Doughnuts! Cinnamon glazed, Dark chocolate, White chocolate

Its hard to come by good, fresh doughnuts in India unless you are breakfasting in a 5-star hotel or rushing to the nearest CCD joint. There are so many bakeries that shape bread into dougnut look alikes, glaze the top with sugar and call in a doughnut! Then there are others like Doughnut Bakers. I had high hopes when i packed one each of some 8 varieties of doughnuts only to find them tasting mainly of really bad, overused oil.

Anyway, I am not a doughnut junkie but I do like one, once in a while. And its exciting to think of the possibilities you can cover your doughnut with! I adore the cute round shapes too . I have made doughnuts in the past with average results. But this time they turned out really well. The dough rose beautifully. The doughnuts fluffed up dutifully. I was so happy just looking at them! :-)
BEATS STORE BROUGHT ONES HANDS DOWN!! My husband agrees :-)


I think what I did right this time was keeping the dough slightly sticky. Not as much as a bread dough. Maybe sticky ain't the right word. More like a loose, really soft dough.

You will need 2 cups of flour

2/5th cup sugar (granulated)

2-3 tbsp warm water

1.5 tbsp butter

a pinch of salt

1/2 cup hot milk

a pinch of nutmeg

1 tsp of active yeast

1/2 tsp of baking soda

Mix the milk, water, sugar, butter and salt well.

Mix the nutmeg powder, flour, baking soda.

In some warm water (not more than 50 degrees hot) add the yeast and leave for 15 mins, till it all bubbly and frothing.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour a part of the milk mixture and the whole yeast. Gently fold in a rounded motion. Keep kneading, adding the milk mixture gradually, as required till the flour feels slightly sticky. Keep working the flour for a few more minutes till its reaches a soft consistency.

Leave the dough to rest and prove for an hour. I covered the dough with cloth and put it in a slightly warmed oven. At this point, I always send a prayer to heaven. You never know of the dough will rise as much as it should. The dough should rise to twice its size.

This is a picture of my beautifully proven dough! Was so proud! :-)

Roll out the dough atleast 1/2 inch thick. I used a big bowl to cut the outer egde and a small bottle cap for the inner edge.

Heat vegetable oil. Carefully place the doughnuts in it. I fried the small roundels that were left behind after removing the big circles to get small hole-less dougnuts. And using my little finger poked holes in some of them to get miniature doughnuts!

Fry till they are fluffed up and golden brown.!

Glazing:

Cinnamon Glaze: Dissolve 3/4rth cup sugar in 2 tbsp milk, along with 2 tsp of cinnamon. Dip warm doughnuts in the glaze. Set aside to cool.

Dark Chocolate covered Doughnuts: Melt Chocolate, dip doughnut in chocolate, let cool (if you have the patience), eat doughnut dipped in chocolate. Yummm... As you can probably spot in the picture below, I couldn't even wait for the entire chocolate to melt. There are some chocolate pices still left. How can that be a bad thing right? Yummm

White choco Glaze: Melt White chocolate, Dip doughnut. dark chocolate beats white chocolate any day. It was worth a try. Not bad. White choco lovers like my mom, would like this.

You can store them for a week or two (or more??) in airtight containers in a refrigerator. Warm in oven before eating.