French Baked Donuts

Are you like me- hesitant to make donuts- afraid even to try? Making every excuse to avoid working with the ‘moody’ yeast dough and the messy deep-frying that leaves splashes of oil all over your kitchen walls?

Well, have I got a recipe for you! There’s no yeast involved and no deep-frying; these ‘donuts’ are baked and will be ready in no time. In fact, I ‘invented’ this recipe quite by accident and I’ve named it French Baked Donuts.

Today I was practicing making profiteroles for one of my upcoming cooking classes (see my post profiteroles). I was making choux pastry (or puff shells) for the profiteroles that would be filled with custard and topped with chocolate sauce. Instead, the choux pastry turned out too runny and gloopy.

What to do now? Quick thinking – pour the runny dough into ramekins or custard dishes, place a dollop of strawberry jam in the middle and bake for about 15 minutes. The result? The dough puffs up and around the jam, looking like you just made yourself a delicious donut.

Here’s the recipe:

 Ingredients (makes about 6 donuts)

Choux Pastry

• 250 ml (1 cup) water
• 80 g butter, cubed
• 150 g (1 cup) sifted flour
• pinch salt
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 4 medium or large eggs

     Garnish

• 2 tbsp. strawberry jam (or other flavour)
• icing (confectioner’s) sugar

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. (180 C.)
2. Combine water and butter in a saucepan and bring just to the boil.
3. Remove pan from the heat. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and sugar. In one go, add these dry ingredients to the water/butter mixture.
4. Over medium heat, stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a dough and falls away from the sides of the pan. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
5. 
6. Beat in one egg at a time, stirring in each egg until the dough mixture is completely smooth. After the 4 eggs have been beaten in, the dough should be smooth and rather runny.
7. Pour the mixture about 2 inches high into 6 ramekins or custard bowls. Drop about 2 tablespoons of jam or chocolate into the center of each ramekin.
8. 
9. Bake for about 15 minutes until the dough doubles in size. Let cool and dust with icing sugar.

 Yes, I like my donuts ….