The Spectacular Spudnut!

Melt in your mouth good!

In the summer of 2007, Lawyer Boy got to do an internship in Louisiana for the summer between his junior and senior year of college. When we were visiting, he brought some doughnuts to our hotel room. I thought they were doughnuts – but they were actually spudnuts! Spudnuts are crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside. They are shaped like doughnuts but made with either potatoes or potato flour. I searched and searched the internet for a recipe and all of them had real mashed potatoes in them. I’m not chef but the ones I had were far to light and fluffy to have heavy potatoes and the consistency just wasn’t representative of something that had bits in it. Then one day, I found a recipe that was approved by Deb Andersen who was the daughter of one of the Pelton brothers, the inventors of Spudnuts. I decided that the daughter of the inventor would know something about the recipe and this recipe used part potato flour and at the end of the makin’ of the spudnuts I realized that this indeed was the spudnuts I had in Louisiana – score!

First I had to find potato flour. Now an easy thing to do and it took me some time to do it. Finally, two weeks ago I found it and then I promptly forgot about them. Then, earlier in the week a new friend Jen from Juanita’s Cocina reminded me of them. Another plus was that I had today off work AND it is my friend Anita’s birthday on Saturday. So my virtual birthday treat to Anita are Spudnuts and her gift to me was to answer some questions I had about her food site Yum Goggle. I’m going to share the answers to those questions here in order to help you decide that whether you are a blogger or a casual reader and tryer of recipes – this is an excellent venue for both! So, let’s answer those questions first and then to the recipe – on I really want you to try because you will be hooked!!

Happy Birthday Anita, my friend!

Best Food Site Around!

Anita, please tell us a little about Hungry Couple.

Hungry Couple began nearly 6 years ago as a place for the two of us to write restaurant reviews. We both loved good food and it was kind of a little project that we could do together. I’ve been cooking since I was a teenager but it never occurred to me to put my recipes on that blog until I started to get familiar with other bloggers. Over time, the reviews became less important (we still do post them on Yelp and Trip Advisor) and the recipe section grew dramatically. I still post articles about our lives, our travels, etc. Even when I started adding the recipes I knew it would still need to be more.

When did you open Yum Goggle?

Yum Goggle was actually someone else’s brainchild but she was looking to sell and move out of the country for personal reasons. I bought it a few months ago and have been slowly working on making it mine, as it were.

The site has such an interesting name, is there a story there?

The word ‘goggle’ actually means to ogle or stare at and yum is self explanatory. I have to confess that I didn’t like the name at first and considered changing it. But, so many of the photo sites have names that sound so much alike that I’ve actually grown to like the uniqueness of the name.

When you began, what was your vision for the site?

The original owner worked at featuring a lot of professional photographers and imagined that their photo acceptance policy would be even more rigid than some of the well known competitors. I was pretty taken aback when she told me that because it’s not my vision at all. Fortunately, as soon as I had the “keys” I changed the policy. I’m a food blogger and photographer myself and so I know how bloggers feel. Yum Goggle’s new policy is that if you took the trouble to cook it and photograph it, we will show it off. After all, it’s about introducing your recipes to the world through your photos.

Now that you have spent some time with Yum Goggle, has that vision changed?

Quite the opposite. I’m more convinced than ever that my more inclusive policy is the way to go. I was a tad concerned that I might get some really awful photos but, the truth is that most of them are decent and quite a few are very, very good.

What is the most viewed recipe?

I actually don’t keep track of that so I don’t know. But I think it’s safe to say that desserts and sweets always garner the most attention and they’re the largest section.

If a blogger would like to join Yum Goggle, what advice would you give them?

Signing up is very simple. Just follow the links on the home page and it will ask you to enter your email address and choose a screen name and password. You’ll get a confirming email and, in no time, you’re ready to start submitting photos and looking around at the other delicious looking pictures on the site.

As you are well aware, there are many who steal others photographs and recipes – is it difficult to prevent? What do you do to safeguard against it at Yum Goggle?

Because I’m a photographer myself, I’m all too aware of the problem and the difficulty in cracking down on it. There really is no good way to prevent photo theft online and even watermarks are routinely removed by photo thieves. All I can do is maintain strong principles on the site and ask that people alert me if they see a problem. Any photo not belonging to the person submitting it (and it’s happened) will be swiftly removed.

For the blogger who has never joined a food site like yours but is anxious to try, would you go over the process of submitting and if there are any special photography skills needed?

We do have a few simple rules. The photo must be of one recipe because that’s how people search for things. Sometimes someone will submit an entire dinner but we’ll ask them to resubmit it one dish at a time. The photo should of the actual prepared dish. Sometimes folks will send in a photo of a zucchini instead of the gratin they made with it. Even if it’s a great photo of a zucchini, it won’t show people what the final dish should look like or tempt them to make it. Again, we’ll ask them to resubmit. And, of course, the photo must be your own.

Although we believe in featuring everybody’s work, we occasionally see photos that are so dark and/or so close up that it’s impossible to know what is in the picture. The best tips I can give to budding photographers is to turn off the flash and open the curtains. Natural light will do wonders for your photos. And, even if you’re working with an inexpensive little point and shoot camera, take it off the auto settings, read your manual and practice what you read. Cameras like that don’t usually allow you to control your speed or aperture so you’ll never get truly professional looking photos but you’ll still be amazed at the high quality you can achieve with them.

What do you have to offer someone who is looking for a few new recipes to try each week? Is there a Pinterest board?

We absolutely do have a Pinterest board at http://pinterest.com/yumgoggle. I’ve tried to group the pins by recipe type to make it easy to find meal or specific dish ideas. For example, beef, poultry and seafood all have their own boards as do side dishes, salads, etc. Desserts started out as one board but I started to see a lot of trends so now there are separate boards for cheesecakes, bundt cakes and brownies. We really do have so many wonderful recipes on there that it’s easy to get lost in all the delicious photos and ideas.

Is there anything else you would like to tell us about Yum Goggle?

I belong to several blogger groups and know their concerns when it comes to these types of photo sites. I had those same frustrations myself before I ever even considered owning one. But I think those experiences give me the best perspective on how to run a site like this. I know that many food bloggers expect quick results with lots of traffic. But it takes time and we have to help each other. The more we all contribute to the site, the more it will grow and generate profits for everyone. I do my part by pinning, tweeting, posting on Facebook and interacting on Google +. And it will always be a work in progress because there’s always room for newer and better ideas.

Thank you, Anita, so much for taking the time to answer these questions for me and allow me to share them with all my readers!

Sooooooooooo…………..head on over to Yum Goggle – right after you read this incredible recipe and tell me what you think about it!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm milk
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 1/2 tsp Instant Yeast
• 1 Large Egg at room temperature
• 2 cups sifted All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup of bread Flour
• 1/2 cup of Potato Flour
• Oil – I used canola.

Method:

1. Heat a 1/4 cup of your milk in microwave for 20 seconds
2. Place yeast in a small bowl with one tablespoon of sugar. Place in warm milk and stir. Let it rest
for five minutes.
3. Set up your mixer with dough hook and add 3 tablespoons of sugar, butter and salt and mix until just
combined.
4. Add one large egg and mix ( do not over mix)
5. Add rest of milk (3/4cup warm)
6. Add the flours a little at a time and then the yeast mixture.
7. Mix until it is a smooth dough – it is SO important NOT TO OVER WORK THE DOUGH!!!
8. It must resemble a smooth dough texture like bread dough.
9. Place smooth dough into an oiled bowl and cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise in a
warm spot for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
10. Place dough on well-floured surface (sprinkle some flour lightly)
11. Roll out with rolling pin to approximately 1/2 inch – let rest for a good five minutes.

12. Use doughnut cutter or the rim of a glass to cut out. Then cover with a dry kitchen towel and let rise for five minutes
13. Get your deep fryer cooker ready – heat to a maximum of 350 F
14. Add Spudnut dough a couple at a time and cook each side until golden brown.
15. Remove to drain on paper towels. Glaze while warm or you can sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Next I wanted to glaze them so I checked out the Six Sister’s recipe they used with their version of spudnuts and they are perfect!

The regular glaze.