beignets

Banana Doughnuts With Dried Banana "Streusel"

14.09.2009 98 Comments

Before I tell you all about these delicious Banana Doughnuts, I must announce the winner of the giveaway: "minisuperbias" won "Confections Of A Closet Master Baker" by Gesine Bullock-Prado. Congratulations! Please, email me your mailing address at mytartelette{at}gmail{dot}com and I will get the book in the mail pronto.

Back to the doughnuts. They pretty much made everybody swoon. Granted we did not share but with one neighbor so we can’t really say for sure but we have the feeling they would make people do just that. Or sigh heavily in approval. I did and that is no small feat given my general dislike of bananas. Yes. The only reason why I even buy bananas is because Bill can’t live without.

We are very territorial about our fruits, I have noticed, and have clear favorites. However, he can rest assured that I’ll never have a midnight craving for "la banane". At a rate of a banana a day for him, I tend to buy a bunch for the week to be on the safe side. Well, last week I found myself with 22 of them in the house. Ugh! I got 8, he stopped by the store on his way home and got 8 (hello! He never goes grocery shopping!) and his mother brought 6 huge ones (were on sale – bought too much – dumped them on me). My least favorite fruit! I had to come up with a plan.

I started with an easy and quick dessert, bananas foster. Ok, down to 21. Then we had banana bread. 19. "Mon cheri, eat one please. Right now!". 18. I’m never going to see the end of this, I thought. Oh yes! Skewer 2 more on lollipop sticks, freeze, coat with melted chocolate and eat. 16. Banana sorbet. 14. Can I start breathing again now. Not yet?

At 14 left, I threw my arms up in the air and said "Mon cheri (I promise, start every request with this or"mon amour" works every time), give me some ideas because this is becoming boring." He pondered this for a minute and asked if they could find their way into a doughnut. At this point, I would have come up with anything to get rid of more so "Yes! Brilliant!"…

After tweaking my recipes to make sure I had the right ratio of dry to wet ingredients, I was still down only two more bananas, unless I was ready to make more and stand at the stove frying the entire evening, feeding our neighborhood and the one next to it. I remember Bill mentioning he liked those little streusel pieces on top of certain doughnuts and that’s when the idea of topping the doughnuts with chopped dried bananas came to my mind. Wow! It really made things come together!

The banana flavor in the dough is very subtle and the fruit acts more as a moisture agent than a flavoring. The dried bananas really made it for us. Their smell alone is enough to reconcile me with them. After an hour of drying time, I opened the oven door and did not close it for a few seconds. I was almost paralyzed by the whiff of caramelizing bananas hitting my nose! Amazing! I could eat home dried bananas everyday. Natural chewy candy that makes the house smell absolutely wonderful.

We were then at 11 bananas left. A lot more manageable here, especially if he doubled up on the daily intake!

Banana Doughnuts

Makes about 24

For the doughnuts:
3 to 3 1/2 cups (440gr) all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons (12gr) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2gr) baking soda
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey
2 small bananas, mashed
1/4 cup (55gr) sour cream
canola oil for frying.

For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk

For the dried bananas: (best prepared the day before or while the dough is resting)
1 small banana

Prepare the dough:
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt twice and set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the eggs and honey for one minute at medium speed, until light and airy. Add the bananas and sour cream and beat until well incorporated. Turn the speed down to low and add the dry ingredients (little by little). The dough will be soft. Transfer to a medium bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
On a well floured board or countertop, roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut rounds either with a 3-inch doughnut cutter or use a 3-inch cookie cutter and a 1-inch small cutter to make the holes in the middle. Reroll the scraps as you go. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes if it starts getting tough as you reroll and cut, to relax the gluten.
In a large cast iron skilet, heat enough oil (2 inches deep or so) to 325F and fry the doughnuts 3 to 4 at a time, 1 to 2 minutes on each side, turning them once. Do not over crowd your skillet or it will drop the temperature of the oil and you will end up with soggy doughnuts. Drain on a baking sheet lined with paper towels.

For the glaze:
In a medium bowl, sift the powdered sugar. Add the milk and whisk until smooth.
Dip the doughnuts into the glaze and let drip on a wire rack set over a piece of parchment paper

For the dried bananas:
Line a baking sheet with either a silicone mat or a piece of parchment paper.
Preheat the oven at 250F and position a rack in the middle.
Slice the bananas in 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick and place them on the baking sheet. Let the banana slices dry in the oven for 2 hours. Let cool. Chop in small pieces.
Scatter the chopped banana slices over the doughnuts after the glaze is applied but before it is completely set so they have time to stick.

Time To Make The Doughnuts Event

02.02.2008 23 Comments

I am busy playing in the kitchen with my mother but I wanted to remind everybody out there that Peabody and I are hosting a doughnut fest on February 15th and invite you all to send us your entries by February 12th if you wish to participate. The ones we have received so far are fabulous, lip-smacking good looking! You will find all the info needed here: Time To Make The Doughnuts.

No long post from me tonight, no strange looking creation or mad scientist tip…just a recipe for beignets and a little plea (continue to read below the beignets) that my mom brought with her for Mardis Gras and that I have not made in years. You can make the round, shape them or fill them if you so desire. Excuse me while I go eat some more chocolate and give her a hug (she always smells like vanilla!).

Beignets:

1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3/4 cup water,lukewarm
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tb orange blossom flower water

Sprinkle the yeast over the water. Let stand for 10 minutes or until it foams. With a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachement add the egg, salt, orange water and the flour. Beat until smooth. Transfer the dough to a bowl coated with cooking pray and let stand in a warm place until doubled in bulk. Roll the dough on a lightly floured board and cut out round, shapes,… Heat up 2 inches of oil in pan (I use a 9 inch cast iron) to 350F and fry the doughnuts in everal batches. When browned on one side, turn and brown on other side. Drain them on paper towel and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Apple and Cider Beignets

10.01.2008 54 Comments

I know…I am evil to make apple and cider beignets, to take their pictures and put them here while some of you have made food related New Year’s resolutions. I guess now you know that I don’t make any…! No, seriously, I do make "adjustments", not resolutions. Just the word puts too much pressure so I make a list of bad habits that I need to correct. Back to the beignets though. If you think about it, I am not really evil if you are tempted by these. Don’t they say "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"? And that if you fry things at a high enough temperature, you don’t get as much oil in the food? So you see….no evil.

Alright, I might be trying to justify the fact that I enjoyed one too many of them tonight but sometimes life is too short to worry about two or three Apple And Cider Beignets. I am not pushing you to throw caution away to the wind but let’s face it between two of these and two store bought ones, I know which one I am going for. First, they are made with fresh ingredients that I can pronounce without scratching my head, and second of all who knows what tomorrow holds?

I have been craving fruit beignets like these for months but beside the four days we had of cold-er weather, there has never been a "proper"occasion. I can’t say "cold" for those of you under really bone chilling conditions or you would laugh at me! Anyway, if I wait for another drop in the temperatures I might have to move up north before the right moment comes along. And really, when is the right moment? My philosophy is that if it is not hurting anybody and not breaking any law, (college days are definitely over), well, now is as good a time as ever!

I was going to use one of my mom’s recipes until I noticed Kate Zuckerman had a pretty mouth watering one also. She uses light beer in her recipe but I had just opened a bottle of "cidre brut" so I went with that instead. Since one of my New Year’s "adjustments" is to try more than one recipe from cookbooks I receive, I went along with hers not knowing that I was in for a surprise. I don’t know where she gets her apples but after the four called for in the recipes were all dipped and fried, I still had enough batter for four more! So there I was cleaning and slicing a pineapple as quickly as I could before the oil would turn smokey black. No time to roast the pineapple slices as she does the apples but they still turned out alright. Given more time though, I would have proceeded as she does in the recipe just to avoid too much of a bitey feel from the raw fruit. Consider yourself warned and either pick mammoth sized apples, double on the quantity or prepare other fruits. If you go with canned or jarred ones, make sure to pat them real dry with paper towels as we all have discovered at some point that oil and water don’t really like each other, especially at frying temperatures.

Apple And Cider Beignets, adapted from Kate Zuckerman:

For the apples:
4 large apples
3 Tb butter
2 Tb sugar

For the batter:
4 eggs
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup melted butter (she uses oil)
3/4 cup hard cider or light beer
11/2 cups flour
2 tsp sugar

Oil for frying (1 to 2 cups)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350F. Peel and core the apples. Slice them into four even doughnut shaped sections, crosswise. Lay the apples on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Dot them with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until the apples are brown and tender but not completely done. Let them cool to room temperature.

While the apples are baking, prepare the batter to fry them. Separate the eggs, reserving the whites. Whisk 3 egg yolks (discard the 4th one or use for something else) with the salt, butter and cider. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the egg whites until foamy, add the sugar slowly until you get stiff glossy peaks. Carefully fold the whites into the egg yolk batter.

Note about frying: do not overcrowd your pan as it will drop the temperature of the oil and you will have a soggy oily beignet instead of a crispy one. To test if the oil is ready, dip the end of a wooden spoon or dowel in the oil and if you see bubbles at the base touching the oil, it is ready.

Heat one cup of oil in a frying pan to 325F. While it is heating up to temperature, mix the last measurement of sugar with the cinnamon in a plate and keep it close as you will dip the beignets in this once they are fried and cooled a bit.
Dip each roasted apple slice in the batter, coating both sides and gently lay them down in the oil. Cook 4-6 apple slices depend on the size of your pan, until they start to brown around the edges ( I used an 8inch cast iron one and 4 slices at a time). Using a slotted spoon or spatula, flip the apple over and cook until golden brown. Drain them on paper towels for a minute and dredge them in the cinnamon sugar. Serve as soon as possible or reheat briefly in a pan the day after (if they last that long).

P.S: I have read your comments and your emails about the caramel corkscrews and I will make a proper post about those this weekend. I also got emails about a cake I posted moons ago without writing the recipe down for you, so I will upload that too!

Sufganiyot – Jelly Donuts – Beignets Confiture

05.12.2007 41 Comments

Ah…Christmas…!! If I close my eyes real well and stand in front of the open freezer I can even almost pretend it is cold enough for Christmas. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to spending Christmas in a tee-shirt. Sorry if you are drowning under many inches of snow right now, but I envy you…Really, I do. It’s not cold enough for soup, eggnog and stuffing and the small tree we put on the porch looks slightly out of place.

Proof to this madness: I had to stay home and have a mini baking marathon on saturday and around 5pm, I could not take it anymore and had to crank the AC on again…with the oven and the stove on!! Oh yes, the electricity company loves me!! Last night we decided to pretend it was December and used the fireplace…for a total of an hour because it got so hot. Crazy…

Even crazier, when I decided to help some friends celebrate their tradition and stood in front of burning oil and fried sufganiyot for an hour. When I dropped by C' house with a plate full of them and a bottle of eggnog, it was finally starting to feel like the holiday season. I am not Jewish, but C. is and so are other friends around us and since they make sure to wish us a Merry Christmas, I wanted to make something in their honor during this year’s celebration of Hanukkah. She often mentioned the jelly donuts her mother used to make during this holiday and since a sufganiyah is a donut is a beignet, well there was no way I was going to say no, eheheh!!! Hanukkah,the Festival of Lights, is a celebration of the victory of the Maccabees and the re dedication of the Jerusalem Temple. It also commemorates the miracle of the oil that burned for 8 days. Serving jelly doughnuts at Hanukkah, which are fried in oil symbolizes the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days instead of one.

There are numerous recipes for them online but I wanted to give dear Ole' Martha one last shot. It’s no secret among the blogging community that we have issues with her recipes as written and we end up tweaking them to make them work. I settled on one of hers for the donuts and from a first glance at it, it seemed that the proportions of liquids to solids might work, so I played along. However, I had serious doubt things would work after mixing the dough as it seemed really really soft. But I trusted Martha and after the first rise, the dough was very supple and yet very easy to roll out and proceed with cutting out the sufganiyot.

I know you can’t tell from the pictures, and that is because I did not have time to take proper shots while the gluttons were devouring these, but they are filled with raspberry jelly. I used a homemade one but feel free to use the one you like. Don’t be afraid of frying either. I do not have a deep fryer so I use a cast iron pan with about 2-3 inches of oil in it. The only thing I have added was a tablespoon of orange flower water to the dough. It makes fried doughs that much better…

It was a pleasure to see C’s and the kids' face when I dropped these off. I shared some eggnog and coffee with them while listening to family stories and traditions. I also enjoyed reading more about this holiday that although not completely foreign to me, had not been explained in details and researching recipes as well as history was a fantastic part of blogging. This is my entry to Meryl’s Joyous Jumble, an event meant to discover other cultures' holidays during the month of December.

Sufganiyot, adapted from Martha Stewart:

Makes 20.

2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water, (100 degrees to 110 degrees)
1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar, plus more for rolling
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 large eggs
1 Tb. orange flower water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups vegetable oil, plus more for bowl
1 cup seedless raspberry jam

In a small bowl, combine yeast, warm water, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes.
Place flour in a large bowl. Make a well in the center; add eggs, yeast mixture, orange flower water, 1/4 cup sugar, butter, nutmeg, and salt. Using a wooden spoon, stir until a sticky dough forms. On a well-floured work surface, knead until dough is smooth, soft, and bounces back when poked with a finger, about 8 minutes (add more flour if necessary). Place in an oiled bowl; cover with plastic wrap. Set in a warm place to rise until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Using a 2 1/2-inch-round cutter or drinking glass, cut 20 rounds. Cover with plastic wrap; let rise 15 minutes.
In medium saucepan over medium heat, heat oil until a deep-frying thermometer registers 370 degrees. Using a slotted spoon, carefully slip 4 rounds into oil. Fry until golden, about 40 seconds. Turn doughnuts over; fry until golden on other side, another 40 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a paper-towel-lined baking sheet. Roll in sugar while warm. Fry all dough, and roll in sugar.
Fill a pastry bag fitted with a #4 tip with jam. Using a wooden skewer or toothpick, make a hole in the side of each doughnut. Fit the pastry tip into a hole, pipe about 2 teaspoons jam into doughnut. Repeat with remaining doughnuts.