Doughnuts and a Patch of Warmth

Fresh doughnuts: golden puffs of sweet doughy goodness

It's not yet winter but nobody bothered to let Mother Nature know. We're waking up to mornings of 1C or less. Since I'm no fan of bitter cold days, a little patch of warmth inside my marvellous kitchen is a joy devoutly to be wished. And nothing says warmth like baking.

When my eldest son complained of feeling hard done by because he missed out on eating the last of the store-bought doughnuts to his younger brother, I promised him I'd make some. I've made doughnuts before and it's something that fills me with both dread and joy. The dread comes from the anticipation of getting the mix right, of not knowing whether it will rise enough, or puff the way it should when fried.

And the joy? Well, there is nothing as sumptuous as the smell of a kitchen filled with the aroma of freshly cooking doughnuts. It's a unique smell. It's not the deep, earthy aroma of a bread dough, or the sweet vanilla, chocolate or flavour-of-your-choice aroma of a cake. It's not the half-way-inbetween sweet earthiness of brioche. It is an unmistakable, uplifting, heart-lightening, worry-dissipating aroma all of its own. It has the power to entrance and delight. The power to carry the soul to another plane.

And there's nothing quite so close to unadulterated bliss as the taste of that first hot doughnut, drained, and dusted in cinnamon sugar. Feeling the slight crunch as your teeth break the crust then sink slowly into the light, fluffy fried dough, the smell of cinnamon wafting up to your nose, sugar coating your lips and spreading gently across your tongue. The burst and pop of tastebuds all across your tongue, as the flavours combine and your salivary glands spring into action.

There are things to remember and rules to follow when making doughnuts. They require yeast so, like bread, they need to be double proven to really work well. It means spending a little more time, but it's definitely worth it. I can't emphasise enough how important it is to double prove the dough (for breads and for doughnuts). This batch are probably my best to date. They rose beautifully and the gluten in the flour stretched its cobwebby fingers across pockets of nothingness, giving the doughnuts an ethereal lightness. Like all baking and bread recipes, you need to stick to the recipe as much as humanly possible.

I like deviating wildly from recipes and seeing what happens. In the kitchen, I'm a veritable mad-scientist tossing together ingredients like volatile chemicals, playing fast and loose with timings and temperatures to see what emerges, but I've learned along the way that breads and baked desserts are not to be messed with. They are the starched, Victorian, stiff-lipped, highly rule-governed great aunts of the baking world. They work according to ratios, so don't fiddle with the quantities, temperatures or timings. This, of course, comes with its own caveat. You can always fiddle with the quantities of flour and milk. In fact, it's necessary to do so according to the ambient humidity. The more moisture in the air, the more flour you'll need. The hotter and drier the day, the more liquid you'll need. The cooler the weather... well, you get the idea. Use your best judgement to get a firm, pliable and soft dough that's easy to knead.

...and don't forget the "holes"!

Doughnuts
(makes 30 doughnuts plus 30 holes - depending on size of cookie cutter)
Ingredients:
110g butter, cubed
375g plain flour
5 egg yolks
1 1/2 - 2 tbsp caster sugar
20g yeast
3/4 cup warm milk

oil for deep frying
caster sugar and ground cinnamon for dredging

Method:
Place milk, sugar and yeast in a bowl and stir until dissolved. Whisk in egg yolks.

Add flour to bowl of food processor. With motor on low speed, slowly pour in egg mixture and knead for 5 minutes.

Increase speed to medium, then add butter in 3 batches and beat until dough comes together. Remove dough and knead on a clean, dry surface until dough becomes shiny and smooth.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap (Glad Wrap/Cling Wrap etc.) and stand in a draught-free, warm place for at least 1 hour or until mixture doubles in volume.

Knock down dough, then roll out on a work surface until 2 cm thick (don't roll it too thin or you'll get flat doughnuts!). Use a cookie or pastry cutter to cut out your doughnuts. Remember that doughnuts will expand in the second proving, so don't worry if they look a little small when you cut them out. Use a smaller cookie cutter (I used the large end of an icing/frosting nozzle) to cut out the "holes" in the middle of the doughnut. Place doughnuts and holes around 4cm apart (to allow for expansion) on lightly oiled baking sheets (or you can cover your baking sheets in parchment/baking paper). Cover the trays and stand in a draught-free place for 1hour or until risen [I cheated a little here. I turned on the oven to around 200C while I was kneading, rolling and cutting the dough, then turned it off. I placed the doughnuts on the baking sheets in the warm oven with the door ajar to rise. It's much quicker and you get an even proofing].

Heat oil in a deep-fryer or deep saucepan to 180C [if you don't have a thermometer, it should take 10 seconds for a cube of bread to spin and brown. The temperature is important] and cook doughnuts in batches until golden on both sides. Drain well on absorbent paper [this step is important. Don't be tempted to dredge the doughnuts while still covered in oil. It makes them sweat and become sticky, and they won't last as long].

Dredge with combined caster sugar and ground cinnamon. Serve while still warm or wait till they cool down (these don't keep well and are best eaten within a couple of days).

NOTE: If you want jam-filled doughnuts, don't cut out the "holes". Proceed with the recipe otherwise and once dredged, use a long, thin piping nozzle and icing bag filled with jelly or conserve (use something with no pieces of fruit, which will get stuck in the end of the nozzle) to pierce and fill the doughnuts.

Hippety Hoppity!

It's Easter! Time for chocolate hangovers and hot cross buns coming out the wahzoo. So here's an easy recipe for hot cross buns (guess what we're having for breakfast??).

Hot Cross Buns
(makes 12)
Ingredients:
1 tbsp dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup sugar (I use raw sugar)
4 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup dried cranberries
1 egg
50g melted butter

Method:
In a large bowl add the sugar, flour, yeast, mixed spice, cinnamon and dried fruit. Mix until combined.

Make a well in the centre and add the melted butter, egg and milk.

Use a butter knife to mix then tip out onto a lightly floured bench and knead for 8 minutes or until smooth and elastic (add more flour or milk if dough is too sticky or dry).

Place dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size (I left mine overnight so the dough would be ready to bake for breakfast).

Take dough out and knead lightly then portion into 12 segments of roughly equal size.

Roll into balls with your hands and arrange on a greased baking tin (I prefer a tin for buns and rolls as the heat up the sides gives a more even cooking).

Allow to rise in a warm place for another 40 minutes. Use this time to preheat the oven to about 200C and make up a mixture for the crosses.

Crosses: mix flour and water till it is a wet paste and pipe over the buns.

Glaze mixture: 1/4 cup hot water, 3 tbsp of caster sugar.

Bake for 10 mins then turn oven down to 180C and cook for another 20-25 mins or until springy to touch.

Brush glaze over them as soon as they are out of the oven. Eat hot or allow to cool!

Baking Butter Biscuits

A bit of alliteration and some delicious basic biscuits are the result!

Butter Biscuits
(makes 30)
Ingredients:
125g butter, softened (I used salted butter to cut down on the sweetness of the biscuit)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, at room temperature
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp milk

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C. Line two baking trays with baking parchment/paper.

Using a food processor or electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Add egg and mix well until combined.

Sift flour and baking powder over butter mixture. Add milk and stir/mix until just combined.

Using 2 teaspoons of dough at a time, roll dough into balls. Place on lined baking trays. Using a lightly floured fork, flatten biscuits slightly (remember to allow room for spreading).

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, swapping trays over in the oven after 10 minutes, or until light golden. Allow to cool on trays for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar. Biscuits will keep up to a week in an airtight container.

Blueberry Breakfast

I thought I'd make French Toast Cups this morning and fill them with blueberries and maple yoghurt for breakfast. I thought that's what I'd do.... till I discovered that all the bread in the house had gone mouldy! The unexpectedly humid weather we've been having recently has taken it's toll. So with PlanA so obviously dashed against a mouldy wall, I had to come up with a PlanB. So here it is...

Blueberry Muffins with Maple Yoghurt and Mango:

(makes 12)
Ingredients:
1 cup self-raising flour
1 tbsp sugar
4 eggs
2 - 3 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 punnet blueberries

Yoghurt Dressing:
1 1/2 cups plain yoghurt
1 - 2 tbsp maple syrup (use the good stuff not the maple flavoured syrup... you don't need much)

Mango diced
Spray oil for greasing muffin tin

Method:
Preheat oven to 190C. Grease muffin tin.

Beat eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the flour a little at a time and mix. You should have the consistency of pancake/hotcake mix.

Pour into muffin tins (only fill to 3/4). Add blueberries (I added about 8 to each muffin... the more blueberries, the juicier!). Bake for 20 minutes (or until golden brown and a skewer inserted comes out dry).

While the muffins are cooking, peel and dice the mango (I used one R2E2 which was more than enough) and mix the yoghurt and maple syrup.

When muffins are done, allow to rest 5 minutes (this makes it much easier to remove from the muffin tin - remember there are no liners or patty pans).

Arrange muffins in bowls, pour over maple yoghurt and sprinkle with mango. Yum.

Cupcakes Sweet and Cupcakes Savoury

Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes with a Gingerbread Men toppers!

I've been reading an extraordinary blog over the last few days called the Cupcake Project. It's a wonderfully creative exploration of one woman's cupcake adventures. I love the fact that Stef (who writes the blog) freely admits that she embarked on her amazing adventure having never baked a cupcake before but volunteering to make cupcakes for a friend's wedding. Now there's a spirit of get-up-and-go to emulate - I love her gumption!

So having been inspired by her blog, I decided to make some of her Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes with some Butter Icing and Gingerbread Men as toppers. I'll admit, it was partly because DS2 has a class party coming up in a couple of weeks for the end of the year and I thought I might make some cupcakes for the occasion. I did make one alteration to her recipe though. I didn't use a vanilla pod, instead I used 1 1/2 tsps of vanilla paste added to the sugar and butter during the creaming stage.

Dapper looking Gingerbread man with bow tie

The butter icing recipe I used was from here, and I used raspberry essence to flavour it. It's a nice alternative to the standard vanilla and gives the final product a really gentle almost floral flavour. Finally, the gingerbread recipe came from here. This is a really easy and quick gingerbread recipe and one I'll use often. It's much simpler than the one I normally use (which includes treacle) and the kids loved it. I ended up with loads of left over little gingerbread men, so they got iced and stored for munching on during the week.

Having spent the morning in a frenzy of sugary baking, I decided there had to be a savoury alternative. After all, if you can make a sweet cupcake, why can't you make a savoury one? With that thought in mind, I trawled a variety of websites in an attempt to find a good recipe for a savoury cupcake - one that wasn't a muffin, but also one that didn't include a cup of sugar. Most of the sites I found had recipes that were really sweet cupcakes with meat and vegetables added. That definitely wasn't what I was looking for. One site had a gorgeous alternative, but no recipe.

The creative process at work

In the end, I made up my own. I love making up recipes. It's a creative process that requires me to work with ratios and think about how ingredients will work with each other. Chemistry, math and food all in one exciting process (with a bit of artistry thrown in) - joy! I jot down possible ingredients, figure out possible amounts and then work on what temperature to set the oven and how long to cook for. I read through the recipe 3 or 4 times and then I jot the steps down in pictorial form. I can't draw more than poor squiggles, but these little scribbles help me during the hectic cooking process when I'm rushing from one step to the next, often without reading the steps properly. The pictures jog my memory. Here's the recipe I came up with (using some tinned Spam I had in the pantry). The results were really pretty good. A bit doughy, but I'll work on that - it might be a little less so if I'd used minced meat instead (Note to Self: that's something worth pursuing for the next batch).

Spammy Cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 223g plain flour
• 80g unsalted butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda (bicarb soda)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 - 3 tsp mixed herbs
• 230 ml milk
• 100g cheddar cheese, cubed
• 1 tin Spam
• 50g fresh tomato, diced
• 1 medium red onion or 1/2 a large one, chopped
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp non-iodised salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C.

In food processor, cream together butter and sugar.

Add egg and mix well.

Add Spam, onion and cheese and mix until onion and cheese are well incorporated (indistinguishable).

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and herbs and mix.

Slowly add milk. When milk is incorporated, add tomato and pulse (you want to keep some of the chunky pieces of tomato).

1/2 fill patty pans and bake for 25 - 30 mins.

Potato, Sweet Potato, Garlic and Blue Cheese Icing:

Ingredients:

• 4  medium potatoes
• 1 -2 sweet potatoes (depending on size)
• butter
• milk
• 2 cloves garlic
• 50g Blue cheese
• salt to taste

Method:

Peel and boil potatoes, sweet potatoes and garlic together. Drain and mash well (I used a Bamix), adding butter and milk.

While potato mash is still warm, blend in the blue cheese and salt to taste. Allow to cool a little then fill in piping bag.

Pipe onto savoury cupcakes and garnish with a sliver of cherry tomato.

These can be eaten hot or cold (we had them for breakfast the next day too!).

Quick Snack Fixes

Dinner tonight was marinated chicken wings, stuffed tomatoes, salad and garlic bread. They're quick to make, taste delicious and look pretty impressive. Plus, it's another way to use up some eggs from our Bantam chickens!

Stuffed Tomatoes:
Ingredients

• 4 vine-ripened tomatoes
• 4 Bantam eggs
• Malden sea salt
• freshly cracked black pepper
• sharp Cheddar cheese (tasty is good)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Cut the tops off the tomatoes (so you have little lids). You can discard these (our chickens are getting them).

Cut through the segments inside the tomato very carefully, trying not to break through the tomato. Scoop out the flesh, leaving behind a tomato case. Reserve the scoopings for another recipe or blend and make into tomato paste.

Sprinkle salt and cracked pepper on the inside.

Add a paper-thin slice of cheese (or grate cheese).

Crack one Bantam egg into each tomato. These little eggs are just perfect for the tomato cases. Sprinkle with salt and pepper again.

Arrange your tomatoes on the lined baking tray and bake for 15 - 20 minutes till eggs are set. Serve immediately.

Garlic Bread:

You can make this with pretty much any kind of loaf you like. I usually use a ciabatta or other crusty Italian loaf, or a baguette. It also makes a great after school snack.

Ingredients

• 125g butter (salted butter is good)
• 1 tsp Malden sea salt
• 1 sprig basil leaves
• 4 cloves garlic
• bread of choice

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C.

Use chop sticks as a guide when slicing

Now this is a handy trick that will ensure you never cut all the way through your bread again when making garlic bread. Take two wooden chop sticks (use the normal sized ones, not the take-away variety that you have to separate). Place one on either side of your loaf of bread. Cut slices into the bread until your knife hits the chop sticks (this ensures that you don't cut all the way through, but cut enough to allow you to spread the butter onto each slice).

In a food processor, blend the butter, garlic, salt and basil leaves. If the butter is too hard and won't cream, add olive oil to loosen it.

When your garlic butter is ready, spread it liberally in each slice you've cut in your bread.

Finally, spread a good amount on the top of your loaf too. This helps to keep the crust crunchy.

Cover your bread in baking paper and then in baking foil (Alfoil/tinfoil) and bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Serve hot.

Cheese Soufflé

Soufflé is one of those dishes that seems to strike terror into the heart of home cooks, but I'm not really sure why. It's an extremely easy dish that tastes sublime and looks spectacular. The last time I made soufflé, I was newly married, entertaining like mad and desperate to impress all and sundry. I was thrilled that my first soufflé worked and then proceeded to make them so regularly that my husband and I both grew to dread the sight of them. But after 15 years, it was definitely time to have another go at it. This recipe makes a delightfully light and fluffy soufflé.

This single soufflé alone would have been more than enough for dinner, but I'm not known for doing things by halves, so dinner included soufflé, scotch eggs and salad followed by creme brûlée for dessert.

Cheese souffle

Ingredients:

• 14 slices white bread
• 450g sharp/tasty Cheddar cheese
• 3 cups full fat milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 10 eggs
• salt and pepper to taste (I use freshly ground pepper corns and Malden sea salt)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Trim edges of 14 slices of whet bread (I gave the crusts to my chickens as a "thank you" for their lovely eggs, but you could save yours to make breadcrumbs for another time), then cube/quarter each slice.

Grate the cheese using the large side of the grater or a microplane for soft cheese.

Beat the eggs and milk with salt and pepper until just smooth (don't over beat).

Butter a casserole dish and alternately layer the bread and cheese (two layers of each) evenly along the bottom.

Pour the milk and egg mixture over. Melt the butter and drizzle over the top.

The longer you can allow the bread to soak up the milk mixture, the better the soufflé will be.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The soufflé will rise and brown nicely. Serve as soon as possible or it will deflate and that is such a sad sight.

It didn't take long for the family to get stuck in!