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Remove the dough from the bowl and roll it out ½-inch thick on a floured surface. Cut circles of dough with a 3-inch cutter. Cut the remaining scraps into 3-inch pieces. Place the dough circles and scraps on a piece of floured parchment paper and leave them to rise for 1½ to 2 hours until doubled in size.

Line two or three baking sheets with four layers of paper towels. Clip a candy thermometer onto a 4-quart pot and pour in the peanut oil. Heat the oil over a medium flame until the thermometer registers 350°F (or a piece of bread dropped in the oil bubbles instantly but doesn't turn dark brown right away).

Carefully place three or four doughnuts into the 4. oil. Fry until golden, about 1 to 1½ minutes per side. Bring the temperature back up to 350°F between batches. Transfer the doughnuts with a metal slotted spatula to the paper-towel-lined baking sheets. Repeat until all the doughnuts and scraps are fried.

Sift the confectioners' sugar generously over the warm doughnuts. When the doughnuts are cool, fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain metal tip with the jam. Plunge the tip into the bottom of each doughnut and squirt in a small amount of jam.

Makes about 1½ dozen doughnuts

If you plan to make these doughnuts often, it is worthwhile to invest $5 in a flavor injector, the kind with a sharp needlelike squirter. If you use one of these, plunge the needle tip through the side; it will leave a barely detectable hole.

Apple Pie

Harry is furious. He just lost his temper with Professor Umbridge, and when he enters the Great Hall for dinner everyone's talking about it. Unable to eat, he angrily asks why no one believes Dumbledore anymore. An equally angry but sympathetic Hermione forcefully suggests they leave the Great Hall, and a hungry Ron sadly leaves his apple pie behind (see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 13).

Apple pie's always been a favorite dessert, so much so that Elizabethan playwright Robert Greene complimented the ladies by comparing their breath to apple pies. Don't try it on your girlfriend, though. If you tell her, “Thy breath is like the steame of apple pyes,” she will run very fast in the other direction.

Pie Crust

2½ cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1¼ sticks (10 tablespoons) cold butter, cut into chunks

10 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into chunks

½ cup ice water

Filling

8 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 egg, lightly beaten, to brush over the crust

Sugar, for sprinkling the crust

For the crust, place the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter and shortening over the flour mixture. Pulse until the mixture resembles coarse yellow meal without any white powdery bits remaining, about 20 pulses. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle ½ cup water over the mixture and toss with a rubber spatula until the dough sticks together. Add more water 1 tablespoon at a time if the dough is dry (better too wet than too dry). Divide the dough in half, form into disks, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill at least 2 hours or up to 3 days.

To assemble and bake the pie, adjust the oven rack to the lowest position and place a baking sheet on the rack. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Remove one of the disks of dough from the refrigerator and roll it out on a floured surface to an 11-inch circle. Fold the dough into quarters, brushing off the excess flour with a pastry brush after each fold. Unfold the dough inside a 9-inch pie pan. Trim the overhang to 1 inch. Put the pan in the refrigerator while preparing the filling.

Combine the filling ingredients and pour them into the prepared crust, mounding the apples in the center.

Remove the second disk of dough from the refrigerator and roll it out on a floured surface to a 10-inch circle. Fold the dough into quarters