When my grandmother passed away I unearthed, in her garage, a large envelope stuffed full and carefully labelled: Recipes Collected For Years. In it I discovered a gold mine: booklets from the ’50s with tips on how to bake prize-winning cookies, a school-issued curriculum for young ladies, Tested Recipes, published in 1898 and yellow with age… and recipes for treats written in my own eight-year-old scrawl.

Making homemade doughnuts is something of a lost art, in my world, but I found a few pages on the topic in Grandma’s file, and gave it a try.

Surprisingly, an adapted version of Grandma’s Old Fashioned French Crueller recipe produced something that reminded my husband of roscones – a Peruvian treat – so… for those who want to attempt doughnuts at home for the first time, here’s an American-Peruvian recipe that’s easy and delicious.

3 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup soft butter or margerine
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup milk
oil (canola or vegetable)
icing sugar

1. Beat eggs with sugar and butter until light and fluffy – about 3 minutes.
2. Sift flour with baking powder, salt and nutmeg: set aside.
3. Beat milk into egg mixture.
4. Add half of the flour mixture gradually, beat until combined and smooth. Beat in the rest of the flour – dough will be stiff. Chill for 1 hour.
5. Shape chilled dough in balls, use thumb to make a hole in the middle and shape each into an “O”. Thinner, smaller doughnuts are easier to cook through without burning. Test a small bit of batter in the oil to see if it is hot… dough should float to the top after a moment. Fry each until golden brown on both sides – about 3 minutes.
6. Sprinkle cooked doughnuts with icing sugar. Makes 36.

Photo Credit: My daughter – thank you!