sorry!

If you used a neutral oil for frying, and the outsides ended up hard and darker, the oil temperature most likely wasn't hot enough. That means the dough had to stay in the oil longer and absorbed more than it should have. The other scenario is that the oil was either the right temp and they were left in for too long, or the oil was too hot and they scorched - either way, they wouldn't have tasted as good.