Pistachio doughnuts

These pistachio doughnuts are truly something special. The kind of sweet treat you occasionally dream about, and with Shrove Tuesday just around the corner, it seemed like the perfect excuse to make them. They sat alongside my traditional doughnuts made with lots of egg yolks and filled with rose petal jam and… they gave them some serious competition ;). Glazed, sprinkled with chopped pistachios and finished with dried rose petals. Pistachio cream is not the cheapest ingredient, but what wouldn’t you do to enjoy proper pistachio doughnuts at least once!

Makes 15 large doughnuts.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 550 g strong white bread flour
• 1 large egg
• 2 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 into a large bowl 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, trying 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 kneaded dough in a lightly floured bowl, cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in size, approximately 1½ hours.

Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly. Divide the dough into 15 pieces, approximately 78 g each, and shape each piece into a smooth ball. Place the doughnuts on a lightly floured tea towel or work surface. Cover and leave somewhere warm to rise again for approximately 25–40 minutes, depending on the room temperature. The doughnuts should be nicely puffed up but not over-proofed.

Once risen, deep-fry the doughnuts in oil heated to 175°C, for approximately 3 minutes on each side. The oil should not be too hot, otherwise the doughnuts will brown quickly on the outside while remaining raw in the middle. If the oil is too cool, the doughnuts will absorb too much fat. Transfer the fried doughnuts to kitchen paper to drain.

Ingredients for the pistachio filling:

• approximately 300 g pistachio cream (shop-bought, from a jar – choose one with a high pistachio content and a good-quality ingredient list)

Important: use pistachio cream, not 100% pistachio paste. Transfer the pistachio cream to a piping bag fitted with a doughnut-filling nozzle and pipe the cream into the doughnuts. If the pistachio cream is particularly thick and intensely flavoured, you can whip it together with mascarpone in a 1:1 ratio.

To decorate:

• icing – mix 1 cup icing sugar with 2–3 tbsp hot water, adding a little more sugar or water if needed to achieve the desired consistency
• chopped pistachios
• dried rose petals, optional

Glaze the filled doughnuts, then sprinkle with chopped pistachios and dried rose petals.

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!