“I don’t feel so good,” Zoe said and lay down on the kitchen floor.
I looked over at the tray of doughnuts. Two unfilled ones were missing.
Zoe lifted her shirt and looked down. “Belly says doughnuts are bad.”
“Tell Belly not to be such a pig,” I said and lay down on the floor next to her. The phew was gone, and all that was left was the now-what emptiness growing bigger every second like a black hole.
“Does your tummy hurt too?”
“Sort of.”
“Make circles. It helps,” she said, petting her belly.
“I don’t think circles will work this time.”
As Zoe groaned and rolled around on the floor next to me, I tried to happy thought my way to Shazzam:
Happy Thought #1: Winnie’s doughnuts were mind-blowing.
Happy Thought #2: Winnie’s doughnuts were going to make the Doughnut Stop a huge success.
Happy Thought #3: Winnie’s—
And that’s when it hit me. I knew what was wrong. And I knew exactly what I had to do to fix it.
I jumped up and ran around the kitchen gathering ingredients.
“What are you doing?” Zoe groaned.
“Making more doughnuts.”
“Uggg. Why?”
Mom always talked about needing to make a recipe her own, but I’d never understood why before now.
Anybody could follow a recipe. Robots could do that and even did in those big cookie factories where they made Oreos and Fig Newtons. But those robots weren’t really making something; they were just following instructions the same way they do when they make cars or anything else. I didn’t want doughnuts from the Doughnut Stop to be something a robot could make you with Winnie’s three cards. I wanted to put something of me in there too.
Robots couldn’t change a recipe. They did everything exactly the same each time. But I didn’t have to. I’d followed enough recipes to know how they worked, and I could experiment and make this recipe my own. I didn’t mean I wanted to make Tris Levin’s Chocolate Cream Doughnuts. That’s not what this was about. The chicken soup Mom made was still Grandma Esme’s Cold Cure Soup even though she never made it exactly the same way. Without Winnie, Petersville never would have had chocolate cream doughnuts, and without her recipe, I’d never be able to bring them back. They’d always be Winnie Hammond’s Famous Chocolate Cream Doughnuts. I just hoped I’d be able to get her to understand that when I told her that I’d tinkered with her recipe. I was less worried about how Josh would take it since I was pretty sure he’d be okay with it as long as the doughnuts were still mind-blowing.
I ran to the refrigerator and pulled a bowl of leftovers from the top shelf.
“What’s that?” Zoe asked.
“Mashed potatoes.”
“For the doughnuts?”
“Yup.”
“I don’t want your doughnuts,” Zoe said as she rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes.
I know. I know. Mashed potato doughnuts? Sounds even crazier than olive oil ice cream. But Mom had told me once that if you substitute mashed potatoes for some of the flour, they’ll make whatever you’re baking lighter. Winnie’s doughnuts were awesome, but I wanted mine fluffier, and I was going to use mashed potatoes to do it. Mom’s mashed potatoes were just potato. This was for Jeanine, who was always complaining about how Mom had to “fancy” everything up. Mom made them every week, and we always had a ton of leftovers. If this worked, I figured I could just chip in for potatoes.
So, as Zoe napped on the kitchen floor, I mapped out a new recipe.
After an hour of thinking and looking through cookbooks, I had a plan. I’d come up with three new ingredients: mashed potatoes for the dough and balsamic vinegar and instant coffee (no caffeine) for the chocolate cream. Since the doughnut was so sweet, I wanted to make the cream less sweet, more chocolaty. One of the cookbooks said a little balsamic vinegar gives chocolate a stronger flavor. The coffee was a trick I’d seen Mom use when she doesn’t want milk chocolate to taste too sweet. The instant stuff just dissolves so it’s easy to use. I’d have to be careful not to put in too much though, or I’d end up with mocha cream doughnuts.
I made three small batches of dough. In the first one, I used mashed potatoes for half of the flour, then in the second, I used it for only a third, and in the last one, just a quarter.
While the dough was rising, I experimented with the cream. On their own, the vinegar and the coffee gave the chocolate exactly what I was going for, but together, they made it a bit bitter. In the end, I chose the coffee because I liked the way it upped the cocoa flavor.
Once I’d fried and rolled the doughnuts, I tasted one from each batch. The winner was obvious. It was by far the lightest. It had the same yummy flavor as Winnie’s, but it tasted more like cake. Since mashed potatoes were supposed to make the doughnuts lighter, it surprised me that the lightest one had the smallest amount of potato. It just goes to show you that in cooking, more isn’t always better. That meant I’d just need one cup of mashed potatoes per batch, which would be easy to swing even if I ended up having to make them myself.
By the time I was ready to start stuffing, it was getting dark and Zoe was just waking up from her marathon nap.
“Feel better?” I said.
She rolled onto her side and sat up. “I’m hungry.”
I wasn’t surprised. It had been almost two hours since she’d eaten the doughnuts, and I’d forgotten to feed us lunch. We were both in need of some real food.
Minutes later, we were eating leftover chicken looking out the window at rabbits playing freeze tag on the front lawn. Something you may not know: rabbits are seriously good freezers.
“Did you really put mashed potato in the doughnuts?” Zoe asked, pointing to the empty bowl with her chicken leg.
“Yup, and they’re
