Carnival doughnuts

A classic in the carnival season!

Ingredients

• ½ kg plain wheat flour (type W 480/405 or 700/550)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ cube of fresh yeast
• approx. ¼ L lukewarm milk
• 40 g butter
• 40 g sugar
• 4 yolks
• 1 small glass of rum (helps the doughnuts to absorb less fat when baking, but don’t worry about the alcohol content, it will evaporate during baking)
• lemon zest, if desired
• 1 l fat for frying (lard and/or sunflower oil)
• 200 ml finely strained apricot jam for filling
• Powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preparation

For the carnival doughnut recipe, crumble the yeast into the lukewarm milk, add two pinches of sugar, whisk and leave to stand for a while. The milk must not be too hot (max. 35° C), otherwise the yeast will lose its effect! In the meantime, gently warm the butter. Add the mixed milk, the egg yolks, the remaining sugar and the rum and whisk well.

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl, pour in the yolk milk and knead into a dough – using the dough hook of a hand mixer, a food processor or by hand as in the past. The dough should be nice and smooth and pull away from the sides of the bowl. Cover the yeast dough in a bowl and leave to rise in the oven at a maximum of 40 degrees or in another warm, non-draughty place until double in size. Beat (knead) the doughnut dough and leave to rise again. The first “rising” takes about half an hour, the second time usually only takes a quarter of an hour. Repeated rising makes the doughnut dough fine-pored and smooth!

Knead the yeast dough again and cut off small pieces of dough with a dough card and “grind” them into round balls. Alternatively, you can use a tablespoon to take pieces of dough directly from the bowl, knead them together and grind them. If you are unsure, it is best to weigh out the amount of dough for one doughnut (between 50 – 70g per doughnut, depending on the desired size) and use this as a guide for the rest.

Grinding doughnuts

Rolling is the process of turning the doughnut dough into a round, beautiful carnival doughnut and requires a little practice. The dough is rolled into a round ball using light pressure and circular movements of the hand. Place the round doughnuts on a floured cloth and gently press them flat. Cover with another cloth and leave to rise again.

Heat the lard or oil in a large pan or pot to approx. 150°. If small bubbles rise from a wooden stick dipped in the fat, then it is hot enough! Place the carnival doughnuts top side first and bake in the floating fat for approx. 3 – 4 minutes. When they have a nice golden brown color, turn the doughnuts over and bake for another 3 minutes. Tip: Make a test doughnut first to see if the temperature is right. Remove the freshly baked doughnuts with a ladle, drain on kitchen roll and leave to cool slightly.

Then fill the carnival doughnuts with delicious apricot jam. To do this, stir the finely strained jam until smooth and fill into a doughnut syringe or a piping bag with a doughnut nozzle. If the jam is too firm, you can warm it slightly. Carefully prick the sides of the white doughnuts and pipe in the jam. Alternatively, you can of course fill the doughnuts with any other jam or with chocolate or vanilla cream. They also taste good without any filling!

Finally, sprinkle the fluffy doughnuts with powdered sugar!