Doughnuts

     My first foray into Grandma's recipes involved doughnuts. But first I want to show you a picture of the box in which I found my treasures:

     I thought I would choose this recipe, because it looked fairly straightforward.

     It's written in pencil on the back of a blanket tag. My first question was in what should I fry the doughnuts? I wanted to be as authentic as possible and my three choices seemed to be vegetable oil, shortening, or lard. Of course, I went with lard. My next mission was to find some lard. I wasn't actually sure that they still sold lard, as it seems to be somewhat un-PC as far as ingredients go, being unhealthy and all. But I remember as a kid, seeing red boxes of REX lard in the refrigerator section, over by the bacon, so that was my first stop. I didn't see any lard. I spotted the meat department guy and asked him if he carried lard. He looked at me funny. I explained to him I was making an old recipe and thought perhaps I ought to have some lard. He said to look over by the shortening and oil, which idea I pooh-poohed because I thought, being an animal product, lard ought to be refrigerated. Convinced then, that I was going to have to settle for shortening, I went to get a can and look what I found!

     Alright then. I got home and was eager to try this recipe. DOUGHNUTS!!!

     I put about three LARGE spoonfuls of lard in my dutch oven to melt while I mixed the other ingredients. Melted, it equaled about three inches of lard.

 

I then started adding ingredients to Grandma's big yellow bowl.

 1/2 cup sugar

 

2 egg (sic)

1 cup milk

4 level teaspoon B Powder (sic)

Enough flower (sic) to make it thick (I tried about 2 1/3 cups)

  Fry

I dropped by tablespoonful into the hot lard and as they turned golden on one side they turned themselves over. Unfortunately...

 they became quite brown rather quickly but were still doughy in the middle. So I dropped them by smaller spoonfuls and...

they still turned quite brown, but got done in the middle. I dusted them with sugar. They didn't taste too bad, though there was a definite hint of lard. I recommend vegetable oil or shortening. They tasted much better fresh. The next morning they were a little soggy and dry...don't ask how that works, it just is.... Definitely would have been more edible dunked in coffee.

And in case you eat too many of them:

 Here's a recipe that might help that...

(oops, got them backwards on the scanner...).