Chocolate Donut Holes (cake type donut)

It's cherry blossom season here in Tokyo, and I was invited to a picnic tonight. I decided to make some Japanese fried chicken, and maybe some more American-like fried chicken. I wanted to make some cookies too since they are very portable and individually sized, but I don't have an oven! Since deep frying was on my mind, donuts were the logical second choice. It's not a traditional picnic food, but once you have donuts on your mind you really can't think about anything else. Besides, people are always impressed when you make homemade donuts. But I don't really have room to roll out the dough, so I made donut holes.

Makes about 18 large donut holes

Ingredients:
1 Cup Flour
1/3 Cup Cocoa Powder
2/3 Cup Sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 TBSP melted Butter
2 TBSP Plain Yogurt
1 Egg
1 tsp vanilla
Oil for deep frying

And if you are messy like me, you should put your apron on.

What to Do:

Start heating your oil to 375 degrees.

Stir together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

In a separate container mix the butter, yogurt, egg, and vanilla until the egg is well blended.


Slowly stir the wet ingredients into the dry dry ingredients. If it happens to be a wet day, you might need to put in a little extra flour but the dough should be kind of sticky. It might be easier to mix with your hands at the end.


Put some oil or flour on your hands, and then pull off little balls of the dough. The finished donut will be about twice as big as the ball of dough you pull off.


Drop the dough balls into 375 degree oil. After about a minute and a half or 2 minutes, give them a little nudge to flip them over. They should be finished in about another minute or so. You can't really tell if they are done by color with chocolate donuts, but you can try pushing them against the side of your pan with a kitchen utensil to see if they feel like they are cooked all the way through. If they are still really squishy feeling, they need to cook a little more.


Take our of the oil and put on some paper towels or other oil absorbing paper.

You can dip them in glaze or roll them in sugar, but they are good as is. The outside is a little crunchy like an old fashioned donut. These are best to eat the day you make them.