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Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

Snow in May calls for a sweet, doughy consolation prize.

Eat your heart out Hef. Could there be anything sexier? This doughnut could be a cover model. Or a centrefold. Do they even have centrefolds anymore? It wouldn’t need any photoshopping, anyway.

Age has brought with it a certain persnicketiness in the doughnut department. At one time I would have been thrilled with Timbits, but I’ve become spoiled – if I’m going to eat a doughnut it might as well be a really fantastically great one. This is not to say I easily shun a box of coffee shop doughnuts should I discover one in my vicinity. Warm ones, made from scratch with real vanilla, are a little more difficult to resist. But why would you want to, when slush is falling from the sky and you’ve pulled out your woolly socks again?

I buy this vanilla bean paste from the Cookbook Company Cooks for applications such as this, where the flavour is predominant and the smooth glaze allows you to see the bitty black seeds. You could use actual vanilla beans too – I just find the paste a bit easier and more economical. Also – I used every last bean in my cupboard to (finally) make my own extract. So easy-I’ll fill you in soon.

Doughnuts from scratch is the sort of thing I generally reserve for company, for days when I know more mouths will be around to help me out, because leftovers (it could happen!) don’t age well.

It may be the sort of thing I’d make if I had a group of friends over to make peroghies! Remember when I put it out there? The suggestion to have a good old-fashioned peroghy bee? I was thinking it might be a suitable Food Revolution Day activity. It’s coming up fast – May 19th – but really, any longer than two weeks would be far too long to wait. So if you’re free to come make peroghies and nibble coffee and a pile of warm doughnuts that Saturday, leave a comment here!

Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

Adapted from Canadian Living

Sponge:
1 tsp. sugar
1 cup warm water
1 pkg (2 1/4 tsp.) active dry yeast
1 cup all-purpose flour

Dough:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla bean paste or good vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Vanilla Bean Icing:
2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla bean paste or good vanilla extract

canola oil (or another mild vegetable oil) for cooking

In large bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water; let stand until frothy, about 10 minutes. Stir in flour until you have a smooth paste. Cover with plastic wrap; let stand until bubbly and stretchy, about 30 minutes.

In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla and salt, beat in sponge. Stir in flour until you have a sticky dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 6-8 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in a warm place until tripled in bulk, about an hour and a half.

Punch the dough down and roll or pat it out about 1/2-inch thick. Using a 3-inch doughnut cutter or a round cutter and a smaller one for the hole, cut out doughnuts. Transfer doughnuts and holes to a baking sheet, cover and let rise for another hour, until doubled in bulk.

In a wide, shallow pot, heat 2 inches of oil until hot but not smoking. Cook a few doughnuts at a time for a couple minutes per side, turning as they turn a rich golden. Remove from the pot with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on a wire rack or paper towels. Makes 1 1/2-2 dozen doughnuts.

Vanilla Icing: Whisk together all the ingredients, adding a little extra icing sugar or milk if needed to make a dippable/drizzlable consistency. Dip or drizzle over doughnuts while they’re still warm.

button print gry20 Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

May 05 2012 | bread and breakfast and dessert and sweet stuff | 20 Comments »

Browned Butter Maple Walnut Praline

Or as Mike called it, “The New Best Thing Ever”, “Heaven in a Bowl”, and “OMGooooooood!!”

I know, it doesn’t look like much. It wasn’t planned, and then when it turned out so well I had to grab a bunch out of Mike’s fist in order to document it. I’m not sure how to convey how much better this tastes than it looks. The spur-of-the-moment red tissue may have been a mistake. I’ll take more photos next time – and there will be a next time. We ate the entire batch tonight while decorating the tree.

I was just playing, distracted by thoughts of the sugary top of that Skibo Castle Ginger Crunch I told you about. I wanted to make it maple: ditch the ginger, swap the golden syrup for pure maple. Which made me want to add toasted walnuts. I put a slab of butter into a small pot to melt, intending to add another layer to an existing batch, just to try. I left the empty pot on the stove a few minutes too long as I went for the butter – distracted by something – and when I dropped it in the heat turned it golden instantly.

Browned butter! Of course! what better way to improve on an already awesome butter-sugar-golden syrup combo? I swirled the pot until it melted and turned a nutty brown, then stirred in the icing sugar, maple syrup this time and a bit of vanilla and dropped it in globs over just toasted walnut halves. Not pretty, but not ugly either, and ridiculously delicious.

It sounds insanely sweet, this butter-icing sugar stuff, like hard icing. But it’s not. A cup of powdered sugar is equivalent to half a cup of regular sugar – which isn’t to say this is low in sugar, just less sweet than it sounds. It balances the toasted walnuts perfectly. Make sure you have nice fresh walnuts, which is easy at this time of year with the turnover most stores see. They should be crunchy and nutty and slightly sweet – not at all bitter.

I’m not saying these are authentic pralines – in fact I’m sure they’re not – but I can’t think of what else to call them, other than sweet brown buttery, walnutty goodness.

Browned Butter Maple Walnut Praline

1 1/2 cups California walnut halves or pieces
1/3 cup butter
1-2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup or Lyle’s or Roger’s Golden Syrup
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Toast the walnuts by spreading them on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet and toasting in a 350F oven for 6-7 minutes, or until golden and fragrant. If you have a toaster oven, that works too.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat and after it melts, continue cooking it, swirling the pan often, until it foams and turns a nutty brown. Whisk in the syrup, icing sugar and vanilla. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 seconds.

Spread the toasted walnuts out on the lined baking sheet and pour the butter mixture overtop, trying to cover as much of the nuts as possible. Stir a bit on the sheet with a spoon so that it clumps up and coats (or at least touches) as many of the walnuts as possible. Let cool, then break into chunks. Try to share. Makes about 8 servings.