Hello friends and not-yet-friends,
Welcome back to Mary's Test Kitchen.
Today, we're making Maple Cream Doughnuts; my actual favourite doughnut of all time:
soft and fluffy, deep-fried goodness, filled with smooth pastry cream and topped with a
nice layer of maple sweetened glaze.
It's what Canadian dreams are made of.
But you don't have to dream, you can make these in your own kitchen.
Starting with...
150 grams of regular all-purpose flour, which is 1 and 1/4 cups if measured properly.
I highly recommend using a scale because measuring flour without one is...imprecise.
I decided to use my clean hands, because why not, I like getting into dough.
And then I remembered why not...my camera!
So if you see my hands being clean and you're wondering how my hands are staying clean,
it's because I wash them between nearly every take.
Eventually, you'll have a sticky dough ball.
Cover it and let it rest so the flour and flax seed can fully hydrate in there; about
15 minutes.
This is when I realized I forgot to add nutmeg, but it's okay, I'll just sprinkle it on top
and knead it in.
Nutmeg just adds a wonderful doughnut shop aroma, optional but highly recommended.
The dough will still be very sticky so if you wanted to skip this mess and use your
mixer or food processor with a dough hook, that would work super well.
But let me show you how to knead sticky dough if you have to or just want to do it manually.
The ordinary method of kneading with the push and fold method is tough to do with sticky
dough.
Instead, grab it with one hand and smack it on your table.
Warn your family or roomates ahead of time as this can get loud and sound quite agressive.
After about five minutes, the dough will start to stick less.
If you still have a absolute mess on your hands, sprinkle a little more flour but keep
track of how much you're adding.
Anything more than a couple tablespoons is probably too much.
After ten minutes, the dough should really be getting there.
When you can tuck it into a fairly smooth ball shape without it sticking to your hands,
and it springs back immediately after being poked, you can cover it and let this dough
rise in a warm place for an hour or until it's doubled in size.
While the yeasties are doing their thing, let's make the vegan pastry cream.
Heat over medium high, stirring constantly.
Quickly the mixture will start to thicken.
Keep stirring.
It'll start bubbling and when it does, turn down the heat but keep stirring.
Until it becomes thick like pudding.
Then take it off the heat.
When it cools a bit, cover it with plastic wrap stuck to the surface of the cream.
Otherwise a skin forms on the top.
When it's cool enough, put it in the fridge.
Next, make the maple glaze.
Microwave until the sugar is melted; just about 30 to 45 seconds all together, but pause
every 15 to stir.
Otherwise, it may bubble over.
Then add the rest of the ingredients.
Whisk until it's smooth and then you can cover it the same way as the pastry cream and let
it sit at room temperature.
You'll still have some time before the dough is fully risen so this would be a great time
to put away ingredients, clean up, and that sort of thing.
Just keep about a tablespoon of flour handy for the next steps.
Now our dough has doubled in size.
Press it down and knead it some more.
This second round of kneading will give more strength and structure to the doughnuts, preventing
unevenness and giant bubbles when we go to fry it.
Because of the ground flax, it will not be super smooth.
The rough edges of the flax cut into the gluten strands, creating tears.
So we're just going for a really elastic texture and not worrying about smoothness.
Now cover and leave this for 15 minutes for the dough to relax before we roll it out.
Take a little time to relax yourself too.
When you're ready, dust a little flour on your work surface and a bit on top of the
dough and roll it out to between a quarter inch and a half inch thickness.
Just over a centimeter thick.
I'm using a flour dusted cup as my doughnut cutter, as usual.
Collect the leftover dough, knead it a bit and roll it out again and continue.
You'll have to manually shape the last one.
Then we'll let these rise for another 45 minutes to an hour under a damp lint-free kitchen
towel or floured plastic wrap.
Set a timer with a nice loud alarm and don't wait around.
Get on with your life.
Practice the language you've been meaning to learn, write in your journal, do some yoga,
meditate.
This is your time and there are no rules.
Afterwards, carefully pull away the cloth.
If it sticks, spray some water on the top of the cloth and as it soaks through, the
dough will release.
If it pulls too much and some of the doughnuts collapes, just reshape those doughnuts and
let them rise again.
Happily, ours are fine.
Let's get our frying set up ready.
I'm using my wok again with canola oil.
You can use any heavy bottomed pot with sides high enough to hold a couple inches of oil
and enough space for some bubbling action and any neutral oil with a high smoke point.
Not your good olive oil.
Use a candy or frying thermometer to make sure the oil is at the right temperature.
You want a steady 350°F or 177°C.
Carefully transfer dough on to a spatula or spoon with a long handle and gently lower
it into the oil.
Add a few more, but try not to crowd your pot.
In less than a minute, the bottoms will be nicely golden brown and ready to flip.
Flip with deliberate care so there's no splashing around of hot oil.
And after 30 to 45 seconds, the other side should be done and ready to transfer to a
paper towel lined rack.
Repeat with the rest of your raw dougnuts.
These lovelies must cool down to room temperature before filling and glazing.
More time to meditate.
When they are just about cooled down, take your pastry cream out of the fridge.
It's a little gloopy looking so let's smooth it out with an immersion blender.
Careful not to incorporate the bits that have dried up around the edges.
If you don't have a stick blender like this, you could also press the pastry cream through
a mesh sieve to get this smooth effect.
Next, get a piping bag ready with a nice long tip like this.
Fill 'er up and we're almost ready to fill.
First, we've got to make some room.
With a handy dany chopstick.
Then to fill, poke that piping tip in and apply even pressure.
I'm going in again with a chopstick to get rid of any trapped air pockets too.
You can clean up with a spoon.
What you do with the pastry cream leftover is up to you.
Top pancakes on the weekend, make a white bread cake, or pipe directly into your mouth.
I'm not the boss of you.
Now for the glaze.
It may have formed a bit of a hard shell on top, just mix back in and it'll dissolve.
Dip, let the excess drip off, and place that doughnut on to a rack.
Or directly in your mouth, you know, whatever.
If the glaze was warm, it might be a bit thin so feel free to double dip.
It should set in about a half an hour but doesn't get super hard set.
If you want a harder set, you can add more icing sugar to the glaze.
But I like this level of sweetness.
Not too too sweet.
These maple cream doughnuts are so delicious.
Puffy and soft doughnut, fragrant with nutmeg, maple syrup and brown sugar.
The pastry cream is so smooth and delectable.
You better eat them right away if you can.
I'm pretty sure you'll have no trouble getting friends to come over to help you out with
that.
But if you're taking them someplace, put them in a cardboard bakery box, something with
just a little air circulation.
They will keep fine overnight, up to about 24 hours.
Then, they're still tasty but not as beautiful.
Remember, the full recipe with detailed instructions is linked in the description below.
And while, deep-fried doughnuts are the best, there are also instructions for baking or
air-frying there too.
And that's it.
Let me know what kinds of doughnuts you'd like to see on this channel with the hashtag
#reciperequest and I might just make it.
As well, leave any questions and I'll do my best to answer.
Thanks so much for watching, my friends.
Please give this video thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe for more delicious vegan
recipes.
Bye for now!