Homemade Doughnuts
This recipe of fried eggless homemade doughnuts is just perfect - who can resist soft and fluffy, light and airy doughnuts?
Servings 18 doughnuts
Ingredients
- 450 g all purpose flour
- 60 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp active dried yeast -half envelope
- 90 ml warm water - 6 tbsp
- 57 g unsalted butter - melted
- 120 ml buttermilk - 1/2 cup
- 60 ml yoghurt - 1/4 cup
- oil for frying
- Toppings/fillings of choice
Instructions
Preparing the dough
- First, activate the yeast. Add the yeast to the warm water and let it rest for 10 minutes. The yeast will start getting frothy and bubbles will come up. (If this doesn’t happen, your yeast is either expired or the water too hot).
- In a large bowl, sift your dry ingredients - flour, sugar and salt.
- Add the melted butter, yoghurt, activated yeast and buttermilk to your dry ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon till you get a shaggy dough.
- Transfer everything to a clean surface and knead it for about 10 minutes till you get a soft and elastic dough. You can use your stand mixer with dough hook attachment as well for this.
- Put the dough into a well-oiled bowl and cover with cling wrap and a clean kitchen towel. Let it rest for 60-90 minutes in a warm dry place till it doubles in size. (I keep mine in a switched-off microwave oven).
Preparing the doughnuts shapes
- Cut out some squares out of parchment paper. This will make handling the doughnuts easy while frying.
- Punch the dough in the bowl and take it out on a clean surface. Knead it slightly and cut the dough into two. Keep one half of the dough covered in the bowl. With a rolling pin, roll out the other half of the dough to about 1/2 inch.
- Cut your shapes as desired - using a doughnut cutter or a large cookie cutter with a small cookie cutter/piping tip for centre holes. (I didn't have a small cutter so I instead made medium sized rounds instead).
- Transfer each doughnut onto a parchment paper. Repeat the process with the other half of the dough.
- Cover the doughnuts with a cling film and a kitchen towel and leave them for the second rise for about 30-45 minutes till they are double in size.
Frying the doughnuts
- Meanwhile, heat up the oil for frying (to 180C if you're using a thermometer). You can check if the oil has reached the right temperature by dropping a small scrap piece of dough - if it turns brown right away, it's too hot.
- Gently lower the doughnuts into hot oil with the help of parchment paper. Fry the doughnuts for 2-3 minutes on each side until they turn golden brown. Remove onto a paper towel to soak up any excess oil.
- Let the doughnuts cool. Roll them in sugar, or dip them in the glaze (icing sugar+little milk) or chocolate or Nutella, or make a hole in the centre with a skewer to fill them with jam or chocolate.