Heart-shaped doughnuts

Valentine’s Day and Fat Thursday are so close together in the calendar that you can celebrate Valentine’s Day with sweet, heart-shaped doughnuts. Your favourite yeast dough, delicious raspberry jam and a simple icing topped with crunchy freeze-dried raspberries. Too much pink? Once a year, we’re allowed ;).

Ingredients for 15 doughnuts (large).

Ingredients for the yeast dough:

• 550 g strong white bread flour
• 1 large egg
• 4 large egg yolks
• 100 g butter, melted
• 70 g caster sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tbsp dark rum
• 250 ml lukewarm milk
• 20 g fresh yeast or 10 g dried yeast

Sift the flour and mix with the dried yeast (if using fresh yeast, first prepare a yeast starter). Add the remaining ingredients and knead, adding the melted butter towards the end. Knead for several minutes, until the dough is smooth and soft. Try not to add extra flour, even though the dough will be slightly sticky; I recommend using a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or a bread machine. Place the dough in a lightly floured bowl, cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in volume (about 1½ hours).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly. Roll it out to approximately 1 cm thick. Using a large heart-shaped cutter, cut out the doughnuts. Place the doughnuts on a lightly floured surface, cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 25–40 minutes depending on the room temperature. They should be nicely puffed up, but not over-proofed.

Once risen, fry the doughnuts in oil heated to 175°C, for about 3 minutes on each side. The oil should not be too hot, otherwise the doughnuts will brown quickly on the outside while remaining raw inside. If the oil is not hot enough, they will absorb too much fat. Transfer the fried doughnuts to a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain.

Additionally:

• icing – mix 1 cup icing sugar with 2–3 tbsp hot water, adding more sugar or water as needed to achieve the desired consistency
• crushed freeze-dried raspberries, for sprinkling (optional)

Fill the doughnuts with raspberry jam using a piping bag fitted with a doughnut-filling nozzle. Ice the filled doughnuts and sprinkle with freeze-dried raspberries.

Method for bread machine users:

Place all the yeast dough ingredients into the bread machine in the following order: liquid ingredients first, then dry ingredients, and finally the yeast. Select the ‘dough’ programme (kneading and first rise). Once the programme has finished, remove the dough, knead it lightly, and continue according to the main recipe above.

Enjoy!