Recipe: Mrs. Wilder's Donuts

I came across a delightful reference to the donuts that Mrs. Wilder makes in Farmer Boy. The original post is here. Side note: I once planned to buy a building in Malone, NY. It went nowhere. But boy did I plan!

But since links often disappear, I'm going to recreate it here! So the text is not mine, any pictures are not mine. N.B. It looks like it's from The Little House Cookbook.

Aside: in regards to shape, I think it was in Farmer's Boy where someone talks about the newfangled shape that's round, and Ma Wilder says that the shape SHE uses turns itself in the heat -- she doesn't have time to flip donuts when they can just as easily flip themselves. So I think they should be a twisted stick. Anyway, here's the recipe:


The relevant quote from Farmer Boy:

Almanzo took the biggest doughnut from the pan and bit off its crisp end. Mother was rolling out the golden dough, slashing it into long strips, rolling and doubling and twisting the strips. Her fingers flew; you could hardly see them. The strips seemed to twist themselves under her hands, and to leap into the big copper kettle of swirling hot fat.

Here are ingredients for 2 dozen doughnuts:
1 to 2 lbs of coconut oil (or lard if you have it)
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I use Celtic sea salt)
1 cup sour cream (raw if you have it)
2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (Almanzo's mother would have used white)
Enough powdered sugar to sprinkle doughnuts with.


1. Melt oil or lard in Dutch oven over low heat until it reaches approximately 375 degrees. Don't let it get too hot!
2. Meanwhile, beat egg, baking soda and salt into the sour cream in a large bowl. Then mix in one cup of flour. After that, add the rest of the flour 1/4 of a cup at a time until dough is well mixed and can be rolled out.
3. Flour your work space well and roll out or press dough into a long rectangle that is about 4 inches by 16 inches and a 1/4 inch thick.
4. Cut the dough into 1/2 inch strips.
5. Here is the fun part! Twist dough like a corkscrew then bend in half and twist together pinching the ends together. My kids preferred to keep the hole in the center, so they kept their shapes round like traditional doughnuts we see today.


6. By now your oil should be hot. Carefully drop a test doughnut into the oil. It should only take about two minutes on each side for it to be nicely browned and crisp. Take it out of the oil and cut off a piece to see if it is done in the middle.
7. Place doughnuts on a paper towels and sprinkle both sides with powdered sugar. These are a guaranteed hit! We've had these for breakfast several times.
Put them in a container with a lid. Although I doubt they will last the day out