Donuts

My elder son, Aloysius, has been harping me to make donuts for him since last year. I bought a "Donut" recipe book last December at JB, and I haven't used it yet. Since it was the last few days of school holiday, I decided to make some for the children before they get busy with school work, and me, on my coaching.


I halved the recipe, not very confident that I wanted to do so much frying. When I did the frying, I confirmed that my frying skills are truly no good! The donuts turned out to be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Aloysius commented that it tasted more like fried fritters (油条) than donuts when eaten plain. However, he said that he liked it.


I topped the donuts with chocolate ganache, and some with crushed oreos. I didn't have the opportunity to keep them, they were gone within minutes! 

Recipe for Chocolate & Oreo Donuts, extracted from Donut by Wendy Kor & Clement Lim
(Makes approximately 20 3" donuts)
This recipe is halved of the original


Ingredients:


(A)
200g Bread flour
50g Plain flour
10g Instant yeast


(B)
40g Sugar
5g Salt


(C)
1 Egg
110g Cold water
(total liquid should add up to 150g)


(D)
100g Butter


Toppings:
Chocolate ganache
Crushed Oreos
(or any other toppings of your preference)

Method:

1. Mix (A),add in (B) & (C) and beat at medium speed for 5 minutes. Add (D) and mix for further 10-15 minutes until it is smooth and elastic.
2. Leave the dough on floured surface, covered with clingfilm. Let it rise for 40 mins till double in size.
3. Roll out dough to 1.5cm thick. Rest for 10 minutes, cut out donut using its mould. Transfer to a floured surface, leave aside for a further 30 mins to allow donut to rise.
4. Heat up sufficient oil to around 160C, deep fry donut until golden brown on both sides. Dish out and drain. Let it cool. (It took me about 2-3mins to fry both sides.)
5. Topped it with chocolate ganache and/or crushed oreos.

I'm submitting this to the Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction.

Sisterhood

When the parents are out, the children came out to play! This was what happened to us on Saturday, well, almost! My parents were off to Jordan with some relatives, leaving us siblings to settle for our own weekend. So we arranged for all to come over to my place for dinner. It was almost like a "given" arrangement. Why? Because elder sister stay alone, she would definitely need help if she need to cook for so many of us. Third sister's (younger) place has no free parking as she is living in HDB. Youngest sister's house too small to accomodate all of us, plus she doesn't cook. So naturally, it'll have to be my place-I have a helper & I cook & bake.

The best part of Saturday's gathering was, it was almost like a sisters' gathering! The husbands had other appointments/comittments! Even my spouse left to attend a wake after dinner. So ended up, the four of us, plus one of my sister's lady colleague were home (and with the children and domestic helpers, of course)! We ended up watching "Red Cliff II" DVD!

Ok, I think most of you would like to know what I cook or bake on Saturday. I wondered if I haven't been baking much during the weekdays, ended up, I was pretty lazy on Saturday. I didn't do much though! :p These were what I did.

Donuts: The not-so-fantastic JL Donuts that turned tough the following day! Hahaha... I used my previous recipe for these baked donuts. The flavours I made were: Oreo, Cinnamon, Chocolate with Hazelnuts and Chocolate with Almond Nibs.




Tarts: I baked the tart crusts and added melted chocolate. Topped them up with crusted oreos, ground hazelnuts and almonds. Same ingredients as the donuts. Heehee...



Soup: First time I tried this Cream of Carrot soup. I must say, the result is really good! I've got praises on this soup, even my hubby said this is really good. Sprinkle some black pepper and home-made crotons, it's almost like "ABC" cafe! The recipe has been provided below.


Pasta: Also for the first time, I tried making my own cream based pasta sauce. Not very successful though as it was not salty enough. I thought just modified a little from the cream of carrot soup recipe, cannot be too far wrong right? Hmm... it will be good if I added a little salt as I didn't add any. But besides being salty, there is the salmon taste. I added mushrooms and salmon to the sauce. If topped up with parmesan cheese, the taste, I thought will be good enough. Perhaps, I should have added some shredded cheese to the sauce to make it more cheesy and creamy. Good attempt, I thought, for the first time.


Salad: Very nice salad contributed by my sister's friend. Really nice, but sinful!



Recipe for Cream of Carrot (based on my own modification)
Ingredients
1 brown onion, diced
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp plain flour
1 litre chicken stock (I used Knorr's chicken stock cube)
3 big carrots, diced
3 sticks celery, diced
salt to taste (optional)
1/2 cup cream (optional)

Method:
1. Sauté the onion dices in the butter until they are tender and translucent but not browned.
2. Add the flour and stir and cook until a soft paste has formed but not browned.
3. While still cooking, pour in 1/2 cup of the stock while stirring.
4. Gradually add the rest of the stock, stirring to make the mixture is smooth and not lumpy.
5. Continue cooking until the mixture is bubbly, then add the carrots and celery and cook until they are soft enough to mash easily, about 20mins.
6. Puree the mixture until it is smooth. (I used my Philips blender and it was done in no time! I put the whole blender into the pot to puree! I'm so proud of the blender!) I turned off the fire before I pureed.
7. Add salt to the puréed soup, if needed, to taste. Add the cream, if required. For me, I omitted the salt as the chicken stock was good enough. I added half a cup of cream to the soup to thicken it slightly. Heat the puréed again if salt or cream is required. Otherwise, it'll all be done at step 6!

Bon Appetit!

JL Donuts...

New donut branch in Singapore again? Must be an imitation to JC Donuts! Heehee... JL is none other than... moi! My initial is JL. One fine day, I told my son I wanted to bake donuts. He said he wanted Oreo donuts. Spread the donuts with cream, then put crushed oreos on it. Yummy. I thought that sounds good. I would like to have one too! Hesitated for quite a while. I simply refused to fried the donuts. They will be nice, but it'll be a lot of oil wasted. In the end, I didn't bake them because I couldn't get my hands on baked donuts recipes. *haiz*

Initially, on Saturday morning, I wanted to bake the Rosemary & Garlic Focaccias. However, I woke up feeling really unwell & giddy. I was quite disappointed as I would be unable to bake. Subsequently, I rested in the morning. Feeling much better, I decided to have my first attempt at donuts. The recipe from Chocolate Galore seems really easy. It's for deep-frying, but I decided to try to bake it instead. I must say, I'm quite happy with the baked donuts! They are really soft. Although it's not as nice as the deep-fried donuts, I knew I can eat without much guilt! ;)

As I didn't have Oreo, I just frost it with whatever ingredients I have. They are: Freshly Grated Coconuts, Pandan Kaya, Chocolate Rice, Rainbow Rice, Chocolate & Walnuts and Chocolate & Strawberry Jams. I like the fresh coconut dounuts. It's very rich & nice!



I'll share the recipe with you.
Extracted from Chocolate Galore by Caroline Barty, (modified by me).
Ingredients:
Makes 8 Donuts (I made into 21 small donuts)
225g plain flour
7g instant yeast
pinch of salt
50g caster sugar
24g butter
150ml milk
2 egg yolks
oil, for deep-frying (if you want to fry)

Method:
1. Mix the flour with the yeast and salt. Add the caster sugar, then rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Heat the milk until it is warm. Whisk in the egg yolks, then add the liquid to the flour. Mix to form a soft dough. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave in a warm place for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
3. Knock back the dough on a well-floured surface for 5-10mins. Roll out the dough to 1cm thick and stampout rounds with a plain pastry cutter. Make a hole in the middle of each round with your finger. Place the doughnuts in a greased tray and leave to double in size.
4a. Deep-fry the doughnts in hot oil for about 5 mins or until they are golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper and leave to cool. Or,
4b. Bake it in the oven at 200C for about 8-10mins, or until they turned brown. Remove from the tray immediately.
5. When cooled, frost it anyway you like.

Also sharing my Friday's bake: Checkered Cake.


Saturday's instant fun: Popcorns with salted buttery sauce!
Popcorns are very easy to make. Just buy the corn seeds from supermarket, pop them into the microwave and see them pop! Then melt salted butter in the microwave and pour it over the popcorns! They give...simple pleasures! Cheap & good & satisfying! Who says popcorns are for movie-goers only?