From Mrs. Gertrude E. Olsen of Mansfield, Massachusetts, comes this recipe. “My mother was always known as ‘Auntie’, or ‘The Doughnut Lady’ to the people of our community. Everyone loved her, and everyone loved her doughnuts. Each Saturday, she replenished our doughnut crock, and each Saturday the paper-boy, the mailman; the milkman, and the grocer lingered to chat a bit and enjoy some hot doughnuts straight from the kettle on the old wood-burning range. We children could hardly wait for the first doughnut holes, which she would fry on the pretext of testing the fat, but really to see our delight in savoring their goodness to the accompaniment of ice-cold milk. Here is the recipe as she wrote it out for me when I was married.”
Ingredients
1 quart flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 heaping teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
butter the size of a walnut
2 eggs
2 cups (approx.) sour milk
Instructions
Cream the sugar and the butter. Add the eggs, not beaten. Stir together and add sour milk. Sift together the dry ingredients and add the liquid mixture. Stir up well. If too thin to roll, add flour to handle. Roll, and fry in deep fat. Dip the doughnuts quickly in hot water immediately after cooking to remove the fat. Dip some in sugar, some in cinnamon and sugar, leave some plain. Place in the crock while warm, and leave top ajar until the doughnuts cool. (If you have no sour milk, add another teaspoon cream of tartar to sweet milk, but the doughnuts won’t be as good.)
