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6. Meanwhile, mix the glaze by adding milk to the confectioners’ sugar and beating until you have a smooth, pourable glaze. Place in a wide, shallow bowl. Dip each donut in the glaze. Place on a rack to let the glaze set. Eat within a few hours.

Makes about 18 donuts and 18 holes

WHAT TO DO WITH THE OIL?

Dealing with old frying oil is one of the more tiresome aspects of making many of our favorite foods. You can reuse the oil, unless you cooked something particularly messy or smelly. (In fact, according to Nathan Myhrvold, author of the 2,400-page, $625 Modernist Cuisine, recycled oil will give a crispier crust to fried foods than fresh oil.) When the oil is cool, strain it into a clean container to reuse four or five times. Use your common sense. I would not, for instance, use oil in which I’d fried fish sticks or onion rings to cook donuts. But I wouldn’t hesitate to use donut oil to fry fish sticks. When the oil starts to look grimy and smell stale, get rid of it. (Although according to Myhrvold, you should keep a few tablespoons to inoculate your new oil.)

Don’t slosh it down the drain or toilet unless you have a crush on your plumber. Some towns have recycling centers where you can drop off oil to be converted into animal feed or biodiesel. Alternatively, small amounts of oil can be poured into a sealable container (like the bottle it came in) and put out with the trash. I usually pour old oil into the blackberry brambles at the back of the yard. They’ve seen worse.

POP-TARTS

One weekend, Mark and I went out to brunch at a kitschy-chic restaurant in San Francisco called Foreign Cinema, where on the menu along with oysters on the half shell and a swordfish confit sandwich, they offered house-made Pop-Tarts for $7.50 apiece.

This Pop-Tart came on its own plate and it was almost twice the size of a Kellogg Pop-Tart. I was disappointed because it was neither frosted nor strewn with colored sugar. It was more like a flaky, buttery jam pie and it was very delicious. I came home and searched for recipes online, found a handful, and set to work. One came from King Arthur Flour via Deb Perelman of the blog Smitten Kitchen. The second was a “pocket pie” recipe from Alton Brown, and the third was a recipe from Bon Appétit contributed by none other than Gayle Pirie and John Clark, the chefs at Foreign Cinema. This is a hybrid of the three. When warm (or toasted), the buttery crust shatters between your teeth. These taste very posh but cost less than a “real” Pop-Tart.

Make it or buy it? Make it. Once.

Hassle: Major headache

Cost comparison: Homemade: about $0.40. A Kellogg Pop-Tart: about $0.50.

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

½ pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

¼ cup cold milk

Neutral vegetable oil, for greasing (optional)

1 egg

⅔ cup jam, any flavor

Sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

FOR THE ICING

½ cup sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 to 2 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

⅛ teaspoon vanilla extract

A few drops of food coloring (optional)

1. Whisk the flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Add the butter and, using your fingertips, quickly blend until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the milk and mix until clumpy. (You’re essentially making pie dough.) Form into a ball, then shape into a disk. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, or lightly grease. Beat the egg in a small bowl.

3. On a floured work surface, roll out the dough as thin as you can. If you have a fluted cutter, now is the time to use it. Using a ruler, cut the dough into rectangles 2½ by 4 inches. Reroll and cut the scraps.

4. Brush the perimeter of half of the dough rectangles with some egg. Spoon 2 teaspoons or so of jam into the middle of each egg-brushed