Baked Doughnuts

I've never been a big fan of doughtnuts. In fact, I can spend months without eating them, but from time to time, I taste the first bite and then I devour them as if there were nothing else to eat in the world. Is totally unconscious. Usually, I finish one this way and forget about them for months afterwards.
I was a bit lazy on ​​making doughnuts at home. There is one thing I dislike specially about them, and it is that they are deep fried into abundant hot oil. And this is something you do not want to do in June at the seashore, with your bikini count down already going on.

So I decided to take a mid-way,  and put them in the oven instead of frying in oil. Well, the result is hardly the same, I am not fooling myself, but I think it's not a bad compromise. And you can freeze them (I recommend it, or you'll end up eating them all at once, trust me) and make the illusion that it is not so terrible if you just take one.
These also are not that sweet, so you can freeze them and when de-frezing for breakfast you can fill them with cheese, or cream, and some fruit, or whatever you like.

I adapted this recipe from Lara Ferroni's blog, a real doughnuts specialist herself. I should confess that  what attracted me the most in this blog were her spectacular photos far more than the doughnuts. Even if doughnuts are not your thing, it pays to give this a try, you will not regret, for sure.

Baked Doughnuts ( Based on Lara Ferroni's Raised Doughnuts)
Ingredients (for about12 doughnuts)

20 grams active dry yeast
240 ml whole milk, warm
320 to 400 grams bread flour
30 grams sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
60 grams unsalted butter

In a medium bowl, dissolve 15 grams of the yeast into 180 ml of the milk. Add 100 grams of the flour and stir to create a smooth paste. Cover and let rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

Combine the remaining milk and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the rested flour mixture along with the vanilla and egg yolks. Mix until smooth. Turn off the mixer and add 1 cup of the remaining flour and top with the sugar and salt. Mix  until the dough starts to come together. Add the butter and mix until it becomes incorporated. Add more flour, kneading the dough at medium speed between additions, until the dough pulls completely away from the sides of the bowl and is smooth and not too sticky. 

Cover the bowl with a clean teatowel and let it sit in a warm place for 30 minutes. Gently degass the dough, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (and up to 12 hours).

Line a baking traywith parchement paper or silicone mat. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 1 centimeter high. With a doughnut or cookie cutter, cut out rounds with a center hole. 

Place the doughnuts on the baking tray separated. Let sit in a warm spot about 30 to 40 minutes.
Heat the oven to 200º C, cook the doughnuts for about 20 minutes or until ligthly golden. 

Chocolate sweet bread

Who has never taken bread and chocolate for a snack? It was funny to me to discover what the French call pain au chocolat, which is not our bread and chocolate, but what we call chocolate Neapolitan or chocolate cane. I always loved the bread with chocolate. Not as much as one of my sisters, who for a while was unable to eat chocolate without bread, eating even bonbons with bread. Anyway, I admit that my addiction to bread and chocolate as a kid was the starting point of my current and confessed adult addiction to chocolate. So, walking around the idea of bread and chocolate, nothing easier than making a bread-bun- brioche, a bread dough enriched with eggs, with chocolate heart, and watch it grow in the oven, and then cut a slice and eventually found the chocolate in the inside, with a not too sweet, but fluffy and tender surrounding.
So this is the result of the last session of baking: a piece that replaces the industrial bakery and comfort you with your coffee providing a real pleasure. A simple pleasure, but really tasty.

Chocolate sweet bread

Ingredients (for a cake mold)

2 eggs, beaten
175 ml of milk
45 grams butter, softened
1 / 2 teaspoon salt
500 grams of bread flour
50 grams of white sugar
25 grams fresh yeast

For the filling
125 grams of black chocolate to melt, chopped

1 beaten egg to paint the bread.
Oil for greasing the pan.


Preparation

Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Place in the bread maker the milk with yeast, and the rest of the ingredients in the order they appear. Use the kneading program. Once finished, degas the dough on a floured surface and form a rectangle with her. Put the chocolate into pieces lengthwise, and roll the dough into a cylinder. Place the roll of dough into an oil greased cake pan, and let the dough ferment again until it stands out from the mold.
Preheat oven to 200  C. degrees, paint the surface with beaten egg and bake for 35-40 minutes. If the surface browns too much, cover with foil.

Forest berries creamy frozen yogurt

If there is anything at all in my memory that instantly pops up whenever I think of summer, it is ice cream. When I was a child ice cream was a summer-only sweet. The long, hot summer days in the beach used to be followed by a creamy, flavourful ice cream. Those were the best ice cream ever. No matter the flavour, or the ice creamer itself. Just on the sea side, with the urge of a frozen treat after all the sun and the sea of the day. 

Making ice cream at home can be really simple, can be absolutely simple, I'd say. You can use an ice cream machine if you have one, but you can really get back to that childhood memories in no time and without any special ingredients with recipes as simple as this. 

Enjoy!

Forest berries creamy frozen yogurt

Ingredients

150 grams of frozen berries

250 grams of creamy Greek natural yogurt

50 grams white, granulated sugar

Directions

Mix  in a food processor all the ingredients and beat well until you get a creamy and integrated mixture. Taste and adjust sugar to taste. Remember it should be slightly sweet, because by freezing it will become less sweet. Put into the freezer at least four hours, better 6 to 8, before serving.

Serve with a few mint or basil leaves, a bit of pink pepper and some freshly ground black pepper.

If you prefer, you can also take it as a milkshake, without freezing. The frozen fruit with yogurt will be a perfect smoothie anyway.