National Doughnut Day: Raspberry Sugar Doughnuts

Krispy Kreme are coming to Adelaide. Catch a flight here from the eastern states and you’re sure to see a few overhead lockers filled with their familiar boxes. The new store–a doughnut drive through–is opening on July 15th on Port Road in West Croydon, it’s a shame they didn’t get their opening to coincide with National Doughnut Day.

I, on the other hand, was all over National Doughnut Day. Let’s ignore the fact that I didn’t know it was National Doughnut Day, or the fact that National Doughnut Day isn’t even an Australian celebration. It’s a day, and it also happens to be the day I made doughnuts.

Now I’ve technically made doughnuts before. But this time I made genuine, round-hole-in-the-centre doughnuts.

I was making ‘sugar lips’ from Adriano Zumbo’s Zumbo cookbook and I had some left over dough. I bought myself a doughnut cutter in preparation for my housemate’s ‘C’ party. The idea was to make cronuts, but time got the better of me and it’s been sitting in the cupboard unused. These doughnuts were deep fried and dusted in a mix of caster sugar and freeze dried raspberry powder. You can obviously substitute it for the classic mix of sugar and cinnamon.

I wasn’t sure how well they’d turn out. Doughnuts are yeast based, so they need to prove. It’s cold in Adelaide and I certainly don’t have a proving cabinet. Instead I followed Zumbo’s instructions of leaving them in a switched off oven with a tray of hot water. It seemed to do the trick.

These raspberry sugar doughnuts are like regular doughnuts on acid; fluro bright and bursting with a sweet but slightly tart raspberry dusting.

Doughnut Dough

Starter
10g fresh yeast
125g water
175g plain flour

Dough
225g lightly beaten egg
150g milk
700g plain flour
7.5g salt
150g caster sugar
125g chilled unsalted butter

Sugar Dusting
25g freeze dried raspberry powder
200g caster sugar

1. Mix your yeast with the water, then add yeast and flour to a stand mixer and beat until the mixture just comes together.

2. Wipe oil around a large metal or plastic bowl. Transfer the starter to the oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave somewhere warm until it doubles in size (about an hour).

3. Add dough ingredients to the stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix until it forms a smooth dough. Add the starter and mix for about 5 minutes. It should be smooth and a little shiny. Transfer this to the oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Make sure there is enough room in the bowl for the dough to double in size, this should happen in about 2 hours.

4. Knock back the dough and then cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight.

5. Roll out the dough until it is about 4mm thick. Use a doughnut cutter to cut out your shapes. Keep the ‘doughnut holes’, they make a tasty bite-sized treat once dusted with the raspberry sugar mix.

6. Put the doughnuts on trays lined with baking paper, and place in the oven with a roasting tin of warm water on the bottom shelf. This is supposed to help keep the oven warm and moist, like the environment inside a proving cabinet. Leave them in there for around 1-2 hours until they have doubled in size. Replace water if it cools.

7. Combine the raspberry powder and sugar.

8. Heat a deep fryer to around 190º. Deep fry doughnuts until they are golden and puffed up. Fry one first to check that the inside is cooking properly, and then continue with the rest.

9. When you remove a doughnut from the oil, roll it in the raspberry sugar mix.

10. Enjoy!

Now that I’ve mastered the doughnut, perhaps it is the time to try my hands at a cronut or two.