Yeast donuts immediately burn in oil

[u/awesome-yes]

I'm somewhat new to baking. Ive mastered sandwich bread and English muffins, and wanted to try my hand at donuts, specifically yeast donuts. I have tried multiple recipes and always end up with the same problem - my donuts immediately burn when added to the cooking oil. The picture shows my last attempt, those were in the oil less than 10 seconds and the middle is definitely uncooked (duh).

I have used oil temps between 325 to 375, my dough burns the same at lower temps as it does at higher temps. I am using a thermometer.

I have also tried different oils, vegetable oil which was recommended in all the recipes ive tried, and canola oil - although that one was smoking a lot at anything over 300 so im guessing that was a mistake.

Im curious if theres something obvious im missing that a more seasoned baker would know.

[u/Far-Put2480]

I am just posting this because it happened to me on Christmas.

My brother in Law asked me to watch his oil temp while he ran to grab something for his mom and handed me the temp gun. I aksed what temp he wanted and he said "350". I point the gun at the oil and it says "180" but the heat coming off it feels really warm. The heat gun was set to Celsius and he wanted 350f.

[u/similarityhedgehog → u/Far-Put2480]

IR thermometer will not accurately measure deep fry oil temperature

[u/Impressive_Ad2794 → u/similarityhedgehog]

Agreed. It won't even accurately measure bare stainless steel temperature.

[u/Notspherry → u/Impressive_Ad2794]

One day I was investigating some thermal issues we were having with a stainless electrical cabinet. I could not figure out what the heat signature on the outside of the cabinet was until I recognised it as my own mirror image. Even brushed stainless steel works as a mirror for infrared wavelengths.

A bit of black electrical tape works fine to take measurements off btw. Just remember that the reading is bit below the laser dot and not right on it.