Farmyard Animal Doughnuts Recipe

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by AdobeStock/vimart
7 SERVINGS

Ingredients

  • 375g (2 2/3 cups) strong white (bread) flour
  • 40g (3 1/4 Tbsp) caster or granulated sugar
  • 8g (1/2 Tbsp) salt
  • 10g (1/3 oz) fast-action dried (active dry) yeast
  • grated zest of 1/2 lemon or 1/2 orange (optional)
  • 60ml (1/4 cup) water
  • 55ml (3 2/3 Tbsp) whole milk
  • 3 large eggs
  • 80g (1/3 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature

  • Glaze: 200g (1 1/2 cups) icing (confectioners’) sugar
  • 30-40ml (2 2/3 Tbsp) lemon juice
  • Filling: jam, chocolate spread, ganache (see below), or curd (see below)
  • Others: oil, for deep-frying
  • caster or granulated sugar, for dusting if not going to decorate the doughnuts
  • black, yellow and orange food dyes
  • pink gel food dye
  • about 100g (3 1/2 oz) marzipan
  • your choice of favorite cookies 

Directions

  • If working by hand, add the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and grated zest, if using, to a large bowl and stir together for a few seconds to distribute the ingredients evenly.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk the water, milk and eggs together. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry, and use a spoon to combine until you achieve a rough dough. Tip the dough out onto a work surface and knead until smooth and elastic.
  • Gradually add the butter (40g (3 Tbsp) at a time) and knead in. The dough may stick to the work surface, but it is important to avoid adding any extra flour. Use a dough scraper to clean the work surface as you go along.
  • If you have a bread machine or stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, simply add all the dry ingredients, stir, then add all the wet ingredients, except the butter. Let the machine knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes, then add the butter and let the machine knead this in for a further 5 minutes.
  • Place the ball of dough into a lightly oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise until doubled in size. This might take around 2-3 hours at room temperature. You can speed up the rise by placing the covered dough in the oven preheated to a very low temperature (about 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit)).
  • When the dough has risen, knock it back and then roll out on a lightly floured surface until about 8mm (1/3 -in) thick. The dough will keep trying to shrink back every time you roll it out, so allow it to relax and shrink back a little, and then roll it out again to get the desired thickness. Make sure the dough is relaxed and not still shrinking back before you start to stamp out the doughnut shapes. This will help you to get even and round shapes. If the dough is still trying to shrink back, then the doughnuts will look misshapen.
  • Stamp out 7 circles (I use an 8.5-cm (3 1/2 -in) diameter cutter) and carefully transfer each of these to an individual square of baking paper. Once transferred, you can then cut out the centres (I use a 4-cm (1 1/2 -in) diameter cutter). Removing the centres after transferring to baking paper helps to make sure that each ring doughnut is even in size and shape.
  • Divide the remaining dough into 7 x 50-g (1 3/4 oz) pieces. Shape each of these into a smooth ball and try to create a smooth, taut surface so that oil does not get into cracks later and that they puff up evenly in the oil. Press down slightly on each doughnut to flatten. Place each doughnut on a square of baking paper. Loosely cover the doughnuts with lightly oiled plastic wrap.
  • Leave to rise for about 1-2 hours (depending on room temperature) until doubled in size.
  • Heat enough oil for deep-frying in a large, deep, heavy-based saucepan to 180-185 degrees Celsius (356-365 degrees Fahrenheit) and try to maintain this temperature while frying the doughnuts. Fry about 3 doughnuts at a time, carefully lowering them into the oil along with the baking paper underneath (this helps the doughnuts to keep their shape and not deflate during transfer). Use tongs or a similar utensil to remove the baking paper from the oil as quickly as possible. Fry the ring doughnuts for 45 seconds per side, and fry the round doughnuts for 1 minute 40 seconds per side.
  • When the doughnuts have been fried on both sides, remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. After the oil has been soaked up, you can coat these in caster sugar straightaway (they are irresistible when still warm from the pan), or you can decorate them as animals and fill the round doughnuts with your choice of filling!
  • When the doughnuts have cooled, use a knife to poke a hole in the visible white ring of the round doughnuts. Fill a piping bag with your desired doughnut filling, then pipe this into the hole. You can weigh the doughnuts before and after if you want to know how much filling you are putting in each.
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These doughnuts are clucking adorable and udderly amazing! In fact, you will want to hog them all yourself!

To Decorate:

Make the glaze by whisking the icing sugar and lemon juice together in a bowl until smooth, then follow the instructions for the animal designs below.


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