Nobody really needs doughnuts but so many of life’s joys are rarely to do with what we need, and everything to do with what we want, and if you want doughnuts at home, this recipe will give you just that.
Here, we can dissolve any fears or concerns you may have. Scared of deep frying? Don’t panic, we’re frying in shallow oil. Don’t have the equipment? You only need a bowl and a frying pan with high sides. Don’t have the ingredients? A quick trip to the local shop will cover you for everything you need.
If you can look at food and cooking as an opportunity to embrace small joys, not only will you discover a side of life you never knew you had access to, but most importantly of all, you could have hot, fresh mini doughnuts whenever you need them, and let’s face it, that’s the real joy here.
I know, I know ‘calm down mate, it’s just doughnuts’ but when you heat up that oil, stir up that batter, drop it in the pan, and get your teeth into these soft bites of fluffy batter – I promise you will understand.
Makes roughly 30 small doughnuts
Enough vegetable oil to come up about 3cm in a wide frying pan with high sides
120g sour cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g plain flour
50g cornflour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon cinnamon plus 1 tablespoon
2 teaspoons caster sugar
3 tablespoons icing sugar
- Pour the vegetable oil into a wide pan with high side, put it on the hob, and turn the heat up high. Take a deep breath, nothing bad will happen, we’re going slow and steady here.
- While the oil heats up, drop the sour cream into a bowl with the egg and vanilla extract, and fork together to combine.
- Spoon in the flour, cornflour, baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon, sugar, and a pinch of salt, and continue to fork together.
- Check your oil is hot enough by carefully dropping in a tiny pinch of flour and if it sizzles on contact, the oil is ready.
- Carefully spoon in tablespoon-amount dollops of the batter. When the batter hits the oil, it’ll seize a little into small balls but don’t panic if they start to grow little dinosaur looking tails. That just means more crispy doughnut bits for you.
- I fit roughly 6 or 7 small doughnuts into my pan at one time, yours may vary depending on the size of your pan. Keep them bobbing in the oil for roughly 3 minutes and turn them over with two spoons and allow to cook for about 2-3 minutes on the other side. Carefully remove the doughnuts from the oil to an awaiting plate lined with kitchen paper to cool.
- Wait for the oil to heat back up a little (the oil temperature would’ve dropped because of the cold batter) this won’t take long, a minute or 2, and then continue adding spoons of batter, repeating until you’ve ran out.
- To serve, in a bowl, gently combine the icing sugar and remaining cinnamon. You can go two ways with this – push the cinnamon sugar through a small sieve and dust the doughnuts generously, or just bring the warm doughnuts and the cinnamon sugar to the table and let people dunk the doughnuts straight in with every bite.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 