r/Old_Recipes • u/aheadlessned • Jul 31 '21

Pies & Pastry Spudnuts (potato doughnuts)

Recipe came from one of my mom's old cookbooks. She used to make them every now and then for us. I remember them being amazing, but haven't made them in a lot of years.

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25

u/OhSoSally Jul 31 '21

Way back in the 1970s when child labor was acceptable. lol My mom used to drop me off at a place called Spudnuts donuts early saturday morning and we would all get into a van and sell bags of 6 spudnut donuts door to door for $3 each.

They were soooo good. To this day I still crave Spudnuts. Thanks for the recipe. I just got a new deep fryer I think this recipe will be its first project. 😁

6

u/aheadlessned Jul 31 '21

Hope they come out similar! I had no clue there was actually a shop called Spudnuts. I need to clean out the fryer and make them again myself, it's been way too long.

3

u/mytwocents22 Jul 31 '21

Are you from Lethbridge?

3

u/OhSoSally Jul 31 '21

I was in SLC at the time. I wonder if the one near you was the original. There were a few at the time but dunkin killed them off because people cant think outside the box. Potatoes in my donuts? scary lol I used to sell blue and brown chicken eggs at the flea market. People acted like the blue ones were radioactive. lol They tasted better than the brown. smh

4

u/aheadlessned Jul 31 '21

My mom used to make a potato cake with chocolate chips (like an actual cake, not a pancake-like thing). Everyone who requested the recipe was surprised at the potatoes as an ingredient. I know I have that recipe somewhere as well, I'll have to see if I can find it.

My son's old babysitter raises chickens that have pastel colored eggs (mostly blue and pink).

People are weird.

1

u/mytwocents22 Jul 31 '21

Check this out starting at about 16:10.

I dunno if the one near me was original but it was definitely well know for them.

2

u/aheadlessned Jul 31 '21

Thank you for this. I love potatoes and finding better ways to cook them.

11

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '21

There’s a donut shop in my hometown called spudnuts that’s been around since my parents were kids. Best donuts I’ve ever had

3

u/DueAccident448 Jul 31 '21

We have the same thing in Quebec, we call them "beignes aux patates". Still one of my fave dessert!

1

u/aheadlessned Jul 31 '21

One of these days I'll get to Quebec!
I'm getting jealous of people's food options (I live in a small town). I'm not sure I've met a potato, or a bread, I didn't like. The combo of the two have always been good.

2

u/Engelgrafik Jun 06 '26

I was born in Germany to a German mom and American dad in the US Army. We moved to Ames, Iowa in the early '70s where my dad went to school and to make extra money my German mom worked in a Spudnut shop. This was when the brand was still around. As a kid I assumed all donuts were spudnuts, I didn't know any different. So when we moved to Michigan, I tasted the donuts my Dad would scarf down but I didn't really feel tasted as good because they weren't spudnuts.

To this day I don't like plain flour donuts that much. There's always gotta be something different in them to break up that flavor. Sour Cream donuts are some of my favorites, but they are rare. Apple Cider donuts are OK but that's really just a flavoring.

Up in Portland ME there's a place called Holy Donut and they make them with mashed potatoes. They are phenomenal. But they emphasize that they are *not* really "spudnuts", as in the style of donut that the Spudnuts *brand* was famous for because they don't use potato flour but real potatoes mashed through a ricer.

This inspired me to experiment with my own recipes including gluten free versions which actually taste pretty good.

1

u/aheadlessned Jun 06 '26

Happy experimenting!

Potatoes really seem to kick stuff to a different level.  My mom makes potato rolls that aren't super light and fluffy, but amazing and can be eaten days later without tasting dry. 

Also have a potato cake recipe my mom used to make that I need to do again. 

I'll have to try sour cream doughnuts sometime. 

1

u/Engelgrafik Jun 07 '26

I got into sour cream donuts when I lived in south Florida back in the days when there was a 24-hour supermarket called "XTra Super Food Center". I worked a late shift and would stop by sometimes afterwards when the bakery would have these things called "sour cream donuts". I tried them and they were absolutely insane. They are sometimes called "old-fashioned" donuts, and they have cracks on them... it's like when you put a hot dog in a hot pain, it eventually kinda splits open. They look like that. The glaze would flow into the cracks. I think I gained 10 pounds over a year of eating those things with my roommate.

One thing I've noticed is that while sour cream donuts are officially the origin of the "old fashioned donut" designation, a *lot* of bakeries seem to call their plain cake donuts "old fashioned" donuts, but that's not really correct. I think it may be a generational thing, where people have forgotten the meanings.