Two words: Gorgeous donuts! These are the perfect soft and fluffy homemade yeast donuts ever! Coupled with nutella stuffing, these donuts were a bomb! A bomb I tell ya’. Pillowy soft, gorgeous, thin crispy shell outside, gorgeous, nutella filling, gorgeous, nutella glaze on top, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!
Donuts Day:
I call them Geode nutella stuffed donuts. Yesterday was our unofficial donuts day at home because our kitchen was full of all kinds of donuts. There were regular shaped, round shaped, parcel shaped, mini donuts and then lastly geode inspired nutella filled donuts, yum! We had donuts for breakfast, donuts for lunch and then for evening snack time too. The only reason we didn’t have donuts for dinner is because “ama” (me) won’t let them (kids) have it so we have some left for pictures also, which of course were to be taken next morning, during day time when the natural light casts its spell, and everything looks bright, clear and pretty.
What’s a geode:
For those of you who are not familiar with geodes, here’s the link to get to know them a wee bit better. And here’s how you pronounce geode. Cool aren’t they. Marvelous gems of nature, literary!
Geodes can form in any cavity, but the term is usually reserved for more or less rounded formations in igneous and sedimentary rocks. They can form in gas bubbles in igneous rocks, such as vesicles in basaltic lavas; or, as in the American Midwest, in rounded cavities in sedimentary formations.
Regular shaped donuts like these look great too but you know, we like to do a little extra 🙂 giggles* We made these for kids Eid Party at school. So my kids decided to switch regular sprinkles decorations with their own customized hand-made fondant decorations for the donuts, we covered these in chocolate glaze first then while they the glaze was still wet, attached the fondant decorations on top and then let it dry for about an hour. Once the glaze dries, it’s not sticky to touch.
Donut Holes:
I’m not making things up, that’s what they are really called, “donut holes”. The holes you get when you make the regular donut shape are called donut holes. You fry them just like you fry donuts, duh! And then you can either dip them in sugar syrup or coat them in icing sugar. We coated ours in icing sugar. Since we made mini donuts, their donut holes were super tiny, haha.
How it’s done:
And here’s the pictorial view of how these amazing geode nutella filled donuts were made from scratch. The process is a bit lengthy but once you get the hang of it, you can adjust your free time wisely. Like make the dough in morning and let t rise in a warm place, while lunch is being in the kitchen so it’s super hot, and you can carry on doing the daily chores, dropping/picking up kids from school, going to parlor maybe getting a massage, manicure, blow-dry whatever and when you come back after an hour or so, your dough will be all poofed up and read to go to stage 2. How cool is that 🙂 very cool is the answer.
Stuffing Nutella:
Here’s a quick video on how we make room and the stuff our donuts with nutella, jam, cream or just about any filling you like. You can use lollipop stick instead of a skewer stick too.
Key points to remember:
- Add yeast in lukewarm water. otherwise you’ll kill it with too hot water. FYI Yeast are single-celled microorganisms. 😉
- Proofing time for dough will be quicker in summers and slower in winters so wait till it doubles in size. So adjust accordingly while keeping an eye on the dough.
- Oil should be medium hot, not too cold or too hot.
- Bigger round cutter for filled donut, and a bigger round and one small round to cut out the center hole, if you don’t have donut cutter.
- Lukewarm water---------------------------- 6 tbsp see note.
- Instant Active Yeast------------------------ 1½ tsp
- All-purpose flour (maida)----------------- 454 g
- Salt--------------------------------------------- 1 tsp
- Melted Butter-------------------------------- 57 g I use Nurpur salted butter, see note
- Egg whisked--------------------------------- 1
- Buttermilk------------------------------------- ¾ cup (see note for buttermilk recipe)
- Caster sugar--------------------------------- 57 g or 2 oz
- Oil----------------------------------------------- For deep frying, medium hot oil. Very important.
- For decoration and Filling: (Optional)
- Nutella
- Gold Color
- Piping bag
- Sprinkles
- Sugar Frosting
- Colored sugar
- Fondant cutouts
- Nutella Glaze:
- Icing sugar------------------------------------- 1½ cup
- Cocoa powder-------------------------------- 3 tbsp
- Nutella ----------------------------------------- 2 tbsp
- Cold water------------------------------------- 2 tbsp or as needed
- Take lukewarm water in a small bowl and sprinkle yeast over it, no need to stir, just leave it like that till yeast becomes active or 5 to 8 min max.
- Take all-purpose flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl and stir everything together.
- Now make a well in the center of the flour mix, and drop in whisked egg, melted butter and buttermilk, mix everything together with your clean hands. Knead everything together and drop in the yeast mix we made in the beginning, add yeast water as well, and knead for 4 to 5 minutes.
- As you will knead, you will see and feel that the dough will start coming together and not sticking to the pan and your hands anymore, plus it looks smoother now.
- now cover it with cling wrap or a kitchen towel and leave it in a a warm place like kitchen, or if you are lucky enough to be in cooler places, the oven, or the microwave, near to stove, when you're cooking other stuff, and leave it till it doubles. See note.
- Stage 2: Once it doubles, don't punch or kick its air out, gently take it out of the whole dough blob out of the bowl and onto a clean, floured surface.
- Do not knead the dough now.
- Using your rolling pin and little maida or all-purpose flour just role the dough to half an inch thickness.
- Cut out any shape for donuts you like.
- Now once they are cut out, pop them over greased tray and let them double in size again, leave them for about 10-15 min.
- Once they have doubled called proofed, carefully lift them from the greased tray, not to kick out the air, and gently drop them into medium hot oil.
- Fry till golden and the turn to the other side.
- Donuts are ready.
- Cool them to room temperature.
- To make filled Donuts:
- Fill a piping bag with Nutella, jam or cream, anything you like and set aside.
- Now take the round shaped donuts and insert a skewer in them and move the skewer left and right as in video above to make space for the stuffing.
- Once it's done, stick piping bag into the same tiny hole and fill the donuts with your favorite filling.
- To make the chocolate Glaze:
- Take icing sugar, nutella and cocoa powder in a bowl.
- Add cold water 1 tsp at a time to make a medium consistency paste, not too runny or it will flow off donuts, not too thick, or else it'll be lumpy, thick and unpleasant to the eye.
- Stir for good 2 to 3 minutes for a smooth, shiny glaze.
- Dip donuts in glaze, sprinkle gold color, sprinkles, colored sugar on top and enjoy with friends and family.
- To make colorful/pink glaze:
- Omit cocoa powder, add add food coloring of your choice to the icing sugar mix as mentioned above and stir.
I melted butter in microwave in 10 sec sessions. Stir and then leave it for another 10 sec in microwave. If little unmelted chunks/lumps left, leave it outside for 2 to 3 minutes after microwaving, it'll melt on its own in hot buttery liquid.
Leave a recognizable mark around the side of the bowl or some indication on the bowl to show the height of your dough at this stage one, so when the dough doubles in size you know how big it had gone, ok?
Lukewarm water is 2 parts hot water, 1 part regular room temperature water.
Frying: Heat oil till a tiny bit of the dough starts sizzling as soon as you dip it into it. And then monitor and adjust if the donuts are getting too dark too quickly. Fry in medium hot flame.
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