Doughnuts- Updated Version

I have a doughnut recipe on the blog but this one right here beats the old recipe hands down when it comes to softness and fluffiness. This recipe gives super light, soft and fluffy doughnuts.

You know when you experiment with something and you make a bang? yeah..I hit something good with this experiment???? and don't I just love it when my kitchen experiments yield positive outcomes.

In most of my bread recipes I use tangzhong which is a bread improver and gives bread soft and fluffy texture. I was making bread and then I thought doughnuts and breads are similar and the difference mainly is you fry doughnut and bake bread. So if tangzhong works for bread it might work for doughnut so I decided to experiment and i'm glad I did because the result was very soft, fluffy delicious doughnuts! I call this one  doughnuts tangzhong style. Heheee..

INGREDIENTS

275g flour

30g sugar

1 teaspoon honey

20g butter or shortening

3 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

40ml milk

40ml lukewarm water

100g Tangzhong (Click HERE for how to make tangzhong)

Vegetable or sunflower oil for frying

DIRECTION

In a mixing bowl, put flour, salt, sugar and mix well.

In a small bowl add a teaspoon of sugar to the lukewarm water and yeast. leave for 5-10minutes till the yeast activates and foams.

Heat the milk, add butter and let it cool to lukewarm. Add this mixture and egg to the tangzhong and whisk well. Add the tangzhong/milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix thoroughly with hand to form a dough.

Put the dough in a food processor or mixer and knead till its smooth and elastic. This takes about 5minutes.

If kneading by hand put dough on a lightly floured surface and knead well for 15minutes or till it's smooth and elastic. This is not the best way as the dough will be sticky and you might be tempted to add more flour which you shouldn't.

Put the dough back in the bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise for 50 minutes.

Roll out the dough 1inch in thickness and cut with a doughnut cutter. Place the cut outs on a lightly greased baking tray. When you've used up the dough, cover the tray with a wet towel and leave it to rise for another 45minutes. Don't let the towel touch the dough.

Note: Don't roll out the dough too thin. Let it be atleast 1 inch thick. Also, If you don't have doughnut cutter you can use a small round bowl to cut. You can also use cookie cutter for variety of shapes.

Heat oil in a deep pan and fry. You can also use a deep fryer. The good thing with this dough is that the oil doesn't have to be too hot. By the second rise the dough is so light that it rises up once you put in the hot  oil.

K's Cuisine tip: Use a small deep pot. That way you won't have to pour large quantity of sunflower oil to fry. Fry two at a time, place on kitchen towel and leave to cool.

If you want Jam doughnuts simply pierce the doughnuts at the side with the tip of a knife and squeeze in jam or use a syringe filled with jam to inject into the doughnuts. You can sprinkle sugar on the doughnuts, you can also glaze with icing sugar by mixing a little water with icing sugar and brushing it on the doughnuts with a pastry brush. You can even coat with chocolate. Enjoy!