Baked Doughnuts

So for the new year, I too am trying to eat healthier, and drop some pounds. As a diabetic, I am trying to watch the sugar intake as well. The trouble with that is that I have a desserts blog. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to work it all out, seeing this is a desserts blog. Maybe I can come up with a way to make them with less sugar but still taste good.

I ran across these baked doughnuts a while back on Tartelette's blog and knew that I wanted to try them. I envisioned them to be nice and fluffy like a Krispy Kreme doughnut, but healthier since they were baked, not fried. The recipe also called to dip them into melted butter immediately after they baked and then rolled into cinnamon and sugar. I chose to dip them into a buttery glaze, so that they would be like a glazed Krispy Kreme. These did not turn out that way. They tasted fine, but the texture of them reminded me of a sweet thick pizza crust.
Maybe I didn't let them rise long enough on the second rising. I may try these again, but if I do it will be with whole wheat flour. The wheat flour is a new thing to me too. I have never used it.

Baked Doughnuts

1 1/3 cups warm milk, 95-105 degrees (divided)
1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
2 Tbsp butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups all purpose flour
A pinch or two of nutmeg, freshly grated
1 tsp salt

optional topping:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and sugar and set aside for five minutes or so to let it proof. Stir the butter into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt-just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. Adjust the dough texture by adding flour a few tablespoons at a time or more milk. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough into a buttered or oiled bowl, cover, put in a warm place, and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size. Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2 inch thick on your floured counter top. With a 2-3 inch cookie cutter, stamp out circles in the dough. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes-start checking around 8 minutes. While the doughnuts are baking, place butter in a medium bowl. Placed the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl.

Or...dip the tops in this glaze..

Creamy Butter Glaze

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
4-6 Tbsp hot water

Melt butter and then whisk it in a medium bowl with confectioners sugar, vanilla, and hot water. Dip tops of doughnuts and let set.

Doughnut making with Blake

This is my son Blake, and he is 10 years old. For this week of baking with my kids, Blake chose doughnuts. This recipe came from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman. The description in the book said that these were almost exactly like Krispy Kreme. She was completely right. They taste just like them. The only problem that Blake and I ran into was that this dough was really, really sticky. I used the 5 cups of flour and then needed more. So, alot of our doughnuts looked like fritters and not round. Actually, only 2 or 3 ended up round! But that was ok, they still tasted great and we will try them again.

Mixing the ingredients, before putting on the dough hook...

Oh, and how could I forget this part. Our dough did not rise! I am not sure if my yeast was old or what..but no rising action here with the dough. Oh well, we deep fried them anyways..

After frying them, drain them and then dip them in the butter glaze and you have this...

The verdict? Very good! They didn't last long!

Homemade Franchise-Style Doughnuts

Dough:

1/4 cup warm water (100-110 degrees F)

2 Tbsp rapid-rise yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/3 cup shortening

5 cups, approximately, all-purpose flour

Vegetable oil or shortening, for frying

In a mixer bowl, hand-whisk warm water and yeast together and let stand 2-3 minutes to dissolve yeast. Briskly whisk in milk, sugar, salt, and eggs and blend. Add shortening and most of flour and blend. Then knead with a dough hook on low speed only until smooth (it is not necessary to knead this dough a long time.)

Remove dough hook and spray dough lightly with nonstick cooking spray. Cover entire mixer and bowl with a large clear plastic bag. Let dough rise 50-60 minutes or until almost doubled. Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface and gently deflate. Roll to 1/2 inch thickness and , using a doughnut cutter,cut into doughnuts. Cover doughnuts loosely with plastic wrap and let rise 20-40 minutes.

Heat vegetable oil or shortening in a fryer (or wok) to 350 degrees F. Slide in doughnuts, a few at a time, and fry about 1 minute per side. Remove from oil onto a wire rack set over parchment paper.

Creamy Butter Glaze:

1/2 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

4-6 Tbsp hot water

1 ounce semisweet chocolate, melted, optional

For Creamy Butter Glaze:

Melt butter and then whisk it in a medium bowl with powdered sugar,vanilla, and hot water. Smear doughnuts in glaze.

For Chocolate Glaze, if desired, add 1 ounce melted chocolate to one entire recipe of Butter Glaze. Smear doughnuts in chocolate glaze.