About the Recipe
Doughnuts, also spelled "donuts," are a popular fried or baked pastry made from dough that is typically sweet and flavored with ingredients like sugar, milk, eggs, and sometimes spices like nutmeg or cinnamon.
Ingredients
DOUGH INGREDIENTS
1 cup 250g full cream milk
2.5 tsp 7g instant dry active yeast
1/3 cup 80g granulated sugar
1 tbsp 15g sugar (to activate yeast)
2 large eggs (room temp)
6 Tablespoons 85g unsalted butter
1 tsp 7g vanilla extract
1/2 tsp 2g ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp 3g salt
4 cups 680g all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
5 cups oil for frying
GLAZE INGREDIENTS
2 cups 240g confectioners sugar
1/3 cup 70g heavy cream
1/2 tsp 2g vanilla extract
CINNAMON SUGAR INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup 82g granulated sugar
1 tbsp 7g ground cinnamon
Method
DOUGH METHOD
1. Warm your milk to approx. 43°C (95°F) and add the tablespoon of sugar and the yeast.
1.1 Cover and set to the side for 10min to activate.
2. Melt butter and set to the side to cool a little, if the butter hardens zap in the microwave so soften again. Not too hot though, you don’t want to cook the eggs.
3. Now that the yeast is activated combine it with the tempered milk and mix.
3.1 Add the salt and nutmeg mix enough to combine the nutmeg.
4. Place the sugar and a third of the flour into a mixing bowl and pour in the wet mixture.
5. Either mix with a dough hook or manually with a wooden spoon. Mix in 1/3 of a cup of flour until you have formed a dough. This should have taken 10 or so minutes. Continue kneading the dough for 5 to 6 min, the same amount of time if you are kneading by hand.
6. Oil a large bowl and place the dough ball in, cover and placed in a warm environment for 1.5 hours but can rise for up to 2 hours.
7. Dump dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 30 seconds and with a floured rolling pin roll out to 1.5 to 2 cm think. Try not to handle the dough too much.
8. With a round cookie cutter cut the desired size but do not punch out the circles as you are filling these ones. try to stick to a 5 / 6 cm cookie cutter as the larger doughnuts will not cook in the center without burning. Combine the left-over dough and continue to punch out doughnuts.
9. Place on a floured baking tray, cover and place in a warm environment for 30 min.
NOTE: do not leave to rise any linger than 30 min or they will over proof.
10. Heat the vegetable, canola or sunflower oil to 170°C or (340°F) and drop in your doughnut rings.
10.1 Fry for no longer than 2 minutes on the first side then flip and 1 minute on the other side.
NOTE: keep the doughnuts in as long as you can without burning so the dough cooks all the way through.
11. Safely remove and place on a wire rack to drip dry.
CINNAMON SUGAR METHOD
1. Combine the cinnamon and sugar ensure the cinnamon has evenly dispersed through the sugar.
1.1 Place cinnamon sugar in a large enough bowl to be able to shake the doughnut to cover the doughnut.
GLAZE METHOD
1. Combine cream and vanilla essence into the powdered sugar and mix until there is no dry powdered sugar left.
2. You can either dunk your doughnuts into the mixture or decant into a squeeze bottle and squeeze over the cooled doughnuts.
FILLING METHOD
1. With a pipping bag with a long pastry tip push into the cold doughnut and gently / slowly fill the doughnut
NOTE: try not to overfill as the pressure of the doughnut outer will push the filling out
Now you know, you will never buy store bought again!