HOW TO MAKE ARTISAN DOUGHNUTS AT HOME
Doughnuts are surprisingly simple to make at your house.
Whether you consider doughnuts required comfort food or occasional indulgence, you must have noticed the growing number of artisan doughnut shops with their offerings ranging from simple to exotic.
You can seek out these artisan doughnuts, or you can make your own artisan doughnuts at home.
Yes, doughnuts are surprisingly easy to make at home, requiring little specialized equipment. If you’re frying doughnuts, you’ll need something to use for a doughnut cutter and equipment for frying. If you’re baking doughnuts, they’ll turn out much prettier if you bake them in a doughnut pan. All these items are available at your local cookware store.
To get the lowdown on making doughnuts at home, we turned to Chrysta Poulos, creative director for pastry for several Atlanta restaurants owned by chef Ford Fry including King + Duke, BeetleCat, No. 246, JCT Kitchen and St. Cecilia.
Poulos has been making doughnuts for many years. Google her and you’ll read about peanut butter crème brûlée doughnuts she paired with oven-roasted strawberries or bombolini doughnuts (Italian doughnuts traditionally stuffed with pastry cream) filled with housemade ricotta and served with honey-cinnamon syrup.
And if you’re truly into exotic doughnuts, you can try the recipe for the Fried Chicken Skin Doughnuts with Maple Glaze she created in 2014 when she and Alissa Mark won the Cooking Channel’s Donut Showdown.
For us, Poulos shared two baked doughnut recipes and one fried classic.
The baked doughnut recipes are simple, closely related to a quick bread like a muffin but baked in a doughnut’s distinctive shape and then either glazed or dipped in butter and flavored
sugar. The doughnuts themselves are not very sweet. It’s the toppings and glaze that provide that extra sweetness.
Fried doughnuts are a little more complicated, requiring rising time and then cooking in temperature-controlled oil. But they’re so good they’re worth that extra effort.
Although Poulos doesn’t eat many sweet things at home, she knows that homemade doughnuts hit the right note for many. “There’s just something nostalgic about eating them. I find doughnuts make me feel like a kid at heart.”
CHOCOLATE-COFFEE MINI DOUGHNUTS
In both this and the Red Velvet Doughnuts, Poulos uses Dutch process cocoa because she prefers the color and the deeper flavor.
Hershey’s cocoa, the most widely available cocoa on your grocer’s shelves, is natural cocoa powder, not Dutch process. Hershey’s Special Dark, also available at the grocery, is a mixture of natural and Dutch process. To get full Dutch process cocoa, you’ll need to purchase online. You’ll find all Poulos’ preferred flours and other ingredients at kingarthurflour.com.
We tested the recipe with both natural and Dutch process cocoas and were successful with both, with slightly different results.
Any leftover coffee-sugar would be perfect for sweetening a cup of coffee or hot chocolate.
1 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon coffee
grounds
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa 1/2 teaspoon baking soda ⅛ teaspoon salt
1/2 cup full-fat buttermilk 2 tablespoons light brown
sugar
1 extra-large egg 10 tablespoons unsalted
butter, melted, divided 1 teaspoon vanilla
Make coffee-sugar: In the bowl of a food processor, combine 1 cup sugar with coffee grounds and pulse until finely ground. Put coffee-sugar in a rimmed dish large enough to hold a finished doughnut and set aside.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray mini doughnut pans with nonstick spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, light brown sugar, egg, remaining 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons melted butter and vanilla.
Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Scoop batter into a pastry bag fitted with a round tip and pipe into the mini doughnut cavities. Do not fill more than halfway as doughnuts will rise when baked.
Bake approximately 8 minutes or until doughnuts pull away from the pan slightly and spring back when touched. Remove from oven and invert doughnuts onto parchment lined sheet pan.
Be sure remaining 8 tablespoons melted butter is warm and pour into a rimmed plate large enough to hold one doughnut at a time. Dip doughnuts in butter and then toss to coat in coffe- sugar. Makes: 18 2-inch doughnuts
Per doughnut: 155 calories (percent of calories from fat, 39), 2 grams protein, 23 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 7 grams fat (4 grams saturated), 29 milligrams cholesterol, 63 milligrams sodium.
RED VELVET MINI DOUGHNUTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup cake flour 6 tablespoons Dutch
process cocoa
1/4 cup cornstarch 1 tablespoon baking
powder
1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/4 cup lightly packed dark
brown sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted
butter, melted 2 extra-large eggs, room
temperature
1/4 teaspoon orange zest 3/4 cup full-fat buttermilk 1 tablespoon red food
coloring
Cream Cheese Glaze (see recipe)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray mini doughnut pans with nonstick spray.
Sift all-purpose flour, cake flour, cocoa, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl.
In another large bowl, whisk together granulated sugar, dark brown sugar and melted butter. Add eggs one at a time, whisking thoroughly between each. Add orange zest.
In measuring cup, stir together buttermilk and red food coloring.
Add the dry ingredients to the sugar-egg mixture alternately with the buttermilk mixture. Start and end with the dry ingredients and stir lightly with each addition. Be careful not to overmix.
Scoop batter into a pastry bag fitted with a round tip and pipe into the mini doughnut cavities. Do not fill more than halfway, as doughnuts will rise when baked.
Bake approximately 8 minutes or until doughnuts pull away from the pan slightly and spring back when touched. Do not overbake.
Remove from oven and invert doughnuts onto parchment-lined sheet pan. When cooled, roll or dip in warmed Cream Cheese Glaze or spread cool Cream Cheese Glaze over the top. Makes: 30 2-inch doughnuts
Per doughnut, without Cream Cheese Glaze: 77 calories (percent of calories from fat, 25), 2 grams protein, 13 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, 2 grams fat (1 gram saturated), 18 milligrams cholesterol, 141 milligrams sodium.
FRIED YEAST DOUGHNUTS
Poulos uses Sir Galahad flour from King Arthur Flour for artisan breads and yeasted pastries because it’s relatively low in protein. Since it’s only available in 50-pound bags, we substituted King Arthur’s unbleached bread flour.
Only roll out the dough once for doughnuts. Any scraps can be kneaded together, allowed to rest and used to bake dinner rolls. Form the rolls, arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and allow to rise again. Brush with egg wash and top with salt, sesame seeds or poppy seeds and bake at 325 until golden brown.
For the doughnuts or rolls, Poulos likes to have them rise until they’re grown to 1 1/2 times their size, not doubled as most recipes call for. She finds this makes for moister breads.
whole milk
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon active dry
yeast
2 extra-large eggs
3 cups bread flour, plus extra for flouring work surface
⅓ cup granulated sugar 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon salt Vegetable oil, for frying Cream Cheese Glaze (see recipe)
In a medium saucepan, combine milk and water and warm just to 105 degrees. Add yeast and allow to sit until yeast begins to foam.
Pour milk mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add eggs, one at a time and beat between each addition. Add flour, sugar, butter and salt, and mix until combined. Be sure salt is added last so it doesn’t directly touch the yeast mixture. Beat on low speed for 8 minutes.
Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray and put dough into container. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Generously dust work surface with flour. Line baking sheets with parchment paper dusted with flour. Roll dough to just over 1/2-inch thick. Using doughnut cutter, cut out doughnuts. See notes for other uses for the scraps. Arrange doughnuts on prepared baking sheets and allow to rise until they have risen to 1 1/2 times their size.
Preheat oil to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and top with a cooling rack.
Carefully drop doughnuts in oil and fry, flipping over a few times to ensure even cooking, until they are golden brown, about 4 minutes total. Move fried doughnuts to cooling rack and allow to drain and cool slightly. Dip into Cream Cheese Glaze. Makes: 12 4-inch doughnuts plus 12 holes, extra dough for 6 dinner rolls
Per 4-inch doughnut: 137 calories (percent of calories from fat, 450, 3 grams protein, 16 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, 7 grams fat (2 grams saturated), 22 milligrams cholesterol, 99 milligrams sodium.
CREAM CHEESE GLAZE
This is two recipes in one. You can use it as it comes out of the mixer as cream cheese frosting, or heat it and turn it into a glaze. When using it as a glaze that it doesn’t dry hard, but rather is still a bit sticky.
Our recipe calls for using a stand mixer, but if your ingredients are soft enough, you can mix this in a bowl with a wooden spoon.
6 ounces cream cheese,
softened
8 tablespoons unsalted
butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar,
preferably 10X
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and salt. Mix until thoroughly combined. Can make ahead and keep refrigerated until ready to use.
When ready to use, carefully warm in microwave until mixture is liquid. Dip doughnuts in on each side, lightly scraping the doughnut against the bowl to remove any excess. Let doughnuts sit on a wire rack to drip off excess glaze and cool. Makes: 2 cups
Per 2-tablespoon serving: 176 calories (percent of calories from fat, 47), 1 gram protein, 23 grams carbohydrates, no fiber, 9 grams fat (6 grams saturated), 27 milligrams cholesterol, 66 milligrams sodium.