Vanilla Ricotta Doughnuts

I love my morning routine. Once complete, I’m prepped to conquer the world.  It goes a little something like this: make a mug of green tea with honey; check emails and bank account; then onto my website list: nytimes, cnn, my long list of various food blogs and…TMZ.  I’m not really proud of it,  but it is a car wreck on the side of the highway that is the internet.  It’s a silly little nasty habit that I can’t seem to shake.

Last week TMZ reported that sugar cinnamon coated ricotta doughnuts were being served at Michael Jackson’s funeral and that sounded pretty darn delicious to me (umm…is that bad?).  At first I was a bit reluctant to try it simply because all of the MJ coverage was starting to get to me. I mean, I really don’t need to know what brand of underwear the king of pop was wearing when he took his last shot of demerol, like, let it go, people.  Who cares?  So as bizarre as it seemed, I started to dig around to see if I could find a recipe and luckily I came across this delicious recipe for Vanilla Ricotta Doughnuts. I made the batter and fried them up and then rolled them in a cinnamon sugar mixture.  I was a little displeased with the results; I felt like they were too crunchy and biting down on hard sugar felt a little odd, so I opted for plain dusted powdered sugar and was thrilled. Sometimes simplicity is where it’s at.  I also tried dipping them in some fig jam I had lying around in the fridge and it was heaven.

Vanilla Ricotta Doughnuts

Recipe by Gale Gand

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Vegetable oil, for frying
3 large eggs
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 pound or 1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

In a large saucepan, heat 2 inches of vegetable oil to 375˚.  Set a large wire rack over baking sheet, top with paper towels and position it near the saucepan.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat the eggs, granulated sugar and vanilla with wooden spoon. Add the ricotta and beat until smooth.  Add the flour and baking powder and beat just until blended.

Using a very small ice cream scoop or 2 teaspoons, slide 8 walnut-size rounds of batter into the hot oil.  Fry over moderate heat until deep golden all over and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the fritters to the rack to drain. Continue frying the remaining fritters in batches of 8. Arrange the fritters on a platter and dust well with confectioners’ sugar.