Malteser Doughnuts Recipe

Aloha! This week I'm bringing doughnuts over to Destination Femme... But they're not any ol' nuts, oh no...

This doughnut is the breakfast of champions, inspired by Justin Gellatly's basic dough recipe, there is enriched dough, cream, chocolate and it’s all deep fried in fat for an extra kick of flavour. Another round of indulgence is met when the whole thing gets bathed in sugar and malt powder. I’m not suggesting you eat this regularly, but if you feel like eating one more granola bar made with what is essentially sawdust is going to tip you over the edge, a day spent in the kitchen baking these doughnuts might help!

Click here for the Malteser Doughnuts recipe.

Love Em xx

Salted Caramel Chocolate Doughnut Cake

It was mum’s birthday this month.

Obviously, mums deserve ‘showstopping’ cakes; do you think this covers it? I pretty much copied the style of this cake from Blue Bird Kisses, as you can see, hers looks like it was sent from heaven. 

Mine? It's pushing purgatory. 

I needed the cake to be nothing short of extravagant and mouthwatering down to the last crumb - so it had to be a tried and tested recipe. Something no fail and one I’d used before to ensure an all round success. 

The Sweet ‘n’ Salty Chocolate Cake from Hummingbird Bakery was my first, last and only option. It ticks all the boxes and has about 500 different steps to it so be prepared to spend your evening by the stove. 

To go the extra mile, I soaked the cakes in the homemade salted caramel as soon as they came out of the oven, knowing full well that it would cause me a cake covering disaster. That’s love, eh?

Salted Caramel Chocolate Doughnut Cake 

Adapted from Hummingbird Bakery's Sweet n Salty Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

For the caramel 

• 200g caster sugar 
• 2 tbsp + 1 tsp golden syrup (or corn syrup)
• 120ml double cream
• 60ml soured cream
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt 

For the chocolate icing

• 200g caster sugar
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 360ml double cream
• 450g dark chocolate, roughly chopped 
• 450g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
• 1 tsp sea salt, for sprinkling
• Sainsbury's mini iced doughnuts, or any tiny doughnuts you can get hold of

For the cakes

• 300g unsalted butter, softened 
• 300g caster sugar
• 140g light soft brown sugar
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 100g cocoa powder
• 160ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 330g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Note: You can halve the recipe for a 6 inch cake.

Recipe

1. Start with the caramel. In a medium saucepan add the sugar, golden syrup and 60ml water. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes until lightly browned. In another saucepan bring the double cream, sour cream and salt to a boil and then immediately remove from the heat and carefully pour into the caramel. Stir until smooth, pour into a jug, cover with cling film and set aside.
2. Make the chocolate icing. In a small, clean saucepan add the sugar, golden syrup and 60ml water. Heat gently for 10 minutes until golden and syrupy. In another pan, bring the cream to a boil and then immediately remove from the heat and carefully pour into the caramel. Stir until smooth and set aside to cool slightly. Put the chopped chocolate in the slightly cooled caramel and stir until the chocolate has melted. Whisk the mixture with an electric whisk for 5 minutes, until it cools down. Carry on whisking and add the butter piece by piece, keep going until the icing takes on the consistency of softly whipped cream. Transfer the mixture into a bowl, cover with cling film and place in the fridge to set. 
3. Preheat the oven to 170 C, grease and line two 8 inch cake pans, I used 6 inch pans for a taller cake. In a freestanding mixer or with an electric whisk, cream the butter and sugars for 4 minutes.  Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each. In a measuring jug add the cocoa powder, buttermilk, vanilla and 60ml water, stir with a fork to form a thick and smooth paste. In large bowl add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, whisk to combine. Add half the cocoa paste to the butter and sugar mixture and stir to combine. Fold through all of the flour and then add the rest of the cocoa paste. Divide mixture among the pans and bake for 35/40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. 
4. As soon as the cakes are baked pierce them several times with a sharp knife and pour a thin layer of salted caramel over each. Transfer the cakes on a wire rack to cool completely.
5. To assemble the cake, spread 2 heaped tablespoons of icing between each layer and cover the sides and top using a cranked knife. Top with iced doughnuts and serve.

 Sweet 'n' Salty Chocolate Doughnut Cake 

Love Em xx

Traditional Turkish Cypriot Lokma

Lokma

Now that we're in February it's no shock to anyone that the days are finally getting just a tad bit longer. Food bloggers will jump for joy at the extra hour or so that has landed on their doorstep and/or window ledge because its arrival means sharing more tarts, muffins, cakes or even a lobster. So why is it that come pre spring, my cameras contents is as dry as Ghandis flip flop?! But it's not the end of the world and the clock still moves forward regardless of one or seven less posts a month (I hate university).

A few weeks back me and mum transformed our kitchen into a Turkish bakery. She's a good few years out of practice so it was nice to bring those skills up a notch. Generally, Turkish sweets are soaked in sugar syrup, it's this component that gives these sweets their own unique and worldly flavour, right next to its Asian counterparts. Absolutely everything including fried pastries, gets plopped or covered in a huge saucepan of sugar, water and cinnamon stick then left to soak for ten minutes until the finished product is wet, slightly sticky and nothing short of bloody glorious.

Our minefield of goods were all lovely, but I thought I'd turn to this particular recipe for the blog because its bite size.  Just one wouldn't hurt.

PS. Please forgive the awful quality of these trendy insta pics, I've only had time to bake in the evenings and then off out again the morning so the Canon had no place here.

The recipe

Makes about 30 bite sized Lokmas 

Dough
14g active dried yeast
2 cups warm water
2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tsp salt
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Sugar syrup
3 cups white sugar
5 cups water
1 stick cinnamon

Note: Make the process a touch too traditional and use a standard drinking glass to measure the ingredients instead of measuring cups, works wonders I promise!

The Method:

Start with the sugar syrup - add the sugar, water and cinnamon stick to a large saucepan and leave on a medium high heat whilst you make the dough batter.

Add the warm water and yeast to a large bowl and stir until the yeast dissolves.

Add the flour, corn flour and salt to the mix and whisk until incorporated - about 3 minutes.

Cover the batter with a clean tea towel and let rest for 30 minutes to an hour until the batter had doubled in size. You can put it in the fridge if you want.

In the mean time add vegetable oil to a medium sized saucepan and heat until boiling point.

Now for the messy part. Using your hand grab some of the proved dough and squeeze until a small amount appears between your thumb and forefinger. Grab that slightly rounded bit of dough with a teaspoon and plop it into the hot oil.

The balls needs about half a minute each side, or until golden brown.

Once cooked, immediately immerse the balls in the sugar syrup and leave in their for as long as you want. Obviously, the more you leave the balls in there the more sweet and delicious they become!

Transfer the balls into a large bowl that has been lined with paper towels.

EAT when warm for the best Lokma experience.

Here are some other late night Turkish bits I've been instagramming:

Ricotta Borek

Aubergine Karni Yarik

Love Em xx

Delicious Powdered Sugar Doughnuts

Donut or doughnut? Doughnut, it's a doughnut. It's not a doughnut because I'm not American, either. It's a doughnut because THESE doughnuts deserve so much more than your average 'donut'. Homer Simpson would bow down to these. He would eat all 30 (ish) that the recipe yields and then some. He would even ask to see the recipe and then Marg would get involved. Hopefully after that Marg would decide to credit the creator of the original, awesome recipe by Sprinkle Bakes. SB might call it a donut, but for me, it's the sort of doughnut that sits on top of those market made donuts and gets icing sugar all over its caster sugar, it would do this as a way of saying to the market donut "I shit all over you".

Another recipe that is a now a solid fixture in my life, if you'd like it to become part of yours too, then please do scan through this step by step guide to perfect doughnuts. I rinsed the original recipe to the absolute max, especially as I made some adaptations, and I think this is necessary if you want to get a good end result, don't be afraid to twice over the method ten hundred times. Just do it.

This is a recipe best left untouched, like the Holy Grail. So please, make these, make them good, eat them all, consider making them again the next night, and most of all thank Sprinkle Bakes for gracing us with such a rich and heavenly ball of yeasty fat to adapt from.

The Recipe:
Adapted from Wedding Donuts by Sprinkle Bakes
3 sachets active dried yeast
Half cup double cream plus 1 and a half cups whole milk
4 and a half cups plus half cup strong white flour
Quarter cup caster sugar
6 medium egg yolks, room temp
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract plus 1 tsp vanilla sugar (optional)
120g melted butter, plus extra for greasing
1 to 2 litres vegetable oil
500g icing sugar

Watsons whole milk used for Doughnut recipe

The Method:

• In a bowl, add 2 sachets (14g) of yeast with half the cup of double cream and 1 cup of whole milk and stir till combined using a fork. Add 1 and a half cups of the bread flour and thoroughly stir until near enough all of the lumps have disappeared. 
• Cover, and set aside to rest for half an hour.
• In the meantime, add the rest of the milk and yeast (7g) to the (new) bowl of a freestanding mixer and set on a medium speed. 
• Throw in the egg yolks, vanilla, vanilla powder and stir for 20 seconds then add all of the dough mixture that you set aside. Stir for a further 20 seconds and then stop. 
• Add 2 cups of bread flour, salt and sugar and mix on low for 30 seconds. 
• Stop mixing, add the melted butter until it all starts to come together. 
• Attach a kneading hook to your mixer and continue to add the last cup of flour to the mixture until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Remember, you don't have to add all of the remaining cup of flour. 
• Knead for about 1 minute, until smooth and less sticky.
• Grease a large bowl with butter and pop the dough inside of the bowl. 
• You can grease the top of the dough at this point if you want to as well. 
• Cover with clingfilm or foil and refrigerate for 2 hours. 
• Line 3 baking trays with clean, floured kitchen towels. 
• Work your dough on a clean surface, add extra flour to stop it from sticking. 
• Roll no more than 1 inch thick. Now grab a 72mm (3/4 inch) pastry cutter and a nozzle (1 inch round cutter) and make your doughnut shapes!
• Place on the kitchen towels and let prove for a further 40 minutes.
• Pour the icing sugar in a big bowl in the mean time.
• Have your oil at 180 degrees C, throw in 3 doughnuts in at a time and fry for 1 minute on each side. 
• Immediately put the doughnuts into the icing sugar and use a spoon to coat them all up in the stuff.
• Eat warm!

Doughnuts proving before being fried 

Cut the doughnuts 1 inch thick 

Let the doughnuts fry for 1 minute either side 

Powdered sugar doughnuts 

Powdered sugar doughnuts 

Love Em xx