THE DARING BAKERS OKTOBER 2010 CHALLENGE: DOUGNUTS

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

For this month's challenge I made the Yeast Doughnuts! I do really LOVE doughnuts, but never made them myself, so a perfect challenge for me :)

Making the doughnuts was really fun and nice to do. But I made a stupid mistake.. For another recipe I needed three eggs. Without thinking I added the 3 eggs to the doughnut dough.. very stupid since I made half the recipe and used 3 eggs instead of 1 ! I added some additional flour to the dough and hoped for the best :) In the end the dough was fine and I was able to cut out nice doughnut shapes. Also the frying went well, so I was very happy :)


The taste of the doughnuts was great, a little bit to much egg taste, but I wasn't surprised about that. I do really love this recipe for doughnuts and definitely will make them again! Great challenge!!

Preparation time:
Hands on prep time - 25 minutes
Rising time - 1.5 hours total
Cooking time - 12 minutes

Yield: 20 to 25 doughnuts

Ingredients:
Milk 1.5 cup / 360 ml
Butter 1/3 cup / 80 ml / 70 gm / 2.5 oz
Active Dry Yeast 4.5 teaspoon (2 pkgs.) / 22.5 ml / 14 gm / 1⁄2 oz
Warm Water 1/3 cup / 80 ml (95°F to 105°F / 35°C to 41°C)
Eggs, Large, beaten 2
White Granulated Sugar 1⁄4 cup / 60 ml / 55 gm / 2 oz
Table Salt 1.5 teaspoon / 7.5 ml / 9 gm / 1/3 oz
Nutmeg, grated 1 tsp. / 5 ml / 6 gm / 1⁄4 oz
All Purpose Flour 4 2/3 cup / 1,120 ml / 650 gm / 23 oz + extra for dusting surface
Flavorless oil used for frying







Directions:
1. Place the milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat just until warm enough to melt the shortening. (Make sure the shortening is melted so that it incorporates well into the batter.)
2. Place the shortening in a bowl and pour warmed milk over. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let dissolve for 5 minutes. It should get foamy. After 5 minutes, pour the yeast mixture into the large bowl of a stand mixer and add the milk and shortening mixture, firstmaking sure the milk and shortening mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
4. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and half of the flour. Using the paddle attachment of your mixer (if you have one),combine the ingredients on low speed until flour is incorporated and then turn the speed up to medium and beatuntil well combined.
5. Add the remaining flour, combining on low speed at first, and then increase the speed to medium and beat well.
6. Change to the dough hook attachment of the mixer and beat on medium speed until the dough pulls away from the bowl and becomes smooth, approximately 3 to 4 minutes (for me this only took about two minutes). If you do not have a dough hook/stand mixer – knead until the dough is smooth and not sticky.
7. Transfer to a well-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
8. On a well-floured surface, roll out dough to 3/8-inch (9 mm)thick. (Make sure the surface really is well-floured otherwise your doughnuts will stick to the counter).
9. Cut out dough using a 2 1/2-inch (65 mm) doughnut cutter or pastry ring or drinking glass and using a 7/8-inch (22mm) ring for the center whole. Set on floured baking sheet, cover lightly with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
10. Preheat the oil in a deep fryer or Dutch oven to 3 65 °F/185°C.
11. Gently place the doughnuts into the oil, 3 to 4 at a time. Cook for 1 minute per side or until golden brown (my doughnuts only took about 30 seconds on each side at this temperature).
12. Transfer to a cooling rack placed in baking pan. Allow to cool for 15 to 20 minutes prior to glazing, if desired.