Friday, February 10, 2012

Baked Yeast Donuts


So I bought this doughnut baking pan as I previously posted. I made cake doughnuts and I thought they were surprisingly good. See here.

But, as we all know, yeast doughnuts are killer also. So I thought I'd use the pan with yeast dough.

I must give huge credit to 101 Recipes for this. This was the recipe I modified a bit, but for the most part
it was perfect.  

Wow, they were good.  Extremely good. I mean "melt in your mouth good"  Light and airy, and no grease.    And easy. And I must admit, it's nice not to mess with hot oil, and thermometers and all the mess cooking that way entails.

So give these a try. Actually I don't believe you need a donut pan to make them. Give it a shot, just use normal baking pans.

Ingredients and Method:

1 1/3 cups milk, warmed, not hot
2/3 cup sugar
1 packet dry yeast
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
5 cups flour (more or less)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg


In a mixer, combine the warmed milk, sugar and yeast. Let sit for 15 minutes to let it proof. It should
get foamy which means the yeast is good and ready to go. (I know, I know, yeasts today don't need to be proofed, but I'm old school, I like seeing that stuff get all bubbly)  Melt the butter, and when cool a bit,  two eggs and mix briskly. Add to milk and yeast mixture. Add salt and nutmeg and mix thoroughly.

Add four cups of flour and mix. Continue mixing and adding balance of flour in 1/4 cup increments until the dough adheres to the mixer in a ball and is not sticking to the bowl.

Drop dough onto a lightly floured board, knead just a few times, and shape into a ball. Place in oiled bowl, cover with a towel, and add to oven you heated briefly at 200 degrees (and then turned off, of course) and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Remove from oven and scrape dough out onto floured board. (Lightly floured)  Punch down and let rest
for 5 minutes.  Knead two or three times just to bring it together and roll out into a rectangle about 1 inch in thickness.

Use a doughnut cutter and cut them out. Arrange the doughnut shapes around a lightly greased doughnut pan. ( Or, just onto parchment covered baking sheet)

Continue cutting, save doughnut holes onto another baking sheet. Cover with towel (either method) and let
rise at room temperature for 45 minutes.

(When I cut mine out, I got lazy and cut out some squares of the dough and baked those too. And actually, they were delicious. I didn't coat them, just ate slightly heated with some jam, kind of like a jelly donut)


Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 8 - to minutes until golden brown. Watch them carefully, they can get overdone quickly. Golden Brown is perfect!

Remove, let cool slightly, and then shake in a plastic bag with sugar, or sugar and cinnamon. You can dip them in melted butter first, if you would like. (My preference)


And don't forget the donut "squares" I made. Those were delicious also, as well as the holes.


Enjoy!