Doughnut or Donut?

Well, however you like to spell it, they should always taste delicious!

I haven't made real doughnuts since making them as a teenager with my Mom, though I have been threatening to do so for years. I used to love baking with my Mom, and it was the memory her homemade birthday cakes for me and my brother that launched me into cake decorating when my son was about to turn 1 (if only she could see me now!!)

My first, ever, decorated cake for my son's 1st birthday (he is 16 now).

Watching The Great British Bake Off last week inspired me, and I decided that the time for doughnut making had finally come. I was delighted that South African koeksisters made their way onto the show though, as I do make those regularly and had shared my recipe on here just before the show aired (how's that for coincidence?)

Over the last week I have tried making a yeasted dough glazed ring and a glazed chocolate cake doughnut. I used both recipes exactly as they were written for my first attempts (well, mostly), as I've not made them before and don't know how the doughs or glazes should look or feel.

First up are the yeasted dough Glazed Ring Doughnuts.

These came out looking pretty good. They were nice and puffy, but they were too chewy to me and I didn't like them. My husband actually liked the chewiness, but still agreed they didn't taste quite right - they tasted more like vetkoek (another, usually savoury, South African treat) than actual doughnuts. The glaze also wasn't quite right as it stayed sticky and didn't crust over as I would expect. My seminary students, however, enjoyed eating them as an early Friday morning treat to go with their hot chocolate.

The dough was completely runny after bringing it together, so I used my best judgement and added some more flour (the amount of yeast called for was quite a lot, so I felt it could deal with the extra flour.) Even after rising the dough was still very loose and I struggled to maintain the shape of the rings when cutting them and moving them onto trays. I probably should have floured the trays, as they stuck quite badly where the cut edges came in contact with the baking paper, but the recipe just stated to put them onto baking paper, so thats what I did. 

After proving, the dough was still looser than I anticipated and it was really hard to keep the doughnuts round getting them into the oil, and some of the holes tried to stick closed.

But they puffed up beautifully when cooking and most of them came out pretty round (some of them were decidedly misshapen though, I wish I had taken pics of them).

The round ones looked great with the classic light band around their middle. I'm not happy with this recipe though, so I'm not going to share it.

Next up are the Glazed Chocolate Cake Doughnuts.

These too came out looking great! The flavour was perfect, but the cake was a little bit dry and heavy. This glaze tasted good too and crusted over perfectly, but was just a bit too thick and didn't go clear as promised in the recipe (but this is would probably be fixed by thinning the glaze down a bit more). I did enjoy eating these very much, but they will need a bit more work to make them really delicious. You can find the recipe by Lauren Weisenthal here.

This dough is made with baking powder rather than yeast, so only calls for a couple of 10 minute standing periods and doesn't begin rising until it hits the hot oil. The dough was very, very sticky, and though the recipe encouraged the use of plenty of flour when rolling and cutting the rings, I didn't use enough and they stuck irretrievebly to my counter top. I therefore had to reform the dough and roll it out again. This could possibly account for the slight dry heaviness of the cake (the recipe warns against overworking the dough).

Frying them was quite hard because of their dark colour. I found I had to actually set a timer to cook them consistently and had to watch my oil temperature like a hawk, because if the oil was just a little to hot, or I cooked them just a little too long, they got a slight burned taste to them and the tops didn't break open.  A bit more attention and experimentation with the cooking process may also improve the texture of the cake.

These were devoured by our roadshow participants at our rehearsal last night.

If you can recommend a recipe for me to try, I'd love to see it, and if I like it I will share it on my blog. Please leave a comment below!

Koeksisters {Recipe & Tutorial}

Koeksisters are a very popular South African treat. They are deep-fried doughnut-like pastries that are coated in a sweet, lightly spiced syrup. I haven't make them terribly often since I've been living in the UK, but every time I do they are polished of in no time at all. My friends love them!

The first thing you need to do is make the syrup. Now I can't stress this enough - you need to make it the day before you make the koeksisters, and let it get really cold in the fridge over night. I tried making it the same day once (put it in the freezer to try and speed up the cooling process), and lets just say, it wasn't good. If the syrup isn't really, really cold when you dip the koeksisters in, it crystalises and ruins the koeksisters completely.

OK, here we go!

Koeksister Recipe

Makes about 24

Syrup:

Ingredients:

1 cup water
4 cups sugar
1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

Method:

Pour water into a large saucepan. Add sugar, pouring it into the centre of the water, then encouraging it to settle under the water. Add the cream of tartar, cinnamon and ginger. Do not stir. Bring the mixture slowly up to boil on a medium heat and simmer for about 10 minutes until it becomes syrupy. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Once cooled to around room temperature, cover and place in fridge to chill over night.

Dough:

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
90g butter or margarine
1 egg, beaten
90ml milk

Method:

Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Rub butter into the dry ingredients until mixture resembles crumbs. Add egg and milk and mix in well until a dough forms.

Refrigerate dough for about an hour.

Roll dough out to a thickness of 1/4" (I usually make double the recipe and then roll out small pieces of the dough at a time.)

Cut the dough into 4" x 1" strips.

For each strip: Cut up the centre, leaving about 1/2" uncut. Twist each 'leg' made twice to the right. Now twist the two legs (preserving the twist in them) twice around each other to the left. Brush a tiny bit of water on the end of the left leg then stick the right leg to it, sealing them together.

Once all of the dough has been cut and twisted, rest them in the fridge while you get ready for the next step.

Bring a large pot of oil (or a deep fat fryer) up to about 180°C. Split the syrup, that you've had in the fridge over night, into two dishes, one for dipping in while the other stays cold in the fridge. You will swap these dishes between each batch of frying to ensure the syrup stays cold.

Set up your work space so that you have kitchen towel to drain the koeksisters after they have been fried, one of the dishes of cold syrup and a clean dish to put finished koeksisters into.

Mine looked like this:

Now begin frying the twisted dough by gently dropping them into the hot oil.

You can fry a few at a time, just make sure there is enough space in the pot for them all to float flat on the top of the oil.

Turn them over in the oil every few minutes until they are a rich golden brown colour.

Remove them from the oil and place them to drain very quickly on some kitchen roll.

Then get them into the cold syrup while they are still piping hot. Turn them a few times to get well coated and let them soak for a few minutes.

Remove them from the syrup.

Swap the syrup you have just used with the cold syrup in the fridge, then repeat the whole process until all the koeksisters are made. Koeksisters are best eaten cool/cold and should be consumed within a day or two of making them, or the syrup begins crystallising. They can also be frozen very successfully (in fact, I have a friend who thinks they are best eaten straight out of the freezer!)

Happy Baking!