Raspberry Shortcake Donuts and a Giveaway!

A wonderfully warm welcome to my dear friend, Ginger Bolton. A number of us on Mystery Lovers Kitchen started out writing about the same time and Ginger was part of our group! I'm delighted to see her latest book, Jealousy Filled Donuts. Don't forget to enter her giveaway below!

When I was a kid, we lived on a hill that sloped toward the south. We had plenty of room to run up and down that sunny hill. We had a three-story-tall cherry tree that could hide at least three children on its lower branches alone. We had apple trees, a pear tree, and the most glorious and very rare Franklinia tree that gave us creamy white blossoms about this time of year. We had a grape arbor and a rhubarb patch.

With all that sunshine, my father’s garden was legendary—he grew tomatoes, green beans, beets, Swiss chard, kale, carrots, and I forget what else. My mother canned and preserved. I snapped piles of beans, and the entire house smelled of tomatoes cooking. We ate from that garden year-round.

And we had a raspberry patch. It bore fruit in the spring and late summer. It bore lots and lots of fruit. Ignoring the scratches to her arms and hands, my mother picked and picked. We couldn’t keep up with eating the raspberries. Pints and quarts of them were stored in my uncle and aunt’s freezer and brought out for holidays. 

My mother used plain yellow cake as the shortcake.

 Since then, I have been known to make true shortcake, which is easy and yummy.

However, my Deputy Donut Mysteries are about donuts, so I had to try donuts instead of shortcake or yellow cake.

Raspberry Shortcake Donuts

Donuts

3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons warm water

¼ cup unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons active dry yeast

3/4 cup sugar

4 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg, room temperature

If frying your donuts: vegetable oil with a smoke point of 400° or higher (or follow your deep fryer’s instruction manual)

In your mixer bowl, combine the warm water, butter, yeast, and sugar. Stir.

Attach the dough hook and slowly stir 3 cups of the flour, the salt, and the egg to the yeast mixture. When blended, add the remaining flour 1/4 cup at a time and knead with the dough hook. If the dough is too sticky, carefully add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue kneading—this might take some time—with the dough hook until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl, is satiny, doesn’t stick to your fingers, and doesn’t keep its shape when pinched. It should still feel slightly sticky. Too much flour will make the donuts tough. Too little will make them stick to everything.

Cover the top of the bowl with a damp cloth or plastic food wrap and allow the dough to rise until it doubles in volume.

Punch the dough down.

Cover the top of the bowl again with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and allow to rise overnight in the fridge.

Divide the dough and shape each half into a large ball. Keeping one ball of the dough covered, roll the other ball to about ¼ inch thick between two sheets of parchment paper.

Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and cut out rounds with a plain round cookie or biscuit cutter. Shape the scraps into a ball and roll and cut that dough, also. Cover the cut donuts with a damp cloth or plastic food wrap.

Roll and cut the second ball of dough with the same cookie cutter, but this time, cut holes in the middle with a tiny round canape cutter. Cover these cut donuts and donut holes with a damp cloth or plastic food wrap.

Allow the donuts to double in height.

Fry the donuts at 345º about 2 – 3 minutes until they turn golden brown around the bottom edges. Turn them and cook them until their bottoms are golden-brown, another 2 – 3 minutes. The donut holes will cook in much less time. Watch carefully to prevent burning. Lift them from the oil and allow some of the oil to drip off. Drain the donuts on paper towels.

OR bake the donuts on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet in a 375º oven for about 10 minutes until the tops are golden.

Allow the donuts to cool.

Raspberry Topping

Fresh raspberries

Granulated sugar

OR frozen raspberries

If you’re using fresh berries, rinse them and put them in a bowl with two tablespoons of sugar per pint of berries. Stir, cover, and refrigerate.

If you’re using frozen berries, thaw them.

Other Toppings (optional)

Whipped cream

Cointreau

To assemble:

            Slice the donuts in half horizontally. Place half a round one, cut side up, in a bowl or on a plate. Top with a generous amount of sugared or thawed frozen raspberries. Place half a donut with a hole, cut side down, on the raspberries. Top with another generous amount of raspberries, a dollop of whipped cream, and a fried donut hole. Drizzle Cointreau over it to taste.

Jealousy Filled Donuts will be in stores on August 27.

When a firecracker becomes a murder weapon, Emily Westhill pursues a killer with a short fuse …
 
It is a truth universally acknowledged—cops and donuts go together. Exhibit A: Deputy Donut Café, owned and operated by detective's widow Emily Westhill and her father-in-law, the retired police chief of Fallingbrook, Wisconsin. Named after Emily's adored and adorable tabby, the donut shop is a favorite among cops, firemen, and EMTs, as well as tourists and townspeople. So when Fallingbrook needs donuts for their Fourth of July picnic, Emily's shop gets deputized.

But a twisted killer has found another use for Emily's treats. At the picnic, a firecracker is hidden in a stack of raspberry-filled donuts and aimed at the unwitting queen of the festivities. When it explodes, she is killed. Having her jelly donuts involved puts Emily in a sticky situation, and when a shady shutterbug tries to frame her with incriminating photos, she finds herself in quite a jam. To preserve her freedom and her shop's reputation, Emily needs to solve this case—before the fuse-lighting felon goes off again …

Praise for Jealousy Filled Donuts:

Grab yourself a donut and a copy of this page turner! - Connie Wilson, Editor-in-Chief, moderncat

Bolton keeps the reader guessing throughout. Yummy donut recipes round out a whodunit (or is it a whodonut?) sure to please cozy fans. - Publishers Weekly

Ginger Bolton writes the Deputy Donut mystery series—coffee, donuts, cops, danger, and one curious cat . . . Jealousy Filled Donuts is the third in the series after Survival of the Fritters and Goodbye Cruller World. When Ginger isn't writing or reading, she's crocheting, knitting, sewing, walking her two rescue dogs and generally causing trouble. She’s also fond of donuts, coffee, and cafés were folks gather to enjoy those tasty treats and one another’s company. As Janet Bolin, Ginger wrote the Threadville Mysteries—murder and mayhem in a village of crafty shops.

Leave a comment below with your email address to enter Ginger's giveaway of a copy of JEALOUSY FILLED DOUGHNUTS!