Chocolate Ring Donuts (Ginger Glazed/Hazelnut)

We will be making two flavours of donuts from the same dough in this recipe. We will be making:

Ginger Glazed Chocolate Donuts

and

Chocolate and Hazelnut Donuts

You will need:-

230g of Plain Flour

25g of Cocoa Powder

120g of Caster Sugar

1 tbsp of Baking Powder

2tsp of Butter (Melted)

100ml of Milk

1 egg

Icing sugar

20g of Milk Chocolate

A Handful of Hazelnuts

Crystallised ginger in syrup

Flavourless oil (e.g sunflower oil)

Sift together the 25g of cocoa, 230g of flour, 120g of sugar, 1 tbsp baking powder into a large bowl. In a separate small bowl, melt a wedge of butter, then add two teaspoons of melted butter to the dry ingredients. In a jug, whisk together 1 egg and 100ml of milk, slowly add this to the mixture while stirring, until it forms a thick paste. Turn this out onto a well floured surface and knead this into a smooth dough.

Use the palm of your hand to flatten the dough to about half a cm thick. Use a large cutter to cut large circles out of the dough, then use a small circular cutter (or a bottle lid) to cut out the center of the donut (don't throw the centers away, as these can be fried too). Place these on a well floured surface. After cutting out as many donuts as possible, use the left over dough, use the lids to make more donut centers.

In a large sauce pan, pour in the oil, about 2-3cms off the bottom of the pan. Heat this until the oil is hot (be very careful during this stage), to see if the oil is hot enough, place the handle of a wooden spoon in the oil- tiny bubbles should form around it. At this stage, use a spatula to lower the donuts into the pan. Cook them for about 30secs on each side, using the spatula to turn them. Place the cooked donuts onto layers of kitchen towel to drain the oil. Depending on the size of the pan, you can cook a couple donuts at once or one at a time with the centers. The centers will take less time to cook.

Once cooled a little, make up the toppings. To make the ginger glaze for the ginger and chocolate donuts, mix together about 4tsp of the syrup (from a jar of stem ginger in syrup) with 3tsp of icing sugar until smooth. Then use a spoon to spread this over half of the donuts. If the donuts are a little warm, it will make it easier to spread. You can roll some of the donut centers in the glaze if you like.

Chocolate and Ginger Glaze Donuts

Next, for the hazelnut donuts. Roughly chop a handful of hazelnut. Melt 20g of milk chocolate over hot water, then mix in half a teaspoon of milk and 3tsp of icing sugar until smooth. Then, use the back of a spoon to spread the chocolate mixture over the donuts, sprinkling the chopped hazelnuts over the top. Let the icing set before eating.

Chocolate Hazelnut Donuts

 Tip: You could alternatively dip the edges of the donuts in the chocolate icing, then roll this in the chopped hazelnuts (shown above).

Enjoy! x