"It's a good one..."

Our daughters both loved Little House on the Prairie, never tiring of re-runs of re-runs. When oldest daughter Stephanie was pregnant with first son Jackson, I’d call her mornings around 9AM. She’d answer the phone sniffling and obviously crying. I’d ask her, “Are you ok, is everything alright???” She’d answer,

“Yes, I’m watching Little House, it’s a good one”… then she would proceed to tell me every single detail about the episode! Little House on the Prairie had that effect on a lot of us. We craved it. We memorized it. We fantasized about living back then when a trip into Walnut Grove was a much anticipated event and the farm provided most of the things you needed to survive. It was a simpler, harder life than most of us can even begin to imagine, but somehow we desire that kind of life.

For my ancestors farming in Arkansas, it was their life; building their own houses, butchering their pigs in the fall, hard work and long days in the fields to provide food for survival. I’ve inherited so much from my own Grandparents who farmed the land that has been in their family since 1860, but how I wish I had recipes from Great Grandmothers. Treasured glimpses into the lives they lived back then.

Daughter Stephanie knows that I love cookbooks so when she came across

The Little House Cookbook at a book sale, she grabbed it for a Christmas present for me! It’s stuffed with recipes and tales of pioneer cooking like candy made from drizzling hot maple syrup onto snow, johnnycakes cooked over the open fire, and Little House doughnuts.
Here’s the recipe from The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker (Harper Collins, 1989)

The only thing I would change is Smart Balance oil to fry the doughnuts.

Doughnuts
For 2 dozen doughnuts you will need:
2 pounds lard
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
2¼ cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
a shaker full of powdered sugar
quart kettle
quart bowl
rolling pin
candy thermometer
Melt the lard in kettle over low heat. Beat egg, baking soda, and salt into the sour cream in the bowl. Beat in 1 cup of flour until well mixed. Continue to work in flour, ¼ cup at a time, until you have a dough that can be rolled. Roll the dough in a strip about 4 by 16 by ¼ inches. With a floured knife cut into inch strips about five eighth inch wide.
Heat the lard to 375 degrees F. Twist a strip like a corkscrew (it will stretch as you do); bring ends together and pinch them. Drop twisted dough in hot fat. In 2 minutes the dough should be brown on both sides, crisp and cooked through. If browning takes more than 3 minutes, the fat is not hot enough; if browning takes less time, the fat is too hot.
Remove cooked doughnut to brown paper to drain and coat it with powdered sugar. Continue twisting and cooking the remaining dough strips. Serve the doughnuts immediately.
*I think a little roll in some cinnamon sugar would be very good on these!
Printable Recipe