There are quite a few options when making donuts. This is really a donut/fried dough/pancake/bannock bread/skillet cake recipe depending on how one cooks it. If you have lots of oil in the pan its more of a fried dough or donut. If you have only a light layer of oil is more of a bannock bread or pancake. The ingredients chosen remain the same. Bannock bread is pancakes with about 1 tablespoon (Tbsp) of oil for 1 cup of flour mixed in.

Skip the baking powder and you can make a really thick crepe that Robyn has a fit about. Supposedly there can’t be really thick crepes. There can be, I assure you. I made them by accident one day when forgetting the baking powder.

As for materials on hand. Use any type of flour you have. There is too much non-sense wrapped in types of flour. If your a commercial kitchen making a consistent product – sure its relevant. If your making food at home to eat, it isn’t.

One thing that is not generally added to this recipe is extra sugars, besides the ones in the fruits. In the U.S., sugar is added to almost every food available. There is over-consumption of sugar daily. If your in a place without that issue, a teaspoon (Tsp) of sugar to 1 cup of flour is reasonable. I like to add sufficient quantity of dates for sweetness here. Your tsp of sugar can be cane sugar, molasses or honey.

Mix together these ingredients:
-1 Tsp of baking powder to every 1 cup of flour
Make you first batch a single cup of flour and confirm you like the product. The ratio of baking powder to flour seems more or less universal.
-1 egg per cup of flour
Adds fluffiness, can skip for a more dense product. There is a cutoff eventually if you keep adding more eggs the product becomes dense again. Still tastes good though.
-Milk, half and half, buttermilk, water
Mix in until you have a batter rather than a pile of dried flour. If your batter is really sticky, the end product tends to be more dense. If the batter is really thin, the product is fluffier. Mix thoroughly. I’ve have better product by mixing longer rather than cutting it short.
-Chopped fruit both dried and fresh
You can mix in as much chopped fruit as you want. More variety of fruit gives more flavors while eating. Examples for sweetness: Dried dates, dried apricots. Examples for richness: Dried figs, dried prunes. Examples for flavor variety: apples, bananas, berries
-Spices, 1/4 Tsp of or a dash
One can go too heavy on these spice examples. I generally go with 2 of these examples: ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg. Go easy on nutmeg as it is a poison to humans. I like to add plenty of cinnamon on top. Or you can go with a different fruit topping and whipped cream.
-Pinch of salt
Add a pinch of salt if your cooking oil is not lard. Cooking in lard adds a salty flavor already.

Cooking oil:
Oil choices are anything available. My favored is lard for the added flavors. You can also use canola oil, olive oil or grapeseed oil. Butter seems to smoke off pretty quickly for pancakes.

If frying with oil inside, have a lid available for the pan. This will keep the oil from jumping out and it can be smothered quickly in case of fire. Use a long sleeve shirt and apron if available. You can deep fry (use lots of oil) for donuts or fried dough. If your using more oil, cook at a lower temperature for your fried item absorb more oil. A higher temperature to absorb less oil. If you cook at a higher temperature for less oil, go thinner on your fried dough. Otherwise you will end up with a burnt outside and a gooey inside. Put you fried item directly on a wooden cutting board if you have one, this will help oil the board. Keep the used oil in a glass container to reuse again.

You can do a light pan oil coating for pancakes or bannock bread. As hungry as you may be, don’t crank up the heat for either. A better product comes with patience. If the pancake or bannock bread is taking too long of course turn it hotter. If you have it too hot, your going to have a black crusted outside by the time your done.

If your just starting on cooking and can’t tell if something is done yet, take it off the pan and cut it in half. If it isn’t done yet put it back cooking. This is where lower heat is more forgiving, as you don’t end up with something that is burnt on the outside.