Basic Donuts Perfectly Baked

I am a huge donut fan. However, it has been a couple of years since I ate one; other than the few attempts at baking the mini version, I haven’t really had any donut encounters lately. Moreover, every week when we go mall hopping and pass by the many gourmet stores, I hardly feel any craving for it. And I almost concluded that I had FINALLY grown out of DONUTS, but my reaction to the pack my colleague gifted signalled otherwise!

It was an assorted pack from Mad Over Donuts! First I gobbled up the plain one and then the one dusted with cinnamon sugar. I normally don’t fancy the frosting on donuts, so I carefully removed the frosting and happily licked the pack clean in no time. The donuts were perfectly sweet (or should I rather say, salty sweet), soft and supple, and above all the sour fermented taste was to die for - before I could even realize, I was once again falling for it! And the worst thing – I ended up craving for more and baked a batch yesterday.

When I decided to scout for recipes, I had a “whole wheat baked donut” in mind. Well, for the sake of all that Zumba and healthy eating! However, since it has been a while since I baked any, I wasn’t very sure whether to go for a whole wheat version. I then thought of baking mini donuts (at least that will keep a check on portion size), but then those do not really appeal to a greedy donut lover (if you get what I mean). So, I opted for basic baked donut and again, I did not want to throw away a huge batch just because it did not come out well, so I halved the original recipe.

So with all those permutations, combinations and adjustments, I finally think I may have got my “go to recipe” for baked donuts! It’s perfectly risen, soft, supple and has that flawless sour fermented taste.

This recipe yields about 8-9 decent sized donuts and more of donut holes!

YOU NEED: 

For Donuts: 

Warm milk, less than 3/4 cups (warm and not hot)

Active dry yeast, 1 tsp

Salted butter, 2 tablespoons

Sugar, slightly over ¼ cup

Eggs, 2

All-purpose flour, 2.5 cup

Salt, 1 teaspoon (if not using salted butter) 

For Glazing: 

Melted butter

Powdered sugar

HOW TO: 

Pour about ¼ cup of milk in a large bowl and stir in yeast. Leave it for 5-15 min to proof. 

To the remaining milk, stir in butter and sugar. Add this to the yeast mixture. 

Add in the rest of the ingredients in the same order as given above (under For Donuts) and mix in with a fork until incorporated. 

At this point, you can use your electric mixer fitted with dough hook, but I did it with hands. Knead the dough well, until it starts pulling away from the sides and become supple and smooth. You may want to add flour or milk, depending on whether the dough is too sticky or dry.

Now, transfer the dough to a clean and floured counter top, and continue kneading for a few minutes until the dough is barely sticky. Shape it into a ball and transfer it to a greased bowl; let it rest in a warm place for at least two hours for the dough to rise and double in size. 

Once ready, punch down the dough, transfer it back to floured counter top and roll it out into ½ inch thick sheet. 

Using a donut cutter cut out the circles. Transfer them to greased baking pans. I did not have donut cutter, so I used cookie cutter to stamp out the outer circles and used a smaller one to make the inner ones.

Bake in batches (even the donut holes) at 190 degree Celsius for 8-10 minutes. Your donuts are ready when the bottoms turn golden brown.

Once the donuts are out, dip them in melted butter and then give them a quick toss in powdered sugar. You could even replace cinnamon sugar with powdered sugar or melt chocolate and dip the donuts in, add sprinklers and do whatever you fancy! :P

After all that serve the donuts warm and enjoy!