Makes About 20
Preparation Time 40 minutes, plus rising time
Cooking Time 10 minutes

• 125ml milk
• 65ml (60g) butter
• 7g instant dried yeast
• 645ml (350g) white bread flour
• 55ml (45g) sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• sunflower oil for deep-frying

Custard

• 500ml milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 100g (115ml) castor sugar
• 5ml vanilla essence
• 30g (55ml) cake flour
• 12g (20ml) cornflour
• glacé icing or cinnamon sugar

1 Heat the milk and butter together until the butter has melted. When it is lukewarm, stir in the yeast.
2 Sift the flour, 2ml of salt and the sugar into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the milk mixture. Add the beaten eggs and stir together. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface. If it is too sticky, add a little more flour. It should be a soft but workable dough. Knead by hand or in a food processor for 10 minutes. Cover and leave to rise until doubled in size.
3 Knead the dough again for five minutes, then roll into small balls. Leave to rise on baking trays lined with baking paper for half an hour.
4 Heat the oil until medium hot (175°C), then fry the doughnuts for one minute or until golden. Drain on absorbent paper.
5 Custard Bring the milk to the boil. Remove from the heat. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together. Add the vanilla, flour and cornflour. Beat until light. Strain the milk into the egg mixture and whisk until smooth. Return to the heat and cook, whisking, until the custard thickens. Remove from the heat and cool completely.
6 Put the custard into a piping bag with a metal nozzle. Make a hole in the side of each doughnut with a skewer and pipe the custard into the doughnut.
7 Make a glacé icing to drizzle over the doughnuts, or sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Variations
Flavour the custard with chocolate or coffee by adding 10ml instant coffee powder to the milk or 100g dark chocolate.

Text and image: Ideas magazine