Jam & Pistachio doughnuts ❤

This is an amazing recipe, which is fairly easy to follow and gives extremely rewarding results!

I filled my doughnuts with a traditional raspberry jam filling, and with a pistachio creme patissiere as something a bit different.

This is a perfect weekend bake, as it requires a lot of time and patience 🙂

Ingredients:

500g strong white flour

1 x 7g sachet of instant yeast

25g caster sugar

210ml milk (I used semi-skimmed but whole milk is good too!)

2 large free range eggs

50g butter

1tsp salt

80g caster sugar (to coat the doughnuts)

1.5l of vegetable/sunflower/corn oil for frying

Method:

Start by heating the milk in a pan until warm. Take the pan off the hob and whisk in the eggs. In a large bowl or preferably a free-standing mixer (with a dough-hook attachment), combine the flour, yeast, salt and sugar (make sure the salt and yeast don’t come into immediate contact). Turn the mixer on a lower speed, and slowly add the milk and egg mixture to the dry mixture. Add the softened butter and allow  to knead for 7-10 mins, until a smooth and elastic dough is obtained. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for around 60-90 mins, or until the dough has doubled – I like to leave my dough in a proving draw/ near the oven!

Tip the dough onto a surface that has been lightly dusted with flour. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll each chunk into a smooth, round ball. This is easily done by applying pressure onto the dough using a cupped-hand, with your thumb.. (this youtube video demonstrates the technique perfectly).

Place the rolled dough onto 12 squares of parchment paper that have been lightly dusted with flour, and leave to prove again for around an hour.

Next, put the oil in a large, heavy based-pan so its roughly 8cm deep (make sure the oil isn’t too near the top of the pan either). The oil should be 180°C (I use a sugar-thermometer to check the temperature), but anywhere between 190°-170° is ok too! The oil takes around 10mins to warm up, once this is done transfer the doughnuts on at a time into the pan gently, using the parchment paper. Fry the doughnuts for 2-3mins on one slide, then flip the doughnuts over – I use chopsticks to do this. Remove the doughnut from the oil, and place directl on a sheet of kitchen roll to remove the excess oil. Roll the doughnut in a bowl with caster sugar, and leave to cool on a wired rack.

Once all of the doughnuts have cooled, make a hole in the side of the doughnut using a  butter knife – but make sure the hole doesn’t pierce through to the other side of the doughnut!

Fill a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle with any flavoured jam, and insert into the cut in the side of the doughnut. Slowly fill until the doughnuts start to get heavier, and leave to rest standing upwards.

To make the pistachio creme patissiere, place 90g of unshelled pistachios in a food processor and blitz until a fine powder is formed. Whisk 4 egg yolks with 60g of caster sugar until thick ribbons have formed and the mix has doubled in volume. Add 25g of plain flour, the ground pistachio and 2tbsp of cornflour to the egg mixture, and whisk again. Heat 280ml of whole or semi-skimmed milk in a saucepan until it starts to boil. Transfer a small amount of the heated milk into the egg mixture and whisk. Once incorporated, add the remixing milk to the whisked eggs, and then return the whole mixture back into the pan.

Whilst continuously stirring, leave the creme patissiere on the hob until the mix thickens. Leave to cool. Fill a piping bag with the creme patissiere, and fill the doughnuts as above.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! ❤

Sofia 🙂 x