Last night’s quarter final episode of The Great British Bake Off focused its rolling pins on advanced dough making (no doubt an actual college course somewhere).
The five remaining bakers took on doughnuts for their showstopper bake with varying degrees of success.
Doughnuts don’t have to be difficult, in fact they really are pretty simple and I’ve got a cheat’s version here that will have your friends all begging for the recipe.
I played around with a few dough versions until I found the perfect one and this dough may seem quite wet but it makes the fluffiest doughnuts. You can make all of these doughnuts chocolate orange flavour or split the filling mixture and have half of them as plain vanilla custard as I did.
MORE : The Great British Bake Off 2014, episode 8: A controversial quarter final but who went home?
Super easy boozy chocolate orange doughnuts:
- 300g strong white bread flour
- zest of 1 orange, finely grated
- 50g vanilla caster sugar (plus extra for dredging)
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 15g fresh yeast, crumbled (ask at your local supermarket bakery, alternatively use 7g fast action dried yeast)
- 2 medium eggs
- 100ml whole milk
- 60g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature
- 2L vegetable/sunflower oil for frying
For the chocolate orange filling:(use half the amount if only making half chocolate orange flavour)
- 500g pot fresh custard (go for the luxury versions with vanilla seeds, if you want to leave half the doughnuts plain then just use half of the custard as it comes.)
- 200g good quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces (I used Green & Blacks Blood Orange flavour, go for a chocolate with no big bits in as they will clog up your piping nozzle)
- 1 tablespoon of Cointreau (or1 capful orange blossom water)
1: Put all your dough ingredients, except the butter, into the bowl of a mixer with the beater attachment fitted and beat on medium speed for about 8 minutes.
2: Very gradually add the butter waiting for each piece to be fully incorporated before adding the next. Once all incorporated beat on high speed for five minutes then cover the bowl with cling film and leave to rise for 2 hours or until it has doubled in size.
MORE : Great British Bake Off recipe: The best loaf of bread you will ever make (seriously)
3: Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface, it will be quite sticky. Flour your hands and using a sharp knife divide the mixture into roughly equal pieces.
4: Gently pull the edges of each piece underneath to form a ball then carefully roll the ball under the palm of your hand, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it will be quite sticky so make sure your hands and work surface are well floured. Place each ball on a very well floured baking tray making sure you leave plenty of room around each one as they will spread out during the prove.
5: Flour the tops and cover lightly with cling film, leave for a couple of hours.
6: Heat your oil to 160-170C using either a deep fat fryer or large saucepan with a thermometer in it, I use a saucepan and keep taking it off the heat during cooking to maintain that temperature range. Fry your doughnuts about 2 or 3 at a time depending on the size of the fryer, have a digital timer ready and allow them to cook for just 2 minutes on each side. Remove from the oil and drain on kitchen towel before dredging and rolling in the caster sugar whilst still warm.
MORE : Great British Bake Off recipe: Oozing salted caramel spider cake
7: Once all your doughnuts are done and cooling, make your filling. If you want to have some plain vanilla custard then just use half of the custard mixture for the chocolate filling otherwise put the custard and chocolate into a saucepan and heat gently whilst stirring, once the chocolate has melted stir in the Cointreau then leave to cool a bit before transferring into an icing syringe (I bought 3 plastic squeezy syringes from Sainsburys for £5).
8: Once everything is cool use a skewer or chopstick to make a hole around the pale middle ring of each doughnut and fill with some custard. These definitely need to be eaten the day you make them and the fresher the better.
