Making Donuts, Part 4. Filled Donuts!

For my last donut making experience before giving up donuts for Lent, I wanted to make Boston Creme donuts in the shape of footballs for the big football game in February. So I went back to my aunt's house to mess up her kitchen :-)

Made a batch of the raised dough that I've come to love and cut them into the shapes of footballs with a cookie cutter. Obviously no holes in the middle. The heart shaped donuts in the back were made with some frozen dough as a test to see if you could freeze half the dough for making later (you can!). I'm still always so scared that they won't rise. But they always do, so I should calm down about that.

Once they were all fried and cooled, it was time to figure out the filling. For my first try with filled donuts I used instant pudding. I would not recommend using instant pudding to anyone else. I felt that the donut dough absorbed too much of the pudding and got soggy. I also did not have access to a filling tip for frosting bags, we had to improvise. We tried a couple different tips and it was hard. You have to be careful not to schmoosh the donut while getting the tip through the outside of the donut. Then you have to fill it and go by weight on when it is done being filled. Some got a little too full and some barely got any in. It was the hardest thing I've done while baking in awhile. There was also a lot of laughing, so maybe that was getting in the way.

After they were all filled it was time to frost them. I used my Mom's patented (ok, not really, but it's a family favorite) fudge frosting recipe. It's super easy to remember because it's 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4. 1/2 c butter, 1/3 c milk, 1/4 c cocoa. Cook on the stove till it just starts to boil, cool and add powdered sugar until it is a good frosting consistency (about a pound and a half). Frosted all the footballs and hearts and laid them out to set. Then used some cheap tube frosting made for writing on cakes and such to draw the laces on. The laces really were key in making them look like footballs.

Some of the hearts got some sugar crystal sprinkles and I really ended up liking how those tasted with the frosting. I did not try filling them, so I ended up liking the hearts better than the filled footballs. I'd like to try a jelly filling next, maybe lemon.

Making Donuts Parts 1, 2, 3