H’mmm doughnuts. My earliest memory of doughnuts goes back many, many years to when I was about 8 years old and I would meet my father on a Friday after work. He would buy my brothers and I fresh sugar and cinnamon doughnuts for a very costly 10 cents each and we felt very spoilt. Part of the whole doughnut experience was watching them pop out of the dough machine into the spitting oil and then see them flipped and tossed through the sugary cinnamon – it could have entertained us for hours.
I was thinking I should attempt the old sugar and cinnamon doughnuts of days gone by, but I just couldn’t imagine doing them any justice. And then I found these.
These doughnuts are best described as wonderful lemon scented puffs of dough filled with a rind flecked ricotta. They are light and fluffy and I could raphsodise over them in many paragraphs of diatribe however I am going to sit down to a tea party with my daughters – teddy, baby beep, meow meow and the girls have been waiting for me (and the doughnuts of course!)…
Doughnuts
5 cups of plain (all purpose) flour
140 grams/ 5 ounces raw caster sugar
7 grams/ ¼ ounce of dried yeast
Finely grated rind of 2 lemons
1 cup of lukewarm milk + extra for brushing
1/3 cup of buttermilk
2 eggs at room temperature
30 grams/ 1.05 ounces of butter, melted
Oil for greasing
Lemon Ricotta Filling
250 grams/8.8 ounces of ricotta
¼ cup raw caster sugar
Finely grated rind of 2 lemons
Lemon Sugar
2 cups of caster sugar
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
120 grams/4.2 ounces of butter, melted
Combine flour, sugar, yeast and lemon rind in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix to combine. Whisk together milk, buttermilk, eggs and melted butter and with motor running add to flour mixture. Mix on medium speed until dough is smooth and elastic (4-5 minutes). Shape into a ball, place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place until doubled in size (1-1½ hours).
For lemon ricotta filling, whisk ingredients until completely blended, transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until required.
Preheat oven to 190c/375f. Knock back dough, turn onto a lightly floured surface and roll to 5mm/.20 inch thick. Cut 16 rounds with a 6cm-diameter cutter and 16 rounds with a 7cm-diameter cutter (re-roll scraps if necessary). Place smaller rounds 5cm/2 inches apart on oven trays lined with baking paper, place a heaped teaspoon of lemon ricotta filling in centre of each. Brush edges with milk and cover with larger rounds, press to seal edges well. Cover and stand in a warm place for 1 ½ hours and bake until bottoms are just golden, around 8 – 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, for lemon sugar, combine sugar and lemon rind in a bowl, spread on a tray. Dip hot doughnuts immediately in remaining melted butter, toss in lemon sugar and serve hot.
Notes: These doughnuts would also be great as doughnut holes. Forget the ricotta filling and shape them into balls. Allow to rise, bake and coat in the lemon sugar as per the recipe.
Source: adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller June 2010
© 2010 – 2011, Michelle. All rights reserved.
