Baked Doughnuts with Currants

Baked currant doughnuts - these light yeasted doughnuts and doughnut holes are baked, brushed with melted butter, and dredged in sugar.

These doughnuts are delicious warm from your oven. They are more "bread-like" than deep fried doughnuts, and they are lighter and airier than the baked doughnuts that have baking powder for leavening that you bake in a special pan.

The moist dough for these doughnuts is rich and buttery. At first you will think it is too sticky to work with, and you will be tempted to add more flour. While I did add two extra tablespoons of flour, I still let the dough remain sticky.

These doughnuts are evidently the creation of Robert Jörin, a third generation Swiss baker at the Greystone (California) campus of the Culinary Institute of America, and according to Food & Wine, this recipe is inspired by classic European baking.

These doughnuts are flavored with nutmeg and cinnamon, and enriched with sugar, eggs, milk, and butter.

This dough requires two rises before shaping. Once you've let it rise twice, the once sticky dough is a dream to shape.

How do you shape these doughnuts?

Rather than cutting the doughnuts from rolled out dough, you shape the dough into balls and flatten them into four inch disks. They you use a circle cookie cutter to cut out the doughnut holes, which you bake along with the doughnuts. 

This recipe yields 12 doughnuts and 12 doughnut holes. I immediately devoured a few (I won't admit to how many) of the doughnut holes while they were still warm. They were so good. 

Because there is just the two of us, I wrapped the rest of the doughnuts once they had cooled and put them in a freezer bag in the freezer. We each took one out the night before for the next day's breakfast. 

If you are not familiar with currants, you can find them in the dried fruit section of the grocery store, near the raisins. They are like tiny raisins. 

This month the Bread Baking Babes are baking doughnuts, and our host kitchen is Feeding My Enthusiasms. She has a nice shot of the interior of the doughnuts in her post. If you'd like to bake along, be sure to find out how on her post. 

Here is the recipe! 

doughnuts, currants, breakfast, bread

breakfast, doughnuts

European

Yield: 12 doughnuts and 12 doughnut holesAuthor: Karen Kerr

Baked Doughnuts with Currants

ingredients

• 1 cup (144 grams) dried currants
• 3 cups (375 grams) unbleached all purpose flour, plus more as needed
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar, plus more for dredging
• 3/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• 3/4 cup warm milk
• 1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• Melted butter for brushing the baked doughnuts

instructions

1. Soak the currants in hot water for 20 minutes. Drain. 
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and instant yeast. 
3. Add the milk, eggs, and half of the butter, and mix on second speed with the dough hook for 3 minutes. 
4. Add the salt and knead in the salt and beat until smooth on medium/medium low speed. 
5. Add the rest of the butter in pieces, making sure each piece is fully combined into the dough before adding more. 
6. Knead in the currants. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour by tablespoon (I added two more tablespoons) but leave the dough fairly sticky. 
7. Place the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, about 90 minutes. Press down the dough, cover, and let rise for another hour. 
8. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and shape them into balls. Let them rest for 10 minutes. 
9. Place the balls on two parchment lined baking sheets, and flatten them to a 4 inch diameter disks. Cut out the centers with a small round cookie cutter and place them on the baking sheets as well. Cover the dough with oiled plastic wrap and let rise for one hour. 
10. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F with a rack in the upper third and lower third of your oven. . Bake for about 25 minutes, rotating and trading the baking sheets' positions. 
11. Brush the finished doughnuts with melted butter and dip them in granulated sugar, and then let them cool on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before serving. 

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2018/12/baked-doughnuts-with-currants.html

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