I wasn’t even aware that there was some donut challenge happening until someone asked me if I took part in the challenge. To be honest, I take deliberate breaks from my phone, social media as well as the television as I just feel overwhelmed with all the information. But that story is for another post.

For now, here is my donut recipe that I learnt from Mamma when I was a kid 🙂 Fun fact: Mamma and I once used a 20 cents coin to make those inner circles in the dough.

Donut Ingredients:

  • 3 1/2 cups of cake flour
  • 55g (about 1/4 cup) of castor sugar
  • 2 packets of instant yeast
  • Pinch of salt
  • 250ml (1 cup) of milk, warmed
  • 100g of butter (melt in the microwave)
  • 3 egg yolks
  • Oil to deep fry your donuts (I prefer Canola oil

Method:

Combine the flour, castor sugar, yeast and salt in a bowl, Just give it a good mix. In the centre, add the milk, butter and egg yolks. You need to mix this through thoroughly. Don’t fret as the dough will be sticky at this point.

On a lightly floured surface, knead your dough until it no longer sticks to your hand. Rub some oil in your bowl and place the dough back in the bowl. Cover the dough with some cling wrap and allow the dough to rise until it has doubled in size. This could take from 60 – 90 minutes. Be patient.

Gently knead the dough again lightly on a lightly floured surface, until it is smooth again. Now you can roll out your dough until about 1cm thick. Don’t worry if you don’t have a rolling pin, you can also just gently press down on the dough with the palm of your hand.

Cut out round circles with a cookie cutter. Now here is where you can be creative and find a smaller round cutter to cut out the inner circles. We just used a test tube from Joshua’s Science kit. Let the cut “dough” rise whilst you heat your oil in a deep fryer or pot.

Tip: I deep fry the inner circles and pop them into a bowl of cinnamon and sugar mix. Perfect little bite size cinnamon bites.

The oil should be 180 degrees, so hot but not scorching the dough. Test your oil with a a small piece of dough. It should fry as soon as it hits the oil. Don’t be impatient. Take your time so that you get gold brown donuts instead of dark brown, scorched ones.

Deep fry the donuts for 2 minutes each side, I usually pop 4 or 5 in at a time.

If you are making the cinnamon and sugar coated donut, just pop the hot donut straight into the cinnamon mix and coat as desired. This is where the kids just shake a tupperware bowl 🙂 If you try to coat them once the donut has cooled the cinnamon and sugar won’t stick to the donut.

If you are using a sugar glaze, see my recipe for the glaze below, place the fried donut on a drip tray to get rid of any excess oil for a few seconds. Then just dip the warm donut into the glaze. I use a skewer as it is easier to work with and you won’t damage your donut. Place your glazed donuts on a drip tray and allow your the glaze to “set” whilst you finish off your frying.

Sugar glaze:

Over a low heat, melt 100g of butter in a small saucepan. Add 1 1/2 cup of castor sugar and let it dissolve completely. Now you can thin out your glaze by adding milk or water, to get your desired consistency. I prefer water as it breaks the sweetness of the castor sugar.

Tip: As the sugar glaze cools down it will crystallize. Just reheat the sugar glaze until everything is melted once again.

The donuts are best enjoyed immediately. If you do happen to have any leftovers, just store them in an airtight container. Pop in the microwave for 10-15 seconds and they will be yummy again. 

I also like to substitute the cake flour with coconut flour. It give the donuts a delicious coconut taste. The donuts I made yesterday was made with normal cake flour.

Enjoy and happy donut making. I get about 20-24 donuts out of this mixture. Let me know how it goes.

Spirited Mama

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