Mango Lassi Doughnuts

The SEasOning

I’ve been craving doughnuts.

Some friends of mine are having the summer of doughnuts. They’re always sharing photos of their doughnut adventures. There is always an enthusiastic debate about the relative goodness of the doughnuts being tasted.

Yeast vs. cake.

Jelly filled vs. cream filled.

Diner style basic vs. new and fancy.

I could have easily solved this problem by walking over to my local Tim Hortons and getting a Boston Cream doughnut; but I’m an arrogant, bon vivant food snob so that wasn’t going to cut it.

Now I could have gotten in the car and driven to one of the good doughnut places like a sensible person, but I’m not exactly a sensible person.

I made the decision to make my own. I mean how hard could it be? Munchies made it seem like it was an easy straight forward process. Staying true to myself, I also decided to complicate matters more. Instead of stuffing the doughnut with a basic custard, why not stuff it with a mango custard lassi instead? While I’m at it, I’ll swap out the chocolate dip for a white chocolate dip.

Not everything went as planned.

Many lessons were learnt.

Enough reading, let’s doughnut. This makes 18 doughnuts and takes too fucking long. You should also have a food scale as this recipe measures by grams in some of the ingredients.

The Ingredients

Doughnut Batter

350 mL Evaporated milk
1/2 cup sugar
7 grams active dry yeast
56 grams unsalted butter – melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 large egg + three egg yolks
4 cups bread flour – sifted (plus some extra for dusting)
1 litre canola oil for frying

Custard

1 cup pureed mango
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup corn starch
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups whole milk

For the glaze

170g white chocolate
1/4 cup whole milk
4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
50g unsalted toasted pistachios lightly crushed

The Method

The Dough

First we’re going to make the doughnut batter. Warm the evaporated milk to 115F. Add that to your mixing bowl with the yeast and sugar. Stir together and wait till it get foamy. It should take 10-15 minutes.
Add all the remaining doughnut ingredients except the flour and stir to combine
If you have a stand mixer, use the dough hook attachment from here on out. On low speed, slowly add in your bread flour and work till the dough is smooth. You’ll need to stop and scrape down the sides a couple times. This dough is wet and sticky.
Once you’ve got a smooth dough, turn it out on a lightly floured surface. Knead this till it’s nice and elastic. You may need to dust with more flour to get it to that point.
1. NOTE: I think I dusted with too much flour at this stage and my doughnuts ended up a little denser and a little more doughy than I wanted. Dust a little and knead a lot. Don’t worry about over working the dough, it’s got a couple of rest stages coming up to let thing relax.
Once kneaded, transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for a hour or till doubled in size. This may take more or less than an hour depending on how warm it is where you are.
Once risen, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. You’re going to roll it out into a 14″ diameter circle. Try to get dough to evenly be 1/4″ thick. It’s OK if your circle is more oblong or weirdly shaped; the uniform thickness is more important.
Use a three-inch round cutter and punch out 18 doughnuts. As you cut out the doughnuts transfer to parchment paper lined baking sheets. You’re going to want to leave about 2″ between doughnuts.
1. You can get more doughnuts out of this if you want by balling up the scraps of dough left, rolling it out again and punch out more doughnuts. Or you can roll it into a log, section the log, roll the sections into tiny balls and set the aside to make Timbits.
Lightly cover your doughnut rounds and let the rise for another 10 min. While that’s happening heat your oil in a dutch oven. You’re looking to get the oil to 350F. You’re going to fry the doughnuts for 2-3 min flipping half way. Once cooked, place the doughnuts on a wire rack to drain and cool.
1. NOTE: I learnt this the hard way. When I dropped the doughnuts into the hot oil they expanded rapidly. That’s a good sign. The yeast is healthy and dough isn’t over proofed. However the side of the doughnut that was facing up would form an air bubble so when you tried to flip the doughnut over it would roll right back. I discovered if you take a toothpick and poke the top of the dough before frying (don’t go more than halfway through the thickness of the doughnut round) the doughnut still swells nicely, but you don’t get that annoying air bubble.
2. NOTE: You’re going to end up with a pale white line around the middle of your doughnut as you fry. That’s OK. That’s supposed to happen.

The Custard

Now it’s time to make the custard. I suggest doing this the night before. Get a small sauce pan and whisk together the yolks, sugar and corn starch. Keep whisking till everything is combined, smooth and lump free.
Add your milk, whisk to combine and put the pan over medium low heat. Keep whisking till you get this to a simmer. Once at a simmer it should thicken up VERY quickly. I strongly suggest you let this get real thick.
Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in your butter, mango puree, cardamom, and vanilla. Whisk till smooth.
This step is optional, but if you want a really smooth custard, pass this through a fine mesh sieve.
Refrigerate your custard. Make sure it’s covered well and you’ve got a piece of plastic wrap over top of the custard and the wrap is actually touching the custard. That’s going to prevent it from getting a skin.
1. I only refrigerated my custard for the hour my dough was rising and that wasn’t enough. It was too warm and tool thin which made stuffing challenging. Let this cool over night and I’d even bump up the cornstarch by another 1/8 cup.

The Glaze

So your doughnuts are fried and cooling, your custard is cooked and cooling. Now it’s time for the glaze. Get a small sauce pan and add a couple inches of water to it. Set it on the stove set to medium. Place a heat proof bowl over top to create a double boiler.
Add everything except the sugar and the nuts to your double boiler and stir constantly till everything is melted, combined and smooth.
Slowly add your sugar and stir to incorporate working out and lumps.
Once everything is combined, set the stove to low just to keep everything warm

The Doughnut

Now that your doughnuts are cooled, get yourself a long skewer. Using the skewer poke a hole in the side of your doughnut and wiggle it around to hollow out the middle. Careful to no puncture the doughnut beyond your initial hole. Do this to all your doughnuts
Get your custard out of the fridge and fill a pipping bag fitted with a small straight tip (or your can use a ziploc bag with a corner cut out). Jam the tip of the bag into the hole in your doughnut and squeeze in your custard. You want to get enough in there so you can feel the doughnut swell up slightly, but not so much that you blow it apart.
Take your stuffed doughnut and dip it into your warm glaze and swirl it around a bit. Place it on a wire rack glazed size up and sprinkle some pistachios on top. Repeat with the remaining doughnuts and leave them for 30 min or so to let the glaze set.
Sit back and admire your work. Tim Horton’s ain’t got shit on you.