This week is “National Doughnut Week” but I was away at the weekend so I made my doughnuts on Thursday of last week. I decided to make a baked doughnut for lots of different reasons.
There are so many methods for making them most of which involves a [amazon_textlink asin=’B00J21XKBY’ text=’deep fat fryer’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’wwwlovetobake-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’8c290465-33f2-11e7-8a1b-8995dd5ecab9′]. The baked ones are healthier option but when you add the cinnamon sugar and the chocolate I think the healthy bit is soon forgotten about. As I don’t have a deep fat fryer, baked is the only option. I decided to use my brioche recipe and make that dough into the Baked Doughnuts. I checked out a few recipes before hand just to see how different my brioche recipe is from a baked doughnut recipe and then decided I didn’t need to tweak it.
My Brioche recipe makes very soft and squishy brioches which hold the chocolate chips perfectly in the dough when baked. Although it takes a long time to prove it is so worth the wait. This was the main reason that I didn’t change the recipe at all which I originally found in a recipe book I own called “[amazon_textlink asin=’1860351263′ text=’500 fabulous cakes and bakes’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’wwwlovetobake-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’78e6997b-33f2-11e7-bd78-15286db08555′]” I am thinking of coating the doughnuts in chocolate and sprinkles and making my own version of “Crispy Cremes”. Hopefully, the children will like them and join in with the making of them as they really like playing with dough.
[lt_recipe name=”Baked Doughnuts” servings=”8″ prep_time=”3H25M” cook_time=”25M” total_time=”3H50M” difficulty=”Advanced” print=”yes” summary=”Nutritionally, one doughnut contains 301 calories, 15.4g total fat (20% daily total fat), 35.9g total carbohydrate (13% daily total carbohydrate), 1.9g fibre (7% daily fibre) (based on a 2000 calorie diet).” image=”https://www.love-to-bake.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/doughnut-1.jpeg” ingredients=”For the dough:;15ml dried yeast;15ml caster sugar;30ml warm milk;2 eggs;200g plain flour;1/2tsp salt;75g butter;For the topping:;100g milk chocolate;hundreds and thousands;3tbsp granulated sugar;1tbsp cinnamon;1tbsp butter” ]For the dough:;Mix the yeast and caster sugar in a bowl with the warm milk.;Leave to stand for 5 minutes.;Add the eggs to the yeast mixture.;Put the flour and salt in a standing mixer.;Add the yeast mixture whilst the mixer is pulsing.;Continue pulsing and add the butter in pieces and mix till completely blended in.;Transfer to a oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise somewhere warm till doubled in size.(approx 2 hours);When well risen, punch down and shape into 8 ring doughnut shapes using cutters.;Preheat the oven to gas 6.;Line a baking tray.;Place on a baking tray and leave to rise again, for about one hour.;Bake for 20 – 30 minutes till golden brown.;For the toppings:;Whilst baking prepare the toppings.;Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water.;Mix the granulated sugar with the cinnamon.;Melt the butter in a pan.;Allow to cool before decorating.;For the sugared doughnuts, brush with the melted butter whilst still warm and roll in the cinnamon sugar.;For the chocolate doughnuts, spread the melted chocolate on the top of the doughnuts and cover with hundreds and thousands.[/lt_recipe]
I am not sure if I will fill the doughnuts or just stick to ring ones for now. Depends how adventurous I am feeling. When I do get round to making filled doughnuts then jam, custard and chocolate sauce, peanut butter sauce will be on the cards. I can’t wait for that to happen. There are so many different fillings and topping s you can make with doughnuts that you need to be adventurous. I am lucky as my children like their doughnuts to be exotic and tend to fight over the really different ones. So that I normally end up with the boring ones. Hahaha.
An update.
I made some doughnuts for the family to try on Thursday. I used a baked doughnut idea but with my recipe for brioche which I have used before for the children as a treat once in a while. I omitted the chocolate chips and used the recipe as it was. I made the dough early in the morning and left it to prove all day on top of the cooker. Sometimes I leave the dough overnight but I couldn’t do that and deny this treat for the children.
When the children got home from school we set to work shaping the dough, which involved a bit of kneading and cutting with the scone cutter. We cu the centre out using a piping nozzle and placed the doughnut rings on a tray to rise again for an hour. The anticipation for trying the doughnuts was almost unbearable for the children and myself really!!
Once they had risen, I baked them on gas 6, for 25 minutes till they were golden brown. Some of them had risen so well that in the oven when they baked they had toppled over but there was still a slight hole in the centre. Whilst they were baking, I let the eldest daughter make the toppings which involved mixing granulated sugar with cinnamon and melting some chocolate.Whilst the doughnuts were still warm, we brushed some of them with melted butter and rolled in the cinnamon sugar. With the rest of the doughnuts, we spread the chocolate over the top and sprinkled some hundreds and thousands over the top. They looked wonderful and smelled divine.
Alternatives to make this recipe more suited to different dietary requirements would be to try gluten free flour in the recipe although I feel the gluten is need to help the rise and the overall texture of the dough. There is not much sugar in the dough recipe so I would not change that. It is only there to help the yeast react and ferment to produce the gases which are needed to help the dough to rise. Personally, I think the dough could be a little bit sweeter as it is quite bland by itself but when the cinnamon sugar or the melted chocolate are added the dough comes alive and carried the flavours well. The decorations could be altered to suit, for example, use lactose free chocolate or diabetic friendly chocolate instead. you could chop the chocolate up and add it as chunks to the dough just before the second proving and not have to decorate them when they are baked. Ohhhh Terry’s Chocolate Orange segments added to the dough would create something very special. Now I am very hungry and I have just finished my lunch.
There are so many ideas for different flavoured doughnuts that I will be trying this recipe again and some other changes may be made with time but for now I am happy with this as my basic doughnut recipe.