It’s 2018, and I’m not really sure how that’s happened. We’re half way through January too, which is another thing that I’m not entirely up to speed with. I’ve taken a few weeks away from the blog, and even instagram, to just have some time to myself, and I’m not expecting to get back to posting regularly until February. This doesn’t mean I’ve not been baking through, and over the weekend I tried my hand at something I’ve been putting off for years; homemade doughnuts. The type you fry, not the oven baked ones I’ve put up on the blog before, but the ones that for a long time actually terrified me. I’d given myself a mental block for anything deep fried, convincing myself that if I’d not burnt the house down then I’d just end up with a giant vat of oil to get rid of. Over the last year or so though I’ve been teaching myself to fry things on the hob, and it’s finally lead to this point. So here it is; a recipe for super quick, and vegan, doughnuts.

The dough comes together in a few minutes and doesn’t need to rise, which is already a bonus. You can flavour the dough with something simple if you want, as I did with some cardamom. Once you’ve made the dough, make sure you dust your hands well with flour before you start breaking it apart into balls. I used a small high-sided frying pan and around a litre of oil. This means you’re more shallow frying than deep frying and you’ll have to flip the doughnuts and move them around to stop them from catching or burning.

This recipe is 100% vegan, using vegan marge (you could use normal if you wanted) and a dairy free milk (I used almond, but soy would work, or actual milk if you wanted to), and doesn’t use any remotely unusual ingredients. All of them should be able to be sourced in your local supermarket, with little fuss.

So that’s my first recipe of 2018 done. You’ll probably hear more about some travels from last year before my next recipe comes though.

Vegan Doughnuts

Sugar Doughnuts (Vegan)

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Author: The Bearded Baker

Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 50g vegan margarine
• 120ml almond milk (soy or oat is fine)
• 2tbsps sunflower oil, plus 1 litre extra for frying
• 250g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar, divided in half
• 1tsp baking powder
• ½tsp salt
• 1tsp cardamom (optional)

Instructions

1. Over a low heat in a small saucepan, melt the butter, stirring often so it doesn't catch. Once it's melted, whisk through the milk and oil.
2. Whisk together the flour, half the sugar, baking powder, salt and cardamom if using.
3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix with a fork until it comes together.
4. Prepare a sheet of grease proof paper, generously flour your hands and divide into 10-12 equally sized balls.
5. Shape them in your hands and push through a hole in the middle of each, storing them on the prepared grease proof.
6. Heat the oil in a saucepan, over a med-high heat. Get it hot enough that a small piece of dough dropped in will brown in around 45-50 seconds.
7. Using a spatula, carefully drop a doughnut into the hot oil and fry for about 90 seconds on one side before flipping. Move it occasionally during the process to stop it catching or burning. It'll take about 3-4 minutes for the whole doughnut to cook. If it's burning within 3 minutes, drop the temperature of the oil ever so slightly.
8. Transfer cooked doughnuts to kitchen towel to blot off excess oil, allow to cool slightly, dust in the extra sugar and transfer to a rack to cool completely.
9. Serve as they are, or dipped in jam or caramel.

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