Glazed Doughnuts - By Gynelle Alves

This recipe is for 2 dozen doughnuts. You can halve this but I warn you, you may regret it. 

Tip: If you don’t have a doughnut cutter, improvise… neatly cut out the bottom of a big plastic bottle – you get a big round cutter on one end and small one on the other! Simple.

Ingredients for Doughnuts:

1/2 oz instant yeast or 3-4 tbsp fresh yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 1/2 cup warm milk

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup butter

5 cups all purpose refined flour

Oil for frying

Ingredients for Glaze:

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 – 2 cups icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup hot water

This dough is supposed to be really fluffy light and is a bit delicate to handle being just sticky to touch. So, don’t add more flour! I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to flour everything used, so generously flour your hands, work area and tools.

Method:

Dissolve yeast in the warm water. Whisk in milk, sugar, eggs, butter and 2 cups of the flour, scraping down the sides as you go. Stir in the remaining flour and mix till smooth. Cover, and place the bowl in a warm, dry place for at least an hour and let this puff out double.

DoughnutsTip the dough out onto a very well floured surface. Flour your hands and pat down gently to about an inch thickness. Cut you doughnuts with your well floured cutter and with a sharp, wide floured spatula transfer the doughnuts to well floured trays, removing the centers (saving them as is for frying or re-incorporating them into the dough). Gather together the remaining dough, pat down and repeat till you have or have had enough.

Cover these lightly and leave to rise for 40 minutes to an hour. Heat oil up to very hot but not smoking. Test it with a centre ball. If it bobs up immediately, it’s perfect. With floured hands or spatula slide your doughnuts into the hot oil, about 3-4 at a time so the temperature of the oil doesn’t drop. Fry them for about a minute on each side, remove and drain on crushed paper towels. Eat as is, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon or cool slightly and glaze them.

To glaze, briskly whisk together the melted butter, extract and sugar, adding water spoon by spoon till the glaze leaves a trail. Gently dip the doughnuts one at a time into the glaze and let set on a rack. To make a chocolate glaze, add dark cocoa powder to the melted butter and proceed. If you have fried the centers, Genesia liked hers dusted with parmesan.

P.S. Extra dough can also be kneaded into a ball, left to rise, glazed and baked for 20-30 minutes to yield a soft, sweet bun.