Baked Doughnuts with Citrus Curd

If you are a fan of doughnuts but deep frying makes you go cold, baked doughnuts could be the answer for you.  Honey & Co The Baking Book features a recipe for Baked Doughnuts filled with Lemon and Lime Curd that doesn't even require a special pan or a doughnut cutter - you just roll a butter rich dough into balls, bake them, coat them in butter and citrus sugar, and fill them with citrus curd.

Don't they look great:

Be careful though - they are very rich and buttery and sugary, so in the future, I would make them half the size.

I used Dorie's Citrus Curd to fill the doughnuts  rather than making the Honey & Co lemon and lime curd.

Tempted?  The recipe (with a few modifications by me) is as follows:

Dough

3 eggs
1 x 7g sachet dried yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
300g white bread flour
25ml milk
125g diced cold butter

Filling

Citrus curd 

Put all the dough ingredients except the butter in a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and combine at low speed.  Once the dough forms a ball, add the butter, a little at a time, until it is all combined into the dough.  Cover the bowl and chill in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

Take the chilled dough and divide it into 8 even sized pieces (~ 80g each).  Roll each piece into a ball on a floured surface, and place on a baking tray (about 5 cm apart).  Allow the balls to rise to double their original size.  (Mine took ages - well over an hour.)

Heat your oven to 230 degrees Celsius.  Bake the risen doughnuts in the oven for 8-10 minutes, by which time they should be golden brown on the outside. 

While the doughnuts are baking, melt 160g butter.

In another bowl, combine 100g sugar with the zest of a lime and rub the zest into the sugar until fragrant. (I used the zest of half a lemon instead.)

Remove the doughnuts from the oven and allow to stand for 4 minutes.  Using tongs, dip the doughnuts, one at a time, into the melted butter, then roll in the sugar.  All of the butter should be soaked up by the 8 doughnuts.  Be careful when handling the warm doughnuts, as they are quite fragile.

Pipe citrus curd into the doughnuts using a piping bag fitted with a long tip, inserted into the top of each doughnut.

Preferably serve warm on the day they are made.

TWD - Nun's Beignets

Our last Tuesday with Dorie recipe for this month is nun's beignets (also known as the poetically named nun's farts).  For the uninitiated, these are little donuts made from choux pastry rather than bread dough.  When cooked properly, the choux expands and there is a cavity in the middle of each beignet.

Now that I have told you what is supposed to happen, let me tell you about my beignets.  I had a terrific lesson in how and how not to make beignets, all in the one night.

I made a half batch of dough, not wanting to have too many beignets in the house.  I don't have a deep fryer, so I had to rely on oil warmed on the stovetop in a saucepan.  This makes temperature regulation quite tricky.

The first three beignets I made were quite good.  They were maybe a little dark, and they seemed to take ages to puff up to the point where they split (which is how you know they are ready), but overall, the finished product was as it should be with a golden outside encasing a chasm (evidence of the fart?).

The next three went very, very dark and never did split.  When I bit into one, the centre did not have a cavity, but had a cooked, custardy middle that reminded me of a cannelle.  Tick, tick, even though it wasn't quite right.

The very last beignet, which was cooked on its lonesome, was a disaster.  It also went very dark, almost to the point of black, and still it did not split.  I made the mistake of eating this number, and wished immediately that I had just thrown it out.  The middle was dense and leaden, the outside tasted burned, and was also bitter because the oil had obviously turned after being heated for so long.

I did try to reduce the heat to the oil during the cooking process, but to no avail - it really is difficult to regulate the temperature of oil on my gas stove.

I found the whole experience rather educational, if not actually all that successful. I now understand why Dorie said you have to cook the beignets until they split, because until they do, they remain rather dense in the middle, and can be downright unpleasant.

I realise that the results of my experiments, were due to my own (and my stove's) shortcomings, but I won't be making these again soon.  On the upside, I know that done well, beignets are delicious, and I would buy them in a heartbeat if I saw them (which is unlikely on Australian streets).

To see what everyone else made this week and how it went, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Fruit mince donuts

I had quite a bit of fruit mince left over from Christmas, and am keen to find ways to use it up.  The first recipe I noticed when I looked through the Donuts book that Tim gave me  was the recipe for Christmas donuts, as I had the fruit mince in mind.  You can find the recipe online here (listed as Christmas Donuts).

These donuts are cake donuts; the raising agent is baking powder, not yeast.  This makes them easy and quick to make.

They smell devine, look amazing:  

and taste just as they look:

These are a fabulous way to use up your leftover fruit mince, or to make as a treat at Christmas.  They were popular with my colleagues, and I would definitely make them again.

Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts for Groundhog Day

 
Today, 2 February, is Groundhog Day. This annual event, celebrated in the fabulous film of the same name, involves prediction of the remaining length of winter by a groundhog.  If the groundhog sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter; if it does not see its shadow, then spring is on its way.

One of my favourite scenes in the film, Groundhog Day, involves Phil Connors (Bill Murray) chowing down on a gluttonous feast of pancakes, cakes, pastries and coffee, while his horrified companion, Rita (Andie McDowell), looks on.  Rita tartly remarks, "I like to see a man of advancing years throw caution to the wind, it's inspiring in a way."  Phil, however, doesn't care; he knows that whatever he does that day won't matter, because he will start the same day all over again when he wakes up in the morning.

(Still from Groundhog Day sourced from the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema website)

In honour of Groundhog Day and one of my favourite movies, I made chocolate glazed doughnuts.  Yes folks, they are fried, not baked.  The recipe that I used was from the book, Donuts, by Tracey Meharg.  The recipe is entitled Cookies and Cream Donuts, and has been published online here.

I followed the recipe as written, but omitted the cookie cream.  I also ran out of frosting because I had a dozen doughnuts instead of just ten as stated by the recipe, so I used a small amount of CSR Berry Bliss Icing Mixture to ice the remaining two doughnuts.  To finish my glazed doughnuts, I topped them with an array of sprinkles.

These doughnuts are suitably decadent for Phil Connors to chow down on in the café scene in Groundhog Day. Bon appetit Phil, and Happy Groundhog Day everyone.

Tivoli Road Bakery, South Yarra

 

 

A couple of weekends ago, I went to E&T's house with Tim for lunch.  The night before, I had been to a Pink concert:

 

 

Pink was sensational.  My favourite parts of the concert were when she sang an acoustic version of Time After Time, and the finale when she sings So What dressed head to toe in sparkles and swings all over the ceiling.  Breathtaking!

To go to E & T's, I decided to take some dessert.  I was in the South Yarra area, so I ventured out to try the Tivoli Road Bakery (formerly Movida Bakery) that I had heard so much about.  As you can see from the top photo, the Tivoli Road Bakery is mostly about artisan bread.  However, they are also famed for their donuts, so that is what I bought.  Below you can see 2 x custard, quince and rhubarb donuts, 1 x dulce de leche donut, and one lemon curd donut:

 
They taste as fabulous as they look.  Here's a peek inside the dulce de leche donut:

 
Fabulous, eh?

E kindly cooked the three of us delicious lamb shanks:

 

This was extra special because E is a vegetarian and could not partake of this feast herself.

 

Tim and I capped off a marvellous day by going to Let It Be - The Songs of Lennon and McCartney at The Arts Centre (although I noticed they threw in a couple of uncredited George Harrison numbers).  Golden oldies Glenn Shorrock, Doug Parkinson and John Paul Young, together with the younger Jack Jones, entertained us on the night.

 

It was definitely a weekend to remember.

 

Tivoli Road Bakery

3 Tivoli Rd
South Yarra VIC 3141 
Ph: (03) 9041 4345



Fig Loukoumades with Raspberry Syrup

Do you ever hear about a particular dish and know that you must try it, no matter how impractical it might be unless, say, you are having a dinner party?  That happens to me often, but luckily I don't get the time or have the ingredients very often to indulge my craziest whims. 

However, this week, I read about some battered figs with raspberry and rosewater sauce that someone had seen on SBS Food Safari, describing them as "food porn".  As soon as I read that, I was a goner - if I could find the recipe, I was making it.

A quick Google search, and up came a recipe for Fig Loukoumades with Raspberry Sauce.  You can find the recipe here.  To my credit, I only made half the recipe, so that I wasn't overly indulging my whim.

Oh my, these were good.  I ate two for breakfast, and saved the rest for later.  As Peter, the chef and creator of this dish says in the video, the figs go all soft and jammy inside while frying, and with the raspberry/rosewater sauce on top, this is heaven on a stick.  

When I told my Mum I was making these, she was predictably less than impressed.  She is not a food adventurer.  However, this is an adventure that I am glad I went on, no matter how crazy it is to make it for Sunday morning breakfast.

I have plenty of sauce leftover, so I think it will go perfectly over icecream with a few fresh raspberries.  Mmmmmm ...

Daring Bakers - Let's Go Nuts for Doughnuts!

What can beat the smell of a hot cinnamon donut and a cup of coffee? Not much, in my books, especially first thing in the morning. The combination says "rise and shine, today will be a good day". Which leads me on to this month's Daring Bakers challenge:

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

After a huge thumbs up from Audax, I chose old-fashioned yeast donuts from a recipe by Alton Brown. I didn't feel too daring this month, as I have made donuts before - both baked and fried. However, it is always a challenge to do battle with my deep fear of deep frying.

Here is my donut dough after rising - the yeast got pretty excited:



After punching down the dough and rolling it out, I cut out the donut shapes using a round biscuit cutter and the lid off my Italian vanilla essence:



I left some donuts "whole" so that I could fill them with jam after frying - I wanted the best of both worlds.

After leaving the donuts to rise a little, they are deep fried in a pool of oil:


Immediately after removing the donuts from the oil and draining them briefly in a slotted spoon, I tossed the donuts in a combination of vanilla sugar and cinnamon sugar, then fillled the round hole-less ones with jam by inserting a piping bag filled with jam into the base and pumping in the jam. The end result is what you see at the top of this post.

Thanks to Lori for being our host this month. She will have the recipe for these and a few other types of donuts, if you are feeling hungry enough to go and make your own donuts right now. And you can check out a veritable rainbow of all kinds of other donuts by visiting the Daring Bakers blogroll.

Berliner Pfannkuchen

At midnight on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall began to be dismantled, ending 30 years of separation between communist East Berlin and West Berlin. On Monday night at midnight, the 20th anniversary of the occasion was marked in Berlin with celebrations, including the knocking over of painted foam dominoes to symbolise the coming down of the Wall.

I wanted to mark this auspicious occasion, so I have made Berliner Pfannkuchen, a type of jam donut which I understand to be a traditional recipe originating in Berlin. President John F Kennedy is famous for declaring on his visit to Berlin on 26 June 1963 that "Ich bin ein Berliner!" - which unfortunately literally translates to "I am a jam donut!"

I used a recipe for Berliner Pfannkuchen that I found on Cast Sugar's site. Like Cast Sugar, I eschewed the traditional dusting of icing sugar for a coating of caster sugar - as I am a sweet tooth too!

For some reason, my jam spread inside the donuts instead of being contained in an oozy single centre - but hey, they still tasted good! This is my first ever batch of fried donuts.

To all Berliners, congratulations and enjoy this momentous occasion!

Cupcakes Spectacular 2008 - Donut cupcakes with marshmallow frosting

Arfi at Homemades is hosting a new blogging event - Cupcakes Spectacular 2008. This event requires you to make any kind of cupcake and decorate it with frosting or icing so that you end up with cupcakes that are edible, pretty and SPECTACULAR!

With that in mind, and inspired by the donuts and coffee cupcakes made by Cheryl at Cupcake Bakeshop, I decided to make donut cupcakes with marshmallow frosting. An additional motivation behind my choice is that the wonderful Ash was leaving work, and I wanted to make a leaving "cake" that would match his tastes. I knew that Ash likes (a) chocolate cake; (b) donuts; and (c) marshmallow frosting. Accordingly, I borrowed from several sources to produce these donut cupcakes with marshmallow frosting especially for Ash.

For the base cupcake, I chose chocolate mud cakes used as the base for the Florentine Cupcakes from The Australian Womens Weekly Cupcakes cookbook:

The recipe to make 24 of these cupcakes is as follows:

120g chopped dark chocolate

1 1/3 cup water

180g softened butter

2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

1 1/3 cup sifted self raising flour

4 tablespoons sifted cocoa powder

2/3 cup almond meal

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius, and line 2 x 12 hole muffin pans with cupcake cases.

Place the chocolate and water in a saucepan and melt together over low heat until it forms a smooth "sauce". Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until "fluffy". Fold in the flour, cocoa, almond meal and chocolate mixture, then spoon into the cupcake cases. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, then remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

To crown the cupcakes, I made mini baked donuts using the recipe from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, which can be found here. I won't reproduce it, as I think one in every four or so bloggers has already made these. I used the top of a champagne flute to cut out the donuts and the lid of a screw top wine bottle to cut out the donut holes. When you first cut them out, you think that the holes are way too big, but it is surprising how much the holes close up during baking. I ended up with about 24 mini donuts using half of Heidi's original recipe.

I was initially going to toss the donut holes, but then I thought that was too wasteful (given they comprised the majority of the dough!). I am glad that I didn't - the donut holes were delicious, and were just as popular as the cupcakes with my colleagues:

To frost the cupcakes, I made marshmallow frosting from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook and piped it onto the top of the cakes. I don't think I heated it for long enough, as mine ended up a little grainy, but still tasted delicious.

Here is the frosting recipe:

3 egg whites
480g white sugar
3 teaspoons light corn syrup (I used glucose syrup)
cream of tartar
150ml water
3/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
pink food colouring

Place the egg whites. sugar, glucose syrup, cream of tartar and water into a metal bowl and beat continuously with an electric hand mixer over a bowl of simmering water until the mixture forms soft peaks. Remove the frosting from the heat and add the vanilla and enough pink colouring to colour it your preferred shade of pink. Beat the frosting until it forms stiff peaks, then pipe onto the cakes in a swirl pattern.

I topped each frosted cupcake with a mini donut. Here is the end result:

Thanks to Arfi for creating and hosting this event, and do check the SPECTACULAR roundup of cupcakes from all over the world here. (You won't be sorry.)

Time to Make Doughnuts - Apple Cider Donuts

Tartelette and Peabody are hosting a blogging event called Time to Make Doughnuts. To participate, it's simple - make any type of sweet donuts and post about it on or before February 12.

I decided to enter this at the last minute, and raced up to Kitch'n'Stuff in my lunch hour to buy one of the mini donut pans that had been there forever. But egads! There had been a recent rush on mini donut pans (maybe fellow Melburnians also entering this event?), so I had to use my mini bundt pan instead.

My next challenge was that I had chosen to make a yummy sounding apple cider donut recipe that I found at Milk and Cookies. (Jen-Jen believes that they rival Krispy Kremes - so how could I resist!) The recipe called for apple puree. There is no supermarket on my way home, but I thought that I could pick up either apple sauce, pie apple or an apple (or even tinned pears!) from one of the three corner shops that I pass to make my own puree/puree substitute. But no - foiled once again! If I had wanted tinned jackfruit, there were unbelievably three different brands in one shop, but no apple products of any variety. However, necessity being the mother of invention, and being determined not to go all the way to the supermarket, I decided to substitute the apple puree for some stewed rhubarb from the freezer, thawed and blended to make a puree. Hey, rhubarb and apple go together, yeah?

I am kind of scared of deep frying (I have a fear of being attacked by hot oil), so these donuts, being baked, were just what the doctor ordered.

The recipe for these apple cider donuts can be found here. The substitutions that I made were: 1/2 cup rhubarb puree substituted for the apple puree, canola oil substituted for the hazelnut oil and 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon in place of cinnamon and nutmeg.

These donuts are cakier in texture than your standard fried donut, but they still had that bready donut flavour. They also appealed to me because they are considerably lower in fat than your standard fried donut. The rhubarb substitution didn't seem to affect either the appeance or taste of the finished product. Overall, this recipe was a winner (even though I am not a big donut fan).

Thanks to Tartelette and Peabody for hosting this event! If you want ideas for some really delicious and very different types of donuts, be inspired by checking out the roundup here, here and here.