Baked doughnuts

Yesterday Justin asked if we could have doughnuts and as we weren't going anywhere near the shops I thought I might have a go at making some. I don't own a deep fat fryer and didn't want to fill a saucepan with oil (unless you do a lot of frying I always think this is a waste of oil!) so opted to try baking them.

The recipe for doughnuts in my very old Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book was for fried doughnuts but after checking out other recipes on the net I decided to go with the Mary Berry recipe and take a chance on baking them.

I decided to use my dough hook on my Kitchenaid for the first time. This worked well and I followed guidelines to keep the mixing speed at 2 and mixed for about 10 minutes. I then covered the bowl with oiled cling film and left to rise. Sophie had a party so the dough was left for about three hours (as opposed to the 1.5 hours suggested). I hope this didn't make a difference, I really don't know enough about dough to know if it would!

When we got back from the party, I knocked the dough back to get the air out of it, rolled it out to about two centimetres thick, then cut smallish circles out. I didn't have a circle cutter small enough to cut the middle circle out so I used a star cutter - I think this looked really cute on the uncooked doughnuts, although it virtually disappeared on the cooked ones. But I did get very cute star shaped doughnut middles!!

I then placed the doughnuts on oiled baking trays and cooked them for about eight minutes. Most of the recipes online say to take the doughnuts out before they become golden on the top but I didn't feel that they would have been cooked enough if I had taken them out at that stage.

Once the doughnuts had cooled for a few minutes I dipped the top of each one in melted butter and then in cinnamon sugar. And the result?

Well, the plain doughnut tasted like the sort of bread roll you get in Europe or the States (sweeter bread than the bread you get in the UK) but dipped in melted butter and cinnamon sugar they were more like doughnuts. And the opinions of quality control was divided - Sophie liked them plain and Justin and I liked them with the sugar. There is a slightly yeasty aftertaste but nothing to stop me eating copious amounts of them!

I put some of the uncoated doughnuts in the freezer as an experiment and it would be good if they come out edible for another time.

And the doughnuts still taste good a day later ...

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