>Hi,
>I am looking for a good DONUT recipe.
>A friend told me that I need a special kind of flour to do that, is that
> true ?
>Thanks in advance
>Paul

You mean RAISED doughnuts, I hope, not CAKE.

If so, any flour denoted as "bread flour" will do just fine, and any rich,
sweet yeasted dough recipe ought to do, also. I use the following:

Add to two cups warm milk: 2 egg yolks, quarter cup granulated sugar, a
tablespoon of yeast. Once yeast has dissolved, gently stir in enough flour to
make a batter. Fold in a quarter cup of canola oil and about a teaspoon and a
half of salt. Then fold in enough flour to knead, and knead GENTLY AND
BRIEFLY, until the dough is barely firm, and let it rise in a greased covered
bowl. After two or three risings, roll it out into a 3/4-inch-thick sheet, cut
out with as large a doughnut cutting form as you can find*, reserving the
"holes." Place the doughnuts on a greased cookie sheet; join the "holes"
together in groups of three, moistening the contact points slightly with water,
to form little triangles, and place them also on the cookie sheet. Cover with a
barely damp paper towel, and let 'em rise another half hour. Don't
reconstitute and roll the leftover dough; make a loaf of bread out of it, since
it gets too tough after all that handling to make satisfactory doughnuts.

Deep fry doughnuts and "caltrops" in hot canola oil, turning once, and set them
to cool/drain on paper towels; spoon on a little dark-chocolate glaze**; or
powdered-sugar them; or honey-glaze them; or cinnamon-and-sugar them.

Neil

*doughnut cutters are hard to find; they seem to have been eliminated from
upscale kitchen supply stores, because the yuppies aren't respecting doughnuts
this year. Too much grease for SouthBeach; too much flour for Atkins.

**I use the dark chocolate glaze exclusively. You can get something
satisfactory by melting 12 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips in a double
boiler, adding 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, half-teaspoon of vanilla, and
then enough water to get a thin consistency, and stiring. Or you can take all
kinds of trouble concocting a genuine buttercream, but I don't want to attempt
to describe how to do that here.