Before You Toss Those Stale Donuts, Try Re-Frying Them

It's hard not to step into a donut shop like a wide-eyed, sugar-crazed child and order a full dozen, even though your roommate or partner is the only one at home available to eat them. After devouring a few, you're still left with a lot of donuts sitting on the counter, or stashed in the fridge, and regardless of how well they're kept, they're pastries that just don't hit right the day after.

There are several ways to rehabilitate a bunch of stale donuts, from using them in everything from day-old doughnut bread pudding to bite-sized cake pops, but if you want to keep it simple, there's one incredibly delicious solution. All you have to do to make stale glazed donuts magical again is re-fry them in a skillet with butter. Now you'll have soft, fresh-tasting donuts for breakfast for days on end! In fact, this reheating hack is so amazing, you might be tempted to let a dozen glazed beauties go stale on purpose.

All you have to do to refresh your day-old glazed donuts is melt a few tablespoons of butter in a non-stick skillet, enough to cover the bottom of the pan, and cook over medium heat until the butter almost starts to brown. Then place your stale glazed donuts in the pan to let the sugar caramelize. Be sure to flip them to get both sides nice and crisp, and if the butter looks like it might burn, lower the temperature and drop in another pat of cold butter.

The donuts will not only be hot again, the caramelized butter and sugar from the glaze will create a crispy outer layer, not unlike the top of a crème brûlée or a thin piece of English toffee. The result is so decadent, you could serve it for dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or just dive in with a fork and knife right after it comes out of the pan. It isn't out of the realm of possibilities that these buttery crisp, reheated glazed donuts will disappear faster than when they came fresh from the donut shop.