How to Make Yeast Donuts
Due to COVID-19, lots of people are being asked to practice social distancing and self-isolate. For us, this means our employers are asking that we work from home until further notice. With many places imposing travel restrictions, this doesn’t give us many options in terms of where we can go aside from staying at home. This gave us more time to cook and bake at home. The other day, we made the fluffiest yeast donuts – Cardamom Sugar flavoured to be exact. We had some friends over last night so I decided to experiment with different donut flavours since we will finally have some help finishing all these donuts!
We ended up making a few interesting flavours including Matcha Glaze with White Chocolate Drizzle and Bacon Maple Glazed Donuts.
In today’s post, we decide to go into more detail around how to make Yeast Donuts. If you’d like to make them as well, read on! It’s not as difficult as it seems 🙂
Step 1: Activate your Yeast in warm milk
First and foremost, you’re going to have to activate your yeast as they are currently dormant, especially if you’re using dry active yeast. To do so, pour half a packet of dry active yeast (1 1/4 tsp) into 8 oz warm milk. The idea temperature for the warm milk should be between 110F. If you don’t have an instant read thermometer, just stick your finger in there and if it’s not scalding hot, you should be ok. If your liquid is too hot, it will kill the yeast. If it’s too cold, it won’t really activate as effectively. Stir the yeast around in the warm mixture and let it sit for about 5 minutes or until it gets foamy. The foam indicates it’s activated as it’s producing gas which helps the bread rise.
Step 2: Prepare the Dough
Using a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, add the following:
- 15 oz all purpose flour
- 1/4 oz kosher salt (a generous pinch of salt)
- 1 oz honey
- 2 oz unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
Mix on low speed until well combined. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can do this by hand, working the honey and butter through the dough until well distributed.
If you don’t have a digital kitchen scale, we highly recommend you invest in one. As mentioned in our 10 must have baking tools post, baking requires precise measurements that is difficult to achieve with traditional measuring cups. Meanwhile, prepare our wet ingredients. Whisk together the following:
- 2 oz egg (1 large egg), room temperature
- 1 oz honey
- 1/2 oz vegetable oil
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla extra
- Yeast + Milk Mixture from Step 1
Finally, with your stand mixer on low speed, add your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients.
Step 3: Knead your dough on medium-low speed until it’s no longer tacky. Dough should be shiny and soft to the touch.
The knead time may vary – for us, it was approximately 5 minutes. If you lift your dough hook and your dough still looks a big shaggy, you need to knead it a bit longer. The dough should no longer stick to the sides of your bowl and it should appear smooth. When you touch it, dough should not stick to your fingers. It would look something like this.
Step 4: Proof the dough until doubled in size
Flour the bottom of a large stainless steel bowl (or large mixing bowl of your choice) to prevent the dough from sticking. Then, form your dough into a round ball (seam side down) and place in the well floured bowl. Sprinkle a bit of flour on top of the dough and cover with plastic wrap.
Place the dough somewhere warm (for us, inside an oven with light on) and allow to rise until double in size (about an hour for us).
Step 5: Refrigerate for at least an hour or ideally overnight.
Once the dough has fully risen, refrigerate it for at least an hour (still covered in plastic wrap) as the dough will be much easier to handle when cold. Ideally you would refrigerate the dough overnight for best flavour development.
Step 6: Roll out the dough on a well floured surface & cut out donuts
Roll the dough into a rectangular sheet, 1/2 inch thick on a well floured surface.
To make the donut cut outs, you’ll need the following:
- 3 inch round cookie cutter
- 1 inch round cookie cutter (we used the back of a large piping tip)
- parchment paper squares
Punch out those donuts and place them on the parchment squares. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise again for final proof.
It’s best that you do not re-roll the dough with the scraps as it will affect the texture of the donut. You can either make more donut holes or make apple fritters!
Step 7: Allow to rise again until fully proofed.
For us, this took about 30 minutes. To check if your dough is fully proof, perform the poke test. If you poke the dough and it leaves an indent, then it’s ready!
Step 8 – Fry em up!
Congrats, you’re almost there! Prepare your oil – make sure you have a generous amount as your donuts will continue to puff up as they fry and they will need room to expand and float! Heat your oil up to 320-330F and fry.. Check on the bottoms occasionally – as they brown to a nice golden color, they are ready to be flipped. This only takes a few minutes per side.
Step 9 – Cool and glaze accordingly!
Now the fun part. Remove the donuts from the oil with a slotted spoon and allow to cool on a wired rack. While the donut is still warm to the touch, you can toss them in Cardamom Sugar mixture. If you want to glaze the donuts, wait until the donuts cool completely or else the glaze will just melt right off the donut. Here are some sample glaze recipes we used:
Maple Glaze
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp butter
Matcha Glaze
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp matcha powder
- 1 tbsp milk
How to Make Yeast Donuts
Ingredients
- 15 oz all purpose flour
- 1/4 oz kosher salt (a generous pinch of salt)
- 1 oz honey
- 2 oz unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 oz egg (1 large egg), room temperature
- 1 oz honey
- 1/2 oz vegetable oil
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla extra
- 8 oz whole milk, warmed to 110F
- half a packet of dry active yeast (1 1/4 tsp)
Instructions
- 1. In a large stand mixing bowl with a dough hook attachment, combine flour, salt, 1 oz honey and butter. Mix until combined and it looks a bit shaggy.
- 2. In a separate bowl, combine the warm milk (110F) with the dry active yeast to activate the yeast.
- 3. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, honey, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. Once the yeast has foamed/activated, whisk into the egg mixture.
- 4. On low mixing speed, slowly add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until ingredients incorporated with no dry ingredients left.
- 5. Increase the mixer to a medium speed and allow the dough hook to knead the dough until the dough no longer sticks to the side/bottom of the bowl and it has a smooth glossy texture. The dough shouldn’t be sticky and should be tacky to the touch. For us, this took approximately 5 minutes. Your dough should be soft and supple at this point.
- 6. Turn your dough into a lightly floured bowl and cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise/proof at room temperature for about an hour or until dough has doubled in size. Then, transfer the dough to the refrigerator for at least an hour as this will make the dough a lot easier to handle after.
- 7. In the meantime, prepare your Cardamom Sugar mixture by combining the two ingredient and pouring it onto a plate so that it can be easy to coat the donuts later. Set aside for now.
- 8. When ready to form the donuts, turn your dough onto a lightly flour surface and with a rolling pin, beat out the air in the dough and roll until it’s about 1/2 inch thick. Using a 3 inch round cookie cutter, cut out your donuts. To make the donut holes, use a 1 inch cookie cutter (or the back of a large piping tip) to remove the centre of the donuts. Place these cut out donuts on a squares of parchment paper so that it’ll be easier to drop into the oil after.
- 9. Once all your donut holes and donuts have been cut out, place onto a baking tray and cover with plastic wrap and allow to proof for another 20 minutes or so or until they look a a bit puffier.
- 10. In a dutch oven (or large pot), heat your vegetable/canola oil to 325F. Drop your donuts into the oil. Once the edges start to appear golden brown, flip them to ensure even frying. Remove when both sides are an even golden color and allow to dry temporarily on a wire drying rack. Once all the oil has dripped off, roll the donuts in a sugar mixture of your choice. Otherwise, transfer onto another cooling rack to allow to cool before glazing and eating. Enjoy these while they’re fresh!
