October 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Doughnuts!

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.

First of all I must say that I LOVE doughnuts. They're really delicious by themselves and with a chocolate glazing they're just heavenly! So, you can imagine my delight when I saw which was this month's challenge ^^

As it was my first time making them I decided to keep it simple and dip the doughnuts in a simple sugar glaze, to imitate the ones sold in every bakery.

The recipes:

Ingredients for doughnuts:

360 ml whole milk
70g butter
14g active dry yeast
80 ml warm water
1.5 tsp salt
55g white sugar
650g all purpose flour + extra for dusting surface
2 large eggs, beaten
Olive oil (depends on the size of the vessel you are frying in).

Method for the doughnuts:

1. Place the milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat just until warm enough to melt the butter.
2. Place the butter in a bowl and pour warmed milk over (make sure that the butter is melted). Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let dissolve for 5 minutes (it should get foamy). After 5 minutes, pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl and add the milk and butter mixture, first making sure the milk and butter mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
4. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, and the flour. The dough will be to sticky to knead by hand without adding a lot of extra flour and it will be very messy so just roughly combine the dough ingredients using a plastic scraper or wooden spoon. No need to knead too much; a longer resting/rising time is equivalent to kneading that is if you only roughly knead for one minute or so and let the dough rise for a longer time this is equivalent to kneading for a longer time (many thanks to Audax for the kneading instructions).
5. "Pour" (the dough won't be firm at this point, but don't panic, it's normal) to a well-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 and 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

6. On a well-floured surface, roll out dough to 9 mm thick (make sure the surface really is well-floured otherwise your doughnuts will stick to the counter).
7. Cut out dough using a 65 mm doughnut cutter or pastry ring or drinking glass (I used a water glass) and using a 22 mm ring for the center whole (I used one of my piping tips). Set on floured baking sheet, cover lightly with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oil in a deep fryer or Dutch oven to 185°C.
9. Gently place the doughnuts into the oil, 3 to 4 at a time. Cook for 1 minute per side or until golden brown (my doughnuts only took about 30 seconds on each side at this temperature).
10. Transfer to a cooling rack placed in baking pan. Allow to cool for 15 to 20 minutes prior to glazing, if desired.
    

Ingredients for the simple sugar glaze:

450 ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
440g confectioner's sugar

Method for the simple sugar glaze:

1. Combine the milk and vanilla over a medium saucepan and heat over low heat until warm.
2. Sift the sugar into the mixture. Whisk slowly until well combined
3. Remove the the glaze from the heat and set over a bowl of warm water (I left it over the heat, set at the minimum).
4. Dip the doughnuts into the glaze and let it drain.

The doughnut were great...the first day. Unfortunately the next day they were dry and not so good. The bright side is that there were only FOUR DOUGHNUTS LEFT! So most of the doughnut were eaten at their best ^^ I suppose that this means that people did like them, doesn't it?