Bakes Box: Whipped Chocolate Ganache Doughnuts

For my birthday, one of my best friends bought me a three month subscription to Bakes Box, which is very exciting.

Basically, a box turns up every month with a load of ingredients and a recipe in it, and you make what’s inside. It’s definitely more fun than bills and pizza menus, which is usually the kind of post I  get.

My very first Bakes Box had things in it for me to make doughnuts filled with chocolate ganache.

I’m not going to lie, I had been putting this one off as I’ve never made doughnuts and I just had visions of it being really fiddly. Plus, I’m not that good at dough to be honest – I’m much better at cakes.

So, I saved it until I went home and made them with my mum there for moral support.

Actually making and kneading the dough was a lot more straightforward than I had anticipated. Shaping the doughnuts was slightly more tricky as the dough was so sticky. They looked great sitting on the tray when I left them to rise a second time, but lost their shape a bit when I picked them up to put them in the fryer.

Once the oil was up to the right temperature I fried the first doughnut, which was basically made up from scraps of dough so I could check whether it was cooked through. The oil got very hot very quickly so I had to turn it right down as I fried the rest, using my digital kitchen thermometer to make sure the oil was at roughly the right temperature.

So, aside from the first few crisp ones, it went very well. The recipe said I needed to cook them for three to four minutes before flipping them over, but mine definitely didn’t need that long (which may have been because the oil got too hot too quickly).

Making the ganache went well. It didn’t really thicken until I’d put it in the fridge for a bit, but after that we were all on track. I think my Dad (a doughnut connoisseur) was disappointed that they weren’t filled with jam; in fact while I was writing this post we had a discussion about why raspberry jam in a doughnut is second best to strawberry jam.

For my first time cooking doughnuts, it went very well. I thought they looked and tasted great, and I was really pleased with my efforts.

No raw dough, nice ganache and not as fiddly as I thought. I’m definitely keeping the recipe for this one.