Original Glazed Doughnuts

Ingredients
1 pkg (2¼ tspn) yeast
1½ tspn granulated sugar
¾ cup warm water (100° to 110°)
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ tspn salt
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp fat-free milk
¼ tspn vanilla extract
for Glaze :
1¾ cups plus 2 tbsp powdered sugar
¼ cup boiling water
6 to 12 cups vegetable shortening (as required by your fryer)

Preparation & Cooking Instructions

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let solution stand for 5 minutes or until it becomes foamy on top. Make sure the water isn't too hot, or you may kill the yeast.
Combine flour and salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Add yeast solution, egg yolk, milk, and vanilla extract and mix well with electric mixer for 30 seconds or just until all ingredients are combined.
Form dough into a ball, then let it sit in a bowl, covered, in a warm place for approximately one hour, or until the dough doubles in size.
Gently roll out the dough until it's about ½" thick on a floured surface. Use a well-floured lid from a plastic soda bottle (about 1 1/8-inch diameter) to cut the holes. You can also use a 3-inch doughnut cutter if you have one. Arrange the doughnuts on a couple of lightly floured cookie sheets, cover them with plastic wrap, and let them sit for one hour in a warm place. After about an hour, the doughnut should have doubled in size.
While the doughnuts rest, make the glaze by combining powdered sugar and boiling water. Whisk glaze until smooth, then cover with plastic wrap until you're ready to use it.
As doughnuts rise, heat vegetable shortening in fryer to 375°F.
When doughnuts have doubled in size, carefully transfer 2 to 3 doughnuts at a time to the shortening. You must lift the doughnuts very gently or they will collapse and not turn out as fluffy as the real thing. Fry doughnuts for 1½ to 2 minutes per side, then remove them to a cooling rack.
After a minute or so on the cooling rack, spoon glaze generously over the top of each doughnut. You want the entire surface for each doughnut well-coated with glaze. You can also recycle the glaze that falls through the rack by spooning it back into the bowl and stirring it up. Let the doughnuts cool for a few minutes, and they're ready to eat. Makes 10