Kneady And Greedy: Doughnut Blowout!

You’d have to be someone like Lara Ferroni to wheedle us into thinking baked doughnuts are very edible, toothsome and as close to the real thing as it gets. Or Jon Hamm, even Oprah will do. But we digress.

As part of the We Knead to Bake group, we got our hands deep into the folds of this soft yet gluteny dough that made gluttons out of us with the end result. Fluffy little doughnuts good for the dunking, in plain, jam-filled or lemon-glazed and sprinkle-kissed forms. Enough said.

Jam-filled Baked Mini Yeast Doughnuts with Lemon Glaze

(Adapted from Lara Ferroni’s Doughnuts)

Makes 15 mini doughnuts

• 2 tsp sugar
• ½ cup warm milk
• 1½ tsp active dry yeast
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup cake flour (or 1tbsp cornstarch + enough all-purpose flour to make up to 1 cup)
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (approx)
• 50gm cold butter, cubed
• 1 tbsp melted butter for brushing
• ¼ cup raspberry am for filling doughnuts
• Lemon glaze (recipe follows)

Put the sugar, milk, yeast and vanilla in the bowl of a food processor bowl and pulse to mix. Allow to rest for 5 minutes or until the yeast froths up. Add the cake flour, salt and 1 cup of all-purpose flour and process, adding a little more of the flour as necessary till the dough starts coming together. Now add the butter a few cubes at a time and process briefly. Add a little more flour if needed and process until your have a soft, pliable and elastic dough that is most but not overly sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased large mixing bowl, turning it to coat well with the oil. Cover with a damp towel and let it rise till double in volume, about an hour.

Gently punch down the dough and roll out to a thickness of 1/2″ thickness. Cut out doughnuts using cookie cutters. We used 2.5″ round cutters with half inch cutters for the centres, flower-shaped and heart-shaped cutters. If you’re making doughnuts to be filled with jam, then do not cut out the holes. Place the doughnuts and the holes on parchment lined or lightly greased baking sheets, leaving at least 1” space between them. Re-roll the scraps and cut out more doughnuts.

Let them rise for about 20 minutes or till almost double in size and then bake them at 200C (400F) for about 5 to 10 minutes till they’re done and golden brown. Do not over bake.

Take the doughnuts out of the oven and immediately brush them with the melted butter.

For filling the doughnuts – If filling the doughnuts with jam, let them cool. Put the jam into a piping bag with a writing nozzle/ tip and press into the doughnut from the side and gently press out the jam into the doughnut till it starts oozing out. If glazing your doughnuts, let them cool completely and then dip one side of the doughnut in the lemon glaze. If using sprinkles add them immediately after glazing.

Lemon Glaze

• 1 Cup sifted confectioners sugar
• 1 tbsp corn syrup
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Zest of one lemon

Stir together all the ingredients using a fork. Add more lemon juice, if needed to get a runny consistency. Use immediately.