Mini baked jam doughnuts

I hadn’t planned on writing up a post today, but I’ve got a busy Sunday ahead – giving the family a much needed chance to relax by cooking dinner for them followed by watching the Deal or No Deal Celebrity Special with JLS…me and my sister went to the filming so we can’t wait to see our on screen debut! (ha) So although I do plan on baking for them I won’t get chance to post it tomorrow.

When I saw it was national doughnut week I decided to give them a try! I have never made doughnuts before and if I’m honest, deep frying kind of scares me. So when I saw this recipe for mini doughnuts that you bake instead of fry it was a great reason to try them.

They may not look perfect but they taste delicious!

Method:

• Heat the milk until just below boiling point, remove from the heat and cool until hand-warm.
• Add 1 tsp of the sugar and the dried active yeast.
• Whisk then leave in a warm place for 5 minutes until the yeast has formed a thick foam on top of the milk.
• Tip the flour, remaining sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the eggs, orange zest, softened butter and yeasty milk mixture. Using a wooden spoon mix until the mixture forms a soft dough.
• Tip out of the bowl and knead for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. The dough will be on the sticky side.
• Form into a ball and return to a clean bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for about 1 ½ hours, or until doubled in size.
• Tip the dough out onto the work surface and knead lightly again for 30 seconds and then roll out to a thickness of about 1cm.
• Using a 5-6cm plain round cutter, stamp out circles and transfer them to parchment-covered baking sheets, leaving plenty of space between each doughnut.
• Cover loosely with oiled clingfilm and leave in a warm place for 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.
• Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Bake the doughnuts for about 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
• Remove from the oven and brush the doughnuts all over with melted butter, toss in the sugar and leave to cool for 15 minutes.
• Spoon the jam into a disposable piping bag and snip off the end to form a small nozzle. Use a wooden skewer to make a hole in the side of each doughnut, push the piping bag into the hole and fill with about a teaspoon of jam.
• Serve warm or cold.

Although nothing like shop bought doughnuts, these are little gems that have been eaten very quickly by my husband.

Definitely worth trying if you love doughnuts but don’t want to be deep-frying!