Posted on 26 Comments

The Best Donut Recipe

Donut Croissant

How about combining two of the best desserts in the world – croissants and donuts? Croissant shaped donuts look charming and taste unbelievably good! Please don’t confuse this with cronuts (I am still working on perfecting this recipe).

Sourdough version of the donut recipe can be found here.

Ingredients

Dough

  • 250g  lukewarm milk
  • 2g dry instant yeast 
  • 100g sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 500 g bread flour, plus more for dusting
  • 50g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 10g salt
  • Vegetable oil, for frying

Vanilla Donut Glaze

  • 170g powdered sugar
  • 30g melted butter 
  • 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Custard Filling

300ml milk
2 yolks
2tbs cornstarch
100g sugar
1 vanilla bean

Whipped cream

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
75g sugar

Directions 

Dough

  • 8 am mix milk, dry instant yeast, eggs, sugar, yeast and flour(let it autolyse for 30 minutes).
  • During the autolyse period the flour becomes fully hydrated. This activates gluten development.
  • 8.30 am mix the dough on low speed of your mixing machine for 2-3 minutes, or KitchenAid on speed 3 for 3-4 minutes until well incorporated.
  • Add salt and mix for a couple more minutes. The dough should form a ball.
  • Add soft butter, increase the speed, mix for 10-15 minutes until the dough comes up together. If its not coming up together, feel free to add a little more flour (20-40g).
  • 9 am  cover the dough and let it proof for 2-3 hours at 76-80F/ 24-28C.
  • During that time perform 2 stretches and folds.
  • The dough should become puffy.
  • 11 am move the dough to fridge for at least 2 hours, or until next day.
  • 1 pm remove the dough from fridge, sprinkle work surface with flour, roll the dough  in a rectangular with sides about 70 x 27cm and about 0.5 cm thin.
  • Cut triangles with base 8.5-9cm
  • Roll them as a croissants.
  • Let them proof for 2 hours at 76-80F/ 24-28C.
  • Preheat the oil for about 30 minutes, and fry the doughnuts for 1-2 minutes on each side until golden brown.
  • Prepare the glaze, by mixing all ingredients until smooth.
  • Then dip doughnuts into the glaze or simply roll donuts in granulated sugar and enjoy.

Note: also you can fill the donuts with custard or your favorite jam.

Custard Filling

Boil milk, in separate bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch and yolks, pour hot milk over yolk mixture, bring to a medium heat, whisking constantly, until custard will get thicker. Cover and let cool off. Whisk heavy whipping cream with sugar until soft peaks. Combine both custard and whipped cream and fill the donuts.

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The Best Donut Recipe
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26 thoughts on “The Best Donut Recipe

  1. Wow, looks delicious 🤤

  2. Good morning dear, thank you for your recipe. I will for sure. And it must be wonderful. A beautiful day to you and your family. Kisses Maria Helena Atoniazzi.

    1. Thank you so much my dear friend 🙏

      1. Dios santo, se ven divinas, no aguanto para prepararlas, así como tambien desespero por conocerse y prepara las cronuts🤗🤗🤗

  3. Looks delicious!! How many doughnuts can you make with this recipe?
    Thanks!

    1. Thank you!
      About 12

  4. Hi there! These look delicious, definitely gonna try them. Can you tell me how many minutes should I mix the ingredients of the dough if I do it by hand? I don’t have a mixer and I know this step is important. Thank you so much!

    1. Hi!
      Thank you!
      You should mix the dough until you feel the gluten strength. I’d say maybe 20 , 25 min with stops.

  5. Hello, this looks delicious 👏 one question… what should be the oil temperature? I often have it either too hot or not enough and then my doughnuts are not cooked well in the inside 🤷‍♀️ Thanks

    1. It should be 350-365F

  6. Hi Natasha,

    Is it ok if i leave the dough more than 12 hours in the fridge? I mean, is it possible if i keep it 24 hours let say? Thank you..

    1. Hi!
      Yes!
      Up to 48 hours (but make sure it’s cold in the fridge (4C or lower)

  7. Hi Natalya 😊

    Will this work it I don’t use eggs?

    Thank you 💗

    1. Yes, but it won’t be as light

    2. LOVE the “time” details of the recipe. I think this is my biggest bread making hang up on following a recipe. Your recipe helped me understand what to expect at each development. Thank you.

      1. Thank you so much for your kind feedback ❤️

  8. I want to try, I wanted to ask if only 2g of yeast is suffisant? I usually use like as 8g for my recipe.
    I am not sure I really understand as English is not my home language.
    Thank you

    1. Less yeast is basically so you can let the donuts rise slower, they develop more flavour and you don’t get yeasty flavour 🙂

  9. I am so excited to try this recipe and have couple of questions.
    Post 9AM it talks about doing a stretch and fold twice . Not sure I understand this step properly. Will you be able to help me here?
    Also, the final consistency of the dough just before making the donut shapes will it be still sticky or it should not stick?
    I ask this bec I always tend to get a greasy donut even though I have followed recipes with frying temp of 340F. I do feel the dough wetness may be creating this problem hence wanted to check.
    Can I use this recipe to make regular donut shapes?
    Thanks so much for your valuable feedback.

  10. Hi, can I bake them??

  11. Hola me parece muy interesante tu receta, voy a intentar replicar tus indicaciones con la certeza de que algo muy sabroso saldrá de ese proceso… Saludos desde Venezuela, Dios bendiga a Ucrania🙏!

  12. Can I use active dry yeast instead?

    1. Hello what can we replace eggs with in this recipe?

  13. Do I use a dough hook to mix the dough? Thank you.

    1. Hi! I’ve tried them today but they were impossible to fry in the middle …they were too thick. How can I avoid this ?
      Thank you!

  14. Hello,

    I think there’s a mistake in the yeast quantity, 2 grams for 500gr of flour, isn’t that a bit too small. I thought at minimum we aim for 1% of the total flour amount for yeast. Please review your quantities.
    Thank you.

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