By Molly Watson, Sunset food writer

Most people are afraid to fry. I understand. It can be messy. The food can turn out greasy. It seems unhealthy in our low-fat, low-cal, no-trans-fat times.

And yet some foods demand a hot oil bath. (And, when done at the right temperature and with proper draining, the food absorbs very little oil.) It is difficult (if not impossible) to replicate the crunchy exterior and moist flesh of properly fried fish--the batter acts as a protective coating while the heat from the oil cooks the fish without drying it out.

And doughnuts. As we learned while working on our Halloween doughnuts story for the October issue, a freshly made doughnut can make a person swoon with delight. Our recipes usually go through three or four rounds of cooking in our test kitchen--once or twice by the recipe developer/writer and then two times by our retesters (accomplished home cooks who come in and cook our recipes as if they were readers at home following the recipe to the letter).

The Rich Refrigerator Doughnuts recipe went through six rounds of retesting to make sure our frying directions were clear enough for even the most inexperienced fryer to follow and end up with perfectly fried, not-at-all greasy, wonderfully homemade doughnuts. As one retester said: "As much as I'm afraid of frying, I really learned a lot. You have to get a feel for cooking stuff in oil and learn to use your eyes and ears to sense when the food is done. It was fun to get it right."

Funny, no one on staff objected to the many rounds of doughnut testing. And we didn't have to tell anyone to eat them while they were still warm--they flew off the kitchen counter as soon as we put them out. We even had to hide some to eat later and make sure they really are at their best when warm. Trust us, they are.