Starting with Something Sweet

Welcome to my food blog. I am a huge culinary fan and am eager to try new exciting recipes.

Today, I made doughnuts from scratch with a dark chocolate ganache, and sprinkled them with graham crumbs and chopped almonds. Not having a deep fryer was inconvenient but nothing insuperable. It just meant I had to regulate the temperature by removing the pot of oil from the heat from time to time.

There’s something so fulfilling about making your own dough and having it rise properly. That’s why I chose to make doughnuts. The dough doesn’t take too long to prepare (proofing included), so they aren’t too time-consuming.

So here’s the recipe that I used, slightly altered from here.

Homemade Doughnuts

Ingredients

2/3 cup milk, just above body temperature (105 F)
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 pkg) instant dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs at room temperature
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
vegetable oil, for frying

Directions

Add the milk, yeast, sugar and eggs to a bowl and blend slightly. Add the flour, salt and nutmeg and blend by hand or in a mixer fitted with the hook attachment. Immediately start adding the butter a bit at a time and continue to mix until the dough comes together. If using a mixer, continue to knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes and if mixing by hand, once the dough becomes to difficult to stir, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until smooth and elastic. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for at least 2 hours, or chill and let rise overnight.
Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out to 1/2 –inch thickness. Use a doughnut cutter or 3-inch cookie cutter to cut out 12 doughnuts with holes, re-rolling the dough if needed. Place the doughnuts onto a parchment-lined baking tray, cover the tray with plastic wrap and let the doughnuts rise for 45 minutes, if using room temperature dough or for an hour if using a cold dough.
Pour the oil into a tabletop deep fryer (following manufacturer’s instructions) or into a large, deep pot so that it is only filled about 3 inches. Heat the oil to 300 F (use a candy thermometer if cooking doughnuts in a pot). Have a baking tray lined with paper towel, with a cooling rack placed over it. Place a doughnut onto a slotted spoon and lower gently into the oil. Do not crowd the dish with doughnuts or the tempertaure of the oil will drop and the cooking will be uneven. Fry the doughnuts for about 3 minutes, then flip over the fry for another 3 minutes, or until a golden crust has formed. Use your slotted spoon to remove the doughnuts onto the cooling rack to drain.

Be aware that the doughnut dough is a clean slate for a multitude of flavours that can be added by coating or stuffing. If you want to add more flavour to the dough itself, add in the flour mixture a flavour component (vanilla or almond extract, lemon or orange zest).

Chocolate Ganache:

Ingredients