A dough with a hole!!

Well, I am not crazy about doughnuts, but I do munch on them, given a chance. Usually, doughnuts are deep-fried, which makes them calorie laden. And so when I decided to make doughnuts, I decided to bake it. As usual, Google helped me in my search for baked doughnuts. Heidi of 101 cookbooks had baked doughnuts and followed her recipe to the core. As I said before, breads have never disappointed me. This time too it was no difference.

Ingredients:
Recipe Source: 101 Cookbooks

For Dough
Warm milk - 1 1/3 cups (divided)
Yeast - 2 1/4 tsps
Butter - 2 tbsps
Sugar - 2/3 cup
Eggs - 2
All purpose flour - 5 cups
Nutmeg, grated - a pinch
Salt - 1 tsp

For decoration
Butter, melted - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 1/2 cups
Cinnamon - 1 tbsp (optional)

Method:

• Place 1/3 cup of warm milk in a big bowl. Stir in the yeast and set aside for 5 mins or so for the yeast to bloom.
• Stir melted butter and sugar and the remaining cup of warm milk in a bowl. Add this to the bloomed yeast mixture.
• With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg and salt; until the flour is incorporated.
• Mix all the ingredients with a dough hook or with your hands to form a smooth dough. {Add few flour if the dough is too sticky or add little milk if the dough is too dry.}
• The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl.
• Turn it out onto a floured counter-top. Knead for a few times, till the dough is barely sticky and shape it into a big ball.
• Transfer the dough to a buttered bowl. Cover with a clean wet cloth and put it in a warm place. Let it rise for an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
• Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2 inch thick on a floured counter-top.
• Cut out circles with a cookie cutter.
• Transfer the circles to a parchment lined baking tray and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. {If you cut the inner holes out earlier, they become distorted when you move them.}
• Cover the baking tray with a clean wet cloth and let it rise for another 45 mins.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 190 C for 8-10 mins, until the bottoms are just golden. {Start checking around 8 mins onwards}.
• Meanwhile, melt butter in a bowl.
• Place sugar in a seperate bowl.
• Remove the baked doughnuts from oven and let it cool for a minute or so.
• Dip each doughnuts in the melted butter and toss quickly in the sugar bowl.
• Likewise, you could melt some chocolate and dip ot brush the chocolate on the top of the doughnuts.
• Serve immediately.

Tips:

• Never overbake the doughnuts as the continue to bake for few minutes once out of the oven.
• Cut out bigger holes in the centre of the doughnuts as they tend to rise even more when they are baking.

My Notes:

• Always use good quality yeast.
• The time taken for yeast blooming depends.
• Also, the time taken for the dough to rise also depends upon the climate and the quality of the yeast used. Mine took almost 2 hours to rise.
• You could use warm water instead of milk.
• You could also substitute the maida with wheat flour.
• Remember to cut the doughnuts atleast 1/2 inch thick, otherwise it would look skinny like the ones you see in the pictures above. *smiles*.