Delectables with Dan: Danny's Doughnuts! (St. Patrick's Day Special Pt.2)

I've been thinking about doing a doughnut blog for the longest time and I FINALLY got around to getting a doughnut pan! On today's special we're going to be doing chocolate doughnut holes with a Bailey's Irish Cream filling in the centre and a mint glazed regular sized doughnut!

SHOW ME YOUR HOLES 

Doughnut holes are fun to eat but can be a pain in the arse to make. Here's what you need to make them:
315g all-purpose flour
120g baking cocoa (preferably the Dutch process) 

2 tsp baking powder 

300g sugar (not caster sugar) 

80ml buttermilk

1/2 tsp salt 

4 eggs 

3 tsp melted butter
Vegetable oil for frying of course.

**You will need a deep-frying thermometer for this**
To make the doughnut dough, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, flour salt and baking powder. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, buttermilk and melted butter. Once you've done that, pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well. Do note that the dough will be wet; not wet like the ladies after a Steel Panther concert, but close enough. Wrap the bowl with clingfilm and put it in the fridge to chill. 

After the dough is chilled, it's time to get frying. Make sure that you are using a pot that is able to handle frying because the oil will get extremely hot. Excercise caution when working with the hot oil. Fill the pan with 4-5 inches of oil and attach the thermometer to the side of the pan. Do not overfill the pan with oil, it will just make a giant fucking mess and someone will end up in A&E. Then again, that might be entertaining...no, focus on the doughnuts not the destruction of one's extremities.

The oil needs to be a certain temperature, so while it heats up to  190C(375F), we're going to prepare the dough! You can use a small round biscuit cutter to do this, but if you're like me, who's cheap, we're going to use small egg-shaped one, rather than a circle one cause I don't have one. Make sure that your hands are floured as well as the surface you're going to be working on.

Plop 4 of them into the oil to cook. (Doing this way ensures that everybody gets done evenly; think of it as a 4-way.) Allow them to cook for 4 minutes, turning them evenly as they cook. When you remove them, use a slotted spoon to drain excess oil from the doughnut hole and place it on a plate or in a bowl that is lined with paper towel to absorb the rest of the excess grease. 

While they are cooling, you can make their filling. The recipe for that is down below. :)

BAKE ME 

Sometimes you want more of a mouthful and the hole just isn't gonna fulfil you.  The second part of this blog focuses on big, thick chocolate doughnuts! For this, you will need a doughnut pan you can easily buy online. 

30g baking cocoa (preferably the Dutch process) 

125g all-purpose flour 

100g granulated sugar
120ml buttermilk 

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 large egg 

2 tablespoons melted butter 

Pre-heat your oven to 175C (350F) and well grease your doughnut pan. It does no good if they stick to them...though I'm the human garbage disposal in my life won't complain what they look like as long as he can shove them into his mouth.



In a large bowl, you're going to mix together all the dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl,  you're going to mix together all the wet ingreidents. Once the two separate mixtures, both liquid and dry and well mixed, blend the two together. Once blended and evenly mixed, take a tablespoon and spoon the batter into the doughnut pan. Be careful not to have any of the batter spill over the sides. Make sure that they have room to bake up. 1/2 or 3/4 full would be ideal. Allow doughnuts to bake roughly 10 minutes; test them before removing them from the oven with a toothpick. Allow doughnuts to completely cool before attempting to glaze them. 

FILL ME WITH YOUR CREAM, DADDY
375g icing sugar
227g softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2-3 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream

**We're subbing the double cream or milk with Bailey's**

In a medium bowl, add ONLY the icing sugar and the butter. Start out beating on low speed until the two are well mixed, then increase your speed to high for 4-5 minutes or until the mixture becomes light and fluffy. Give the bowl a decent scrape before adding in the vanilla essence and Irish cream. Beat for another 4-5 minutes. Carefully scoop out mixture into a pastry bag with a size 16 (open star) tip. You can use a small round tip if you prefer, it makes no difference. 

I forgot to shoot making that filling, but I also made some vanilla infused whipped cream to fill some of them and top the baked doughnuts with. Here's how you make it:

480 ml double cream
3 tsp granulated sugar 

1 tsp vanilla essence 

In a large, chilled bowl add your sugar, cream and vanilla essence. With an electric hand mixer, whip on high (kinda like you would a boy slave in your sex dungeon) until cream thickens (like Mr Bacon) and soft peaks begin to form.  This takes about 6-7 minutes. When finished, carefully put into an icing bag using a rubber spatula. The bag should have a small star tip. You can use the same tip style as you did for the other filling.

To fill your doughnut holes, carefully poke a hole with the tip into the centre. Give it a gentle squeeze, like you would your lover's love eggs. Be gentle, just like with him, you don't want the cream to explode all over you. Fill with cream until it pops out of the top of the doughnut. Repeat until all your holes are filled. 

DIP ME IN YOUR GLAZE
250g icing sugar
 2 tablespoons buttermilk 

1 1/2 tsp peppermint oil/extract.
2 drops green food colouring
1 handful of mini-chocolate chips for decoration ONLY
You want to be careful with your peppermint oil, it's different from peppermint extract. The oil is far more concentrated than extract, so if you're using extract you will have to add a bit more to get the minty flavour that you're searching for.

To make the glaze add all ingreidents into a medium-sized bowl, minus the chocolate chips.  You may need to add more buttermilk to make it smoother. If you don't have enough buttermilk or whatever you can sub double cream for it. The consistency will be a bit different, but it will be just as delicious. 

Before you pour, put your doughnuts on a cooling rack with a drip pan underneath, You're going to need it to catch the runoff. Once you've made your mixture pour it over your doughnuts. Collect the runoff icing and use it on other doughnuts or keep to the side for dipping. 

Slowly (and seductively) pour the peppermint glaze over the top of your doughnuts in a crazy pattern. Drizzle it all over. If you don't feel you can do that without making a proper mess of things, use a large spoon and carefully drizzle the glaze over the tops of the doughnuts. Let the glaze sit for 5-10 minutes before filling the small centres with cream. Carefully with the small tip (yeah we're not changing them; if you can work with your man's small tip in the bedroom, you can work with this small tip in the kitchen) in a circle motion pipe cream into the centre. Put into the fridge to allow everything to get 10 minutes then "sprinkle" a few mini-chocolate chips on them for looks. 

THERE WE GO! HAPPY ST PATRICKS DAY FROM DELECTABLES WITH DAN!