Homer Simpson Donut Recipe With Pink Frosting
5 min read
This Homer Simpson donut recipe makes the pink one: a yeast-raised ring donut, bright pink glaze, rainbow sprinkles. Below is the fried version, a baked alternative, and the glaze.
Not a baker? The Simpsons t-shirts need no oil thermometer.
The anatomy of a Simpsons donut
A ring donut with a hole, not a filled one and not a cruller. The glaze is bright, slightly warm pink, closer to a birthday cake than a French patisserie. The sprinkles are rainbow, and they're the long, thin kind (jimmies), not round hundreds and thousands. The donut underneath is soft and light, which is why this recipe uses yeast rather than a cake batter.
Part 1: The donut dough
This dough needs two rises, so give yourself about three hours from start to glaze.
Ingredients (dough)
- 240ml full-cream milk, warmed to 40°C
- 7g instant dried yeast (one sachet)
- 50g caster sugar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 115g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 420g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
Method (dough)
Activate the yeast. Stir the warm milk, yeast and a pinch of the sugar together in a large bowl. Leave it 5 to 10 minutes until it foams. No foam means dead yeast. Start again with a fresh sachet.
Mix. Whisk in the rest of the sugar, the eggs, butter, vanilla and salt. Add the flour gradually with a wooden spoon until you have a shaggy dough, then knead it in the bowl for 2 to 3 minutes until smooth.
Stop adding flour once it holds together. The dough should be soft and a little sticky. Too much flour gives you dense, bready donuts.
First rise. Cover the bowl and leave it somewhere warm for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until doubled.
Cut. Roll the dough to 1cm thick on a floured bench. Cut rounds with an 8cm cutter and the holes with a 3cm cutter. Space them out on trays lined with baking paper. Fry the holes too.
Second rise. Cover loosely and leave 30 to 45 minutes, until puffy. Poke one gently. It should spring back slowly.
Part 2: Frying (traditional method)
You need a heavy pot, about 2 litres of vegetable or canola oil, a thermometer, a slotted spoon and a wire rack over a tray.
Heat 7cm of oil to 175°C. Lower 2 or 3 donuts in at a time and fry 1 to 2 minutes a side, until golden. The holes take about a minute. Drain on the rack.
The oil temperature drops every time donuts go in, so check it and let it climb back to 175°C between batches. Too hot and the outside browns before the middle cooks. Too cool and the donuts soak up oil.
Let them cool completely before glazing.
Part 2 (alternative): Baking
Baked donuts are less work and less mess. They come out more like a soft bread roll than a fried donut, but they take the glaze just as well.
Heat the oven to 190°C. Make, cut and prove the dough exactly as above. Brush the donuts lightly with melted butter and bake 10 to 12 minutes, until golden and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath. Cool on a rack before glazing.
Part 3: The pink frosting
Ingredients (frosting)
- 300g icing sugar, sifted
- 3 to 4 tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Pink gel food colouring, plus a drop of red
- Rainbow sprinkles
The colour
Gel colouring gives a stronger pink with less liquid. Start with about 1/4 tsp of pink and add one small drop of red to warm it up. Mix fully before adding more. You're aiming for bright and even, not pastel and not neon. With liquid colouring, start at 8 to 10 drops of pink and 2 to 3 of red.
Glazing
Whisk the icing sugar, 3 tbsp milk and vanilla until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Add the colour and mix until there are no streaks. Thin with milk or thicken with sugar as needed.
Dip the top of each cooled donut in the glaze, twist and lift, and let the excess drip back into the bowl. Add the sprinkles straight away. The glaze sets within a minute or two and they won't stick after that. Leave the donuts on the rack for 15 minutes to set.
The Lard Lad connection
Springfield's donut shop is Lard Lad Donuts, with a giant statue of its mascot out front holding an enormous donut. Wikipedia calls it a "Big Boy-inspired donut chain".
Its big episode is the "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores" segment of "Treehouse of Horror VI" (Season 7, Episode 6). Homer walks in and orders "a colossal donut just like the one on the sign". There's no such donut. The giant one is just part of the statue. So he steals it from the statue that night, and during a storm Lard Lad and the town's other advertising mascots come to life and start wrecking Springfield.
Donut variations from The Simpsons
The other big donut episode is "The Devil and Homer Simpson", the third segment of "Treehouse of Horror IV" (Season 5, Episode 5).
Homer says, out loud, "I'd sell my soul for a doughnut!" The Devil, who turns out to be Ned Flanders, is happy to arrange it. The deal is only done once Homer finishes the donut, so he stops short of the last bite. He goes back for it anyway: "Mmm! Forbidden doughnut."
In Hell, the punishment is all the doughnuts in the world, fed to him nonstop. Homer's response is "More." Marge eventually wins his soul back at a trial, and Flanders gets his revenge by turning Homer's head into a donut.
Troubleshooting
Dense, heavy donuts. The dough didn't rise enough, or it took too much flour. Give it longer next time.
Greasy donuts. The oil was too cool. Check it with the thermometer before every batch.
Raw in the middle. The oil was too hot, so the outside cooked first. Lower the heat a little.
Runny glaze. Add icing sugar a spoonful at a time.
Thick glaze. Add milk a teaspoon at a time.
Sprinkles falling off. The glaze had set before they went on. Sprinkle each donut as soon as it comes out of the glaze.
Storage
Glazed donuts are best within 4 to 6 hours. After that the glaze goes tacky and the donut goes stale.
Unglazed donuts keep overnight in an airtight container. Glaze them fresh in the morning.
Don't refrigerate them. They turn rubbery.
Unglazed donuts freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw at room temperature, then glaze.
Scaling up
This makes 12. For 24, double everything but mix the dough in two batches unless your bowl is very big. Fry in the same small batches and keep checking the oil. Make more glaze and more sprinkles than you think you need.
More Springfield food: Moon Waffles for breakfast, or the full Simpsons recipes index.
