Donas de Papa Yucatecas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Potato ricer or fine-mesh sieve
• •Stand mixer with dough hook (or strong arms and a wooden spoon)
• •Heavy 5-quart pot at least 6 inches deep for frying
• •Candy or deep-fry thermometer
• •3-inch round cutter and 1-inch cutter (or a clean bottle cap)
• •Wire cooling rack set over a sheet pan
• •Chopsticks or a long-handled slotted spoon

Instructions

1. 1

   Cook and rice the potato

   Place the peeled potato chunks in a pot of cold salted water. Bring to a boil and cook until a knife slides through with no resistance, about 18 minutes. Drain well and let the steam release for two full minutes before you do anything else. Wet potato makes wet dough, and wet dough makes heavy donuts. Pass the potato through a ricer or a fine mesh sieve. Do not use a food processor. The starch will turn gluey and the donut will be rubber. Measure out one cup, packed but not pressed, and let it cool to barely warm.

   If you use russet, choose the largest you can find. Yucatecan cooks use papa blanca from the local mercado, but russet behaves the same way. Waxy potatoes like red or Yukon Gold will not work. They hold too much water.
2. 2

   Wake the yeast

   Warm the milk to body temperature. Test it on the inside of your wrist. If you cannot feel it, it is right. If it stings, it will kill the yeast. Stir in one tablespoon of the sugar and all of the yeast. Let it sit for ten minutes until it foams up like a thin cap of cream. If nothing happens, your yeast is dead. Start over with fresh yeast. No me vengas con atajos.

3. 3

   Build the dough

   In the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook, combine the riced potato, the remaining sugar, eggs, egg yolk, softened lard, salt, vanilla, and the naranja agria zest. Mix on low until the lard breaks up and the mixture looks like a pale yellow paste. Pour in the foamy yeast mixture. Add the flour one cup at a time on low speed. The dough will look shaggy at first, then come together into a soft, slightly tacky mass. Knead on medium-low for eight minutes. It should pull cleanly from the sides of the bowl but still feel soft when you press it. Resist the urge to add more flour. A tight dough makes a tough donut.

   The naranja agria zest is what gives a Yucatecan dona its perfume. In the peninsula, naranja agria is in every backyard. If you cannot find one, the combination of orange and lime zest gets you close. Plain orange zest alone is too sweet.
4. 4

   First rise

   Scrape the dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let it rise in a warm spot until nearly doubled, about one hour. Yucatán is hot. The dough will rise fast in Mérida and slow in a cold kitchen. Watch the dough, not the clock. When you press a finger into it and the dent stays, it is ready.

5. 5

   Shape the donas

   Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Pat, do not roll, into a rectangle about one half inch thick. Cut with a three-inch round cutter, then punch a hole in the center with a small bottle cap or a one-inch cutter. Save the holes. They fry into the best bites in the basket. Place the shaped donas on parchment-lined sheet pans with at least two inches between them. Re-pat the scraps once and cut again. After the second pass, the dough toughens. Throw any further scraps away or fry them as ugly ones for the cook.

6. 6

   Second rise

   Cover the shaped donas loosely with a towel and let them rise for 30 to 45 minutes, until they look puffy and a finger pressed gently into the side leaves a slow-springing dent. Underproofed donas come out dense and tight. Overproofed donas collapse in the fryer. The middle is what you want.

7. 7

   Heat the frying fat

   Pour the lard or oil into a heavy, deep pot. You want at least three inches of fat. Heat it to 340F. Use a thermometer. Hot fat is the difference between a donut that absorbs grease and a donut that comes out light. Too cool and you fry a sponge. Too hot and the outside browns before the inside cooks. The classic Yucatecan panaderías fry in pork lard. La manteca es el sabor. If you fry in neutral oil, the donas are still good, but a true Yucatecan one carries the faint savor of manteca underneath the cinnamon sugar.

8. 8

   Fry in batches

   Whisk the coating sugar and ground canela together in a wide shallow bowl. Have it ready before you fry. Lift the donas with floured fingertips or a thin metal spatula and lower them gently into the fat, three or four at a time. Do not crowd the pot. Fry for 90 seconds, then flip with chopsticks or a slotted spoon. Fry another 90 seconds on the second side. They should be deep amber, the color of cajeta. Lift them out, let the fat drip back into the pot for a second, then move them straight onto a wire rack for 30 seconds.

   Adjust the heat between batches. The temperature will drop when you add the donas and climb back up when the pot is empty. A two-degree dance is normal. Anything more, adjust the burner.
9. 9

   Coat in canela sugar

   While still hot, toss the donas one by one in the cinnamon sugar. Both sides. Press lightly so the sugar sticks. The heat melts a thin layer of sugar against the crust and that is what gives a Yucatecan dona its signature half-crystalline coating. Do this the moment they come out of the fat. A cooled dona will not hold the sugar. Eat the first one standing over the bowl. That one is for the cook. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Use floury potatoes. Russet in the United States, papa blanca in Mexico. Waxy potatoes like red or Yukon Gold hold too much water and the dough will be slack and heavy. Pass them through a ricer, never a food processor. The processor turns the starch to glue.
• •Pork lard for frying is the Yucatecan tradition and the lard does carry into the flavor. If you cannot find good manteca, use a neutral high-smoke-point oil. Vegetable shortening fries them flat and bland. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •These keep at room temperature for two days in a paper bag, never plastic. Plastic traps the moisture and the sugar coating turns to syrup. A paper bag breathes the way the panadería display case does.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made through the first rise, then refrigerated overnight covered tightly. The next morning, let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before shaping. The cold ferment actually deepens the flavor.
• •The cinnamon sugar can be mixed up to a week ahead and stored in a sealed jar. Use Mexican Ceylon cinnamon, not the cassia sold as cinnamon in most American supermarkets. Cassia is too sharp and woody for this. Canela is softer, sweeter, more floral.
• •Donas de papa are best within four hours of frying but hold their texture for two full days at room temperature in a paper bag. They do not freeze well. The potato weeps when thawed and the crumb turns gummy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 78g)