Today I thought I’d try a recipe post on my blog- and, although I’m no food blogger…sometimes I know my way around the kitchen. For some reason lately I’ve had a craving to make my own donuts for the past few weeks, so, I finally took the plunge and did it. I scoured the internet for recipes and thankfully found one that turned out great. After making these I realized that they’re practically a dupe for one of my favorite LA restaurants, Bottega Louie’s beignets, which used to be my birthday go-to.
The whole dough making process was kind of time consuming as it required rising the dough for 2 hours. It’s a long process, but it makes for a fun weekend activity. I haven’t worked with yeast a lot so I honestly wasn’t sure I did it right, but I think it turned out great. So, baking novices, don’t be afraid to experiment and try something new.
The one thing I was missing was cookie cutters- I had plenty of random shapes but I don’t think I had circles. So, I just used a few glasses. The smaller ones made tiny donuts- I think next time I’ll make some larger ones. Once you roll the dough out once and cut a bunch of donuts out, it’s kind of hard to re-roll it out. This made for some of the uglier donuts, but they still tasted good! The frying process is easy- I don’t even have a thermometer, I just gauged it by testing dough scraps. If the oil is too hot and your donuts are burning, turn down the heat a bit + add more oil to cool it down. This helped me so much!
Yeasted Sugar Donuts (adapted from Bakers Royale)
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm milk
1/3 cup + 1 teaspoon sugar (and more to coat donuts in!)
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups vegetable oil
Place yeast, warm milk, and 1 teaspoon sugar in a small bowl and let rest for 15 minutes until foamy and doubled in size.
Place flour in a large bowl and create a well and fill with eggs, yeast mixture, 1/3 cup sugar, butter, and salt. Mix with wooden spoon until dough is mixed & sticky. Flour a work surface and knead until smooth (about 8 minutes). Place in oiled bowl and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.
Lightly flour a work surface and roll out with a rolling pin until 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters or glasses to cut dough into rounds. Cover rounds with plastic wrap and let rise 15 minutes.
Heat oil on medium heat until it reaches 370 degrees fahrenheit. Fry until golden, about 40 seconds to 1 minute on each side. Transfer to paper towel lined baking sheet. Roll in sugar while warm.
Fresh Raspberry Sauce
2 cartons of raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
Rinse berries and place in blender or food processor with sugar. Blend until smooth. Strain purée from seeds with a sieve and serve alongside warm donuts.
Also- I filled some of these donuts with nutella, which turned out AMAZING, even though my photos of them didn’t… 😉 The nutella + raspberry combo is amazing. The raspberry sauce is so fresh and simple, I could literally drink the stuff.
Share some photos with me @oliviafrescura on twitter + instagram if you recreate this recipe- would love to see!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.