Cinnamon and sugar doughnuts

Doughnuts, doughnuts, everybody loves doughnuts. Last week Friday was International Doughnut Day, yes a whole day has been dedicated to these awesome circular nuggets of happiness, personally I think they should get a whole month and all shops everywhere should have to give out doughnuts with every purchase made, but that’s just me.

In the past, I have baked quite a few batches of doughnuts, but I have never attempted to deep fry them. I’ve always been a bit nervous too, but over the weekend I decided to conquer my doughnut-frying fear and gave the recipe below for Cinnamon and sugar doughnuts a bash! It may also be because the recipe I was trying didn’t require me to make the dough and then let it sit for 34 hours whilst singing Mariah Carey to it to make it rise! One of my pet peeves is when a recipe requires a whole days prep time, it’s like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, or should I say a carrot cake.

This recipe which forms part of my Royal Baking Powder Series is short and sweet and yields a batch of golden doughnuts that are slightly crispy on the outside and soft and cakey on the inside. The dough was simple enough to whip up and then they literally fried to perfection within a couple of minutes. One thing I will say is do not walk away once you have popped them in the hot oil, because they cook fast and they don’t need much time!

I used a round cookie cutter to make the shapes and then an icing nozzle to cut out out the middles, I then fried them up to and made myself some mini doughnut holes, which were also damn tasty. If you don’t have a cookie cutter or pipping nozzles, you can also just shape the dough into medium-size balls and make a hole in the middle with the handle end of wooden spoon to form rings.

If you would like to try the other two treats I’ve made as part of this Royal Baking Powder Series, then just click below.

Morish Butter Cookies with Speckled Eggs 

Scones With Vanilla Pouring Cream And Jam

INGREDIENTS: Makes ±16 mini doughnuts

• 750ml (3 cups) cake flour

• 20ml (4 tsp) Royal Baking Powder

• 1ml (pinch) salt

• 60g butter

• 125ml (1/2 cup) white sugar

• ±220 mls milk

• Cooking oil for deep-frying

• Cinnamon sugar for coating

DIRECTIONS:

1. Sift flour, Royal Baking Powder and salt together.
2. Rub in butter with fingertips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add sugar.
3. Add the milk, cut it with a knife and knead lightly to a soft dough.
4. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1cm and cut out rounds with a doughnut cutter. Then use a piping bag nozzle to cut out a hole in the middle of the doughnut.
5. Heat oil in a heavy-based saucepan and deep-fry doughnuts in hot oil, turning constantly until golden brown and cooked through. This step only took a couple minutes per batch.
6. Drain the doughnuts on a paper towel and then immediately coat in cinnamon-sugar whilst hot.
7. If you want to dip them into a chocolate glaze, then allow them to cool first.