Chocolate Doughnut Holes

Another Smitten Kitchen recipe, and another winner. This doughnut was more like a dessert than a breakfast treat. If you take brownie and deep fry it, then drench it in a glaze, you'd get these doughnuts.

I halved the recipe, and made my own buttermilk. In hindsight, I don't think I let my homemade buttermilk curdle quite long enough before using it. What can I say, I was impatient to get these made and in my mouth! A few other notes - this is a very stick batter, but it helps to keep it chilled to form the holes. I used a cookie dough scoop to quickly form the doughnut holes. While that worked well to quickly form them, they turned out a bit too big after deep frying....definitely a 2-3 bite sized hole. And, the deep frying was a bit of a challenge. Given that the dough was nearly black to start with, it was hard to tell when they'd cooked all the way! You can't rely on the typical doneness measure of "golden brown" doughnuts or french fries, or other yummy deep fried things...

Overall, delicious!!

Here's the recipe, adapted from the Smitten Kitchen
Doughnuts:
Ingredients for 4 dozen 1.5-inch holes:

• 2 3/4 cups (12 3/8 ounces or 352 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (3 ounces or 90 grams) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa
• 2 teaspoons (about 3/8 ounce or 10 grams) baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon (about 1/8 ounces or 4 grams) salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 (10 5/8 ounces or 300 grams) cups sugar
• 1/3 cup (2 7/8 ounce or 84 grams) sour cream or buttermilk
• 3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces or 42 grams) butter, melted and cooled a bit
• Your fat of choice for frying

Directions:

1. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. In a medium one, whisk eggs, sugar, sour cream or buttermilk and butter. Stir wet ingredients into dry until well blended. Chill batter until cold, at least 1 hour and up to 3.
2. Working quickly using a small cookie scoop, scoop out the doughnut holes. Chill the dough if you find it becomes too sticky. Alternatively, using a generous amount of flour on your surface, pat the dough flat into about 1/2 inch thick, then using a 1.25 - 1.5 inch cutter, quickly cut out the holes, reform the scraps and keep cutting until the dough is all used up.
3. Prepare your fryer or fill a 5 to 6-quart with 4 inches of oil. Heat to 375°F (190°C). Suggestion for figuring out when they're done is to recognize the very subtle change in color. Test a scrap to get a feel for it!
4. Drain doughnut holes on a stack of paper towels. Once cool, roll in glaze (below) and let drain and dry on cooling racks.

Glaze:
Ingredients:

• 8 ounces powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons water, milk or buttermilk
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Whisk together until smooth. If you need it thinner, add more water, milk or buttermilk, a few drops at a time.