I don’t know whether to call this experiment a success or a monumental failure. Certainly, if you look at the cost, I have failed and in a rather grand fashion. If you factor in taste, put a tick back in the success column. Looks, hmm… if you like your vodka to look rather like orange juice, SCORE!, but I am guessing you do not, so, fail again. Does learning count? Is no experiment a failed experiment?
I’ll back up a bit. Christianna, my lovely friend from Burwell General Store leads 20+ food bloggers in this really cool project every month. We remake vintage recipes from a little book called All-Day Singin’ and Dinner on the Ground. This is the fourth swap, I’ve participated in. My past recipes involved turning an old school cake into this lemon cake with rosemary caramael, Ozarkian Taffy Apples into these sopapillas, and Grandma’s chicken stew with drop biscuits into this Thai curry.
Finding The Inspiration:
I had a bit of a hard time deciding what to do this time. I thought of doing desert gnocchi, but someone jumped on that pretty quickly, then I thought of making some sort of pan-fried breaded croquette with a sweet oozy filling, but I found myself feeling uninspired by any of those things. I thought I had settled on a homemade shake and French fries for dipping (yum). I was discussing this plan with my husband over a plate of fries and a soy gelato shake when he started waxing poetic about the potato.
“You know, the potato… Andes… Peru… brilliant… perfect… Vodka…”
“Wait, that is perfect! That is the best idea ever!” I stopped him mid-sentence.
I decided I had to make donut-infused potato vodka for this month’s recipe swap! And for the final touch, I would make a coffee flavored whipped cream and make little cocktails so you could savor coffee and doughnuts in a glass.
Procuring The Goods:
So, I set about heading to the best donut shop in the city, Dynamo Donuts to purchase a half dozen of their vanilla bean donuts. These donuts don’t come cheap, but they are amazing, with light fluffy bodies, and inventive flavors. They taste yeasty and fresh and a tad crispy on the outside while light and doughy on the inside. Those were easy to find- Dynamo is just a few blocks from my house. Potato vodka, on the other hand, was not so easy to find. We drove all over the City- going to a total of six liquor stores before we found straight potato vodka. Finally, I found Chopin Potato.
Making The Infusion:
Note, I am not suggesting you actually do this. I will call this a recipe for what not to do. Or- what to do if you want to turn two delicious expensive things into one delicious ridiculously expensive thing.
1. Wash your wide mouth, quart sized, Mason jar very well in hot water and dry
2. Fill jar with donuts up to the top (I used five)
3. Fill jar with potato vodka up to the top of the jar, and screw lid on
4. Store for 36 hours in cool dry place
5. Strain through cheese cloth lined sieve
6. Enjoy one shot of donut flavored vodka
Cost of ½ bottle of Chopin= $25
Cost for ½ dozen Dynamo Donuts= $10
Total cost for 1 oz of donut infused liquor produced= $35
Laughter at the extreme silliness of this experiment=priceless!
You may be wondering what happened to the coffee and donuts cocktail we had planned on creating. We decided not to dilute our $35 shot of vodka and just savor the amazing donutty goodness.
Visit all the blogs from the recipe swap for an amazing array of takes on what a potato doughnut can look like.
- Meet the Other Recipe Swappers
- Lindsay of Rosemarried
- Chef Dennis of More the a Mountfull
- Mari of The Unexpected Harvest
- Toni of Boulder Locavore
- Joy of the Herbed Kitchen
- Monique of Fat and Happy
- Shari of Good Food Week
- Priya of Sweet U
- Jennifer of Adventuresome Kitchen
- Lora of The Cake Duchess
- Pola of Cooking Italian in the Midwest
- Mary of The Gluten Freed Gourmet
- Jamie of Random Acts of Food
- Crissy and Lauren of the Little Yellow Kitchen
- Clair of Clearly Clair
- Nicolle of Rhythm of the Seasons
- Jacqueline of the Dusty Baker
- Linda of Everybody Eats
- Tricia of Eating is Art
- Cindy of Tyro Tidbits
- Merry-Jennifer of The Merry Gourmet
- Rachel Saunders of Blue Chair Fruit Jam
- Alli of An Open Cookbook
Aye, aye, aye……feeling for you on the pocketbook front but also thinking what a happy place the day would seem when starting off with one of these fully loaded donuts. Visionary, really. The photos are sublime as well.
Well even if you didn't end up with that much Vodka, it looks great! Plus the whole thing was extremely creative! And what about the doughnuts? I am sure they were delicious after soaking in Vodka!
Sabrina, I'm dying. This is absolutely hilarious. And yet, tragic? And yet a strange success. I hope you enjoyed every last drop over your overpriced donut vodka. You're the best. No really, you are.
Thanks love. It was a little tragic, but totally funny, for sure. (The best kind of comedy)
I kind of think you're the bees knees too. I love being in this mutual admiration society with you. Smooches.
Hahaha! Love it. Sounds like we had a similar experience this time around. As always, I love your participation and your voice, and always look forward to reading your blog. The photo of donuts in the jar is beautiful.
I think anytime you learn something you can count it as a success, and you did produce the intended product, so that too is a success, perhaps next time though we just eat the doughnuts and drink the vodka!! Great post and a wonderful read!
Such a creative idea…Wow I wouldn't have thought it would turn out yellow! It sounds really tasty!
so impressed! if it were me, i would have eaten all of the donuts and finished off the vodka!
love hearing about the swap!
That was always an option, Claire!
I love how your mind works. I can hardly imagine what a shot of doughnut flavored vodka tastes like, but I'd be up for tasting it.
Well, it tasted very very donutty and thick and syrupy. It was intense doughnut flavor. A powerful doughnut. I feel like I should say that with a Russian accent.
Sabrina, I love that you posted this with all it's failed glory. I can't believe all the vodka only produced 1 oz of donut vodka! Love it.
I know! What a hoot, huh?
Mmm, mmm, MMMMM! What a great idea! I have a feeling a shot of donut vodka is like a REALLY good bottle of wine you splurge on while visiting a vineyard and then savor every expensive sip of. Brava!
Thanks Jacqueline, I think I might just splurge on donuts and vodka or maybe try infusing for a much shorter time- start testing at an hour or two. It was a fun experiment nonetheless.
Do you think if you poured the vodka through a coffee filter it might be less cloudy? I seriously need to make this….pronto! 🙂
Oh, I\’ll bet a coffee filter would help- and do steep it for less time. Maybe with fewer donuts too.
Oh, I\’ll bet a coffee filter would help- and do steep it for less time. Maybe with fewer donuts too. Oh, and try straining through a Britta filter.
A coffee filter would work. Also, you could filter it through a britta if you were serious! I have heard you can triple filter less fancy vodka through britta filters and have very nice vodka in the end. I haven\’t tried. I just start at Kettle and work my way up from there. I don\’t mess around with vodka.
Well, a few things standard in infusing liquors you could try:
1) I'd take the doughnuts out, strain through a fine mesh sieve, and let the sediment settle for awhile (at least a month), then I'd rack the liquid from the top of the sediment.
2) Then I'd take the racked liquid and strain it through a coffee filter at least once (in addition to your cheesecloth which isn't nearly fine enough). Judging by what you've got there, probably more than once.
3) You could consider doing a fat wash, which is a newly developed technique where you freeze the liquid and any fat in the liquid will solidify and you can strain it out. I don't know what it'll do to your carbs though. The fat wash is used for things like actual Butter Rum, or Bacon Vodka (ew).
?One oz? Here's what worked for me. Allow vodka and donuts to sit for 24 hours. Strain through cheese cloth into second mason jar. Press donuts with potato masher. Again pour liquid through cheese cloth (to strain off big bits of donut). Hold donut jar at a tilt over cheese clothe press with potato masher one more time to gat as much liquid as possible out of donuts. Now… Pour cloudy donut vodka into a Britta pitcher, allow to purify" through filter. Result, clear (albeit colored) filtered donut flavored vodka! Starting with 750ml, end ending with 740ml. There is no way to get every drop of vodka out of the donuts, but if you'd like to eat the remaining smash, it's reminiscent of rum cake, very tasty..