I had this type of donuts twice in Monique's Friend's Birthday Parties earlier this year - Italian families, loads of food and those home made donuts, with raisins in them, super fluffy soft ones. Extremely unfriendly to waistline, but super super yummy. Because they are bite sizes, and lots of them on the platter, we simply couldn't stop eating.
I did ask for the recipe. Unfortunately, the nonas who made them (different nonas, but very similar donuts) were not there to tell us what was in them.
A few weeks ago, the Italian Cousins in My Kitchen Rules made some Italian Potato Donuts, not with raisins and were different shape. But I was thinking, maybe I could try something similar with raisins?
I forgot to check the MKR recipes, but since I was making gnocchi last night and end up with too much mashed potatoes, I thought I could give the donuts a go.
I can't say it's exactly the same Italian donuts I had, similar, but honestly, it's just my made up recipe and it's as close as I can get without nagging the nonas for recipes.
They turned out to be rather yummy. Even though they might not be Italian enough.
Ingredients:
450g plain flour (take or add a bit, depending on how wet the potatoes are, I added 350g flour to start with, but slowly add more as the dough was way too wet)
1 egg, lightly whisked
75g butter, room temperature
1.5 cup mashed potato (through potato ricer, really fine, as used in gnocchi)
4 tbsp raw sugar
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp all spice powder
7g yeast
250g warm milk
Method:
Heat up milk and bring it slowly to boil, take away from heat and cool till lukewarm. Add yeast, wait until it becomes frothy.
Add flour, sugar, the spice powders and mashed potato and salt, make it into a rough dough.
The dough should be quite wet, work the dough till it's all mixed and combined properly. It's a very sticky dough and there's no need to wait for it to be smooth like the bread. Fold in the raisins.
Set in a clean bowl with cover to let it proof, for about an hour, the dough should be double in size or bigger.
Fill up the deep fryer or a deep sauce pan with 2-3 inches of oil, I usually use canola oil as it's flavourless. Use a table spoon to scoop a bit of dough, shape it roughly and scrap it into the frying pan, one by one. It will puff up and becoming more round in the oil.
It's a slow process, I certainly didn't enjoy the deep frying bit (never liked deep frying, but I don't think this will work as well if baked).
Once all finished, pile it up, I didn't count how many donuts I made, they are 1.5-2" in diametre - I'm pretty sure home made food wise, family wouldn't really care if one is bigger than the other. Plenty to go around.
Dust with loads of icing sugar. The actual donut dough don't contain a lot of sugar.
Definitely a crowd pleaser, and I think I will probably use it in my next party! It's the best when it's just made, like all donuts, but it's still nice and fluffy when it's cold.
I haven't been cooking much, well, I do cook everyday - almost, but nothing exciting lately. I had ear and throat infection for 2 weeks and still not 100%.
But this month's Daring Baker's Challenge is one not to miss... after all, the family LOVE LOVE donuts.
So thank you Lori from Butter Me Up for this wonderful wonderful challenge....
I used the yeast doughnut recipe from the recipes Lori collected, but baked the donuts rather than deep fried them. It's a bit easier for me when I don't feel like standing up too much.
The recipe I used - make 20:
360ml milk
70g butter
14g dry yeast
80ml warm water
1.5 tsp salt
55g white sugar
1 tsp all spice
0.5 tsp cinnamon powder
650g plain white flour (plus extra for dusting)
150g strawberry jam (can be home made or shop bought)
chocolate sauce (I made it with chocolate ganache - the normal dark chocolate and cream version, and icing sugar)
an egg, lightly whisked - for egg wash
For the dough:
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, first making 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 beat until 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. Instead of making normal ring donuts, I rolled the dough into a long log, and fold the jam in the dough - as it's the baking version, I can cheat a bit, rather than pipe the jam into the donuts.
9. Let the donuts set in the baking tray, lined with baking paper and greased, for 45 minutes or so, and brush on egg wash.
10. Bake donuts in oven pre-heated to 200C, for 12-14 minutes.
11. Let them cool a little and add chocolate sauce on top, it will melt and drop down the warm dome shaped donuts....
Eat them when they are warm!
hmm... nothing much happenning today, the sfogliatelles I made last night are almost gone, well, more than half, hubby and the daughter were having a go at them...
But I still have half of the ricotta fillings left... I used 2 different recipes for my sfogliatelles because I think the Food Safari recipe for the fillings are for a large large quantity... I was right even with 1/3 of the quantity (the second recipe yelled for double amount for the dough) I still have half left.
So I made some doughnut dough, but I was hesitating on deep frying them... It's the health issue and also I don't like the smoke from the deep fryer when cooking.
So this is my baked doughnuts with ricotta filling...
For the Dough:
400g strong bread flour.
100g hand warm water
100g hand warm milk
2 tsp dry yeast
1 egg - beaten
50g butter
75g white sugar + 1tsp.
Disolve yeast in liquid and 1tsp of sugar and give it 15 minutes to fluff.... mix well flour and sugar. Add egg in and mix well. add in yeast mix and the rest of sugar.
Knead into a soft dough until elastic.
Set to prove for 2 hours or so until the dough doubles (mine quartripled)
Devide into 12 small balls and fold in the ricotta filling.
Roll into vegetable oil to coat the outside of skin.
set on cookie sheet lined with grease proof baking paper.
Bake in 190C oven for 20-25 min....
For the ricotta filling:
280g water
90g semolina
Ricotta 300gr
Sugar 150gr
Eggs 100gr
Candied fruit in cube 100gr
Cinnamon, a pinch
Salt, a pinch
Bring the water, salt and vanilla to a boil
Add the semolina and boil 4-5 minutes.
Beat the eggs in room temperature and add to the above mixture
I think they will come out nicely deep fried and with nice glazes etc, but we are pretty sugared out lately!
I decided to make lasagne for dinner... actually I've got silver beets and egg plant that i have to use. I've been thinking... Spanakopita, Moussaka... but I've just done pork mince last night and I don't have any Feta.... but since I have a lot of ricotta cheese left, I can make my very own vegetarian (well, sort of, you will know what I mean) lasagne... I always make my own lasagne sheets, today, it's no difference
200g strong flour, 2 eggs and a pinch of salt, a drizzle of olive oil, and that's what I usually do...
Normally I make meat sauce lasagnes as the children love that, but today, boy's not home for dinner, daughter had chicken for dinner and I'm experimenting again... I'm not sure if an Italian will have a heart attack with this, but this is my lasagne.....
Bottom layer is the silver beet, I sauted some sliced onion and garlic, and then chucked in the sliced silver beets to sweat... just a pinch of salt and I drained the juice, added some lemon zest, a handful of fresh parsley and layed spread it on the bottom layer of lasagne sheets... spread around almost 250g of ricotta (I love ricotta) and sprinkled salt and pepper..
Lined with lasagne sheets again and some shredded mozerella cheese (not the baffalo type just the common ones from local supermarket) and I layed the chargrilled egg plants (I didn't go for the deep fried version, just the healthier chargrilled version) and in between I lined some salami slices (I had to put in some meats there, although I love vegetarian food, but hubby would love to taste a bit of meat)
It's a simple, pleasant (for me that is) dinner and is not too heavy at all, and hmmm still some room for trying out the doughnuts...
