Doughnuts are for morning people?

So your a morning person? But there is not a donut shop near you,  you have to get up and feed animals and children alike.  The hardest part of doughnuts is that you have to get up early (and find a recipe too).  It takes roughly an hour to make the dough and let the dough "rise". Hello doughnuts glad to see your up :) Ok all puns aside this is a good recipe to start before your chores giving it rising time.

GLAZED DOUGHNUTS

2 cups warm water
3 packages yeast
1/2 cup sugar
2tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup dry milk
6 cups all purpose flour

Glaze:
4 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract


So you start off by combining your sifted flour, dry milk and salt into a large bowl and set aside.  Then in your stand mixer (you can do this by hand but the dough will be very hard to stir and sticky), combine the sugar and butter and cream together until the mixture resembles wet sand and no more clumps are visible. Then add the egg to the mixture and mix until thoroughly mixed . Then add your yeast and water to the mixture and once it is thoroughly mixed add the flour mixture slowly until it is all mixed. Then it is proofing time. Proofing is when you put a yeast based food product into a warm spot so that the yeast can breed and feed so to speak which causes the rising action of the dough.  Just make sure to put it in a lightly greased bowl and cover with seran wrap so that the dough does not stick to your favorite kitchen towel that you cover the bowl with to prevent any draft from hitting your dough and interfering with the rise.   Once the dough has doubled you can punch it down and flop it out on a lightly floured surface and roll it out. Now if you do not have a doughnut cutter this is where you will have to turn into MacGyver and figure out a way to cut your doughnuts out. You can use a glass some pvc pipe really anything that is clean and will press out a circle. Of course if your not comfortable with that you can cut them into squares and call them beignets, we wont tell.  Once you've figured out all the little details of cutting out the doughnuts put them on a lightly greased pan to rise once more and then its time for the fryer.  I'm not going to tell you what temperature your grease should be like most people would because I never check the temperature I just throw one in and if the grease is hot enough you know. I will tell you that I do use vegetable shortening to fry mine in and it is best to dip them in the glaze when they are barely dry from the grease. I still haven't figured out a good chocolate recipe, But once I do I will be sure to share because who doesn't love chocolate mmm...