Every nation has its version of donut, so who invented the donut is anyone's guess. One thing is for sure, there are more doughnut shops per capita in Canada than anywhere else on the planet. Canada eats more donuts than any other country. There are all sorts of meeting places, but none as popular
as the donut shop. All the old guys go there for their coffee meetings,
in the afternoon the cops come in for coffee and donut. Kids, well kids will always be happy with a donut. Americans
took over Tim Horton’s, but unless donut is taken off the menu, Tim’s will
remain a Canadian icon. Our grandchildren's first stop is
always a Tim Horton’s when they come up from California
Fried foods have a bad reputation, but a lot of it is just
hoo-ha. A “healthy” bagel or a miserable bran muffin has more calories than a fried donut. The only advantage I see is you won't be having seconds. Food should be a sensual experience. Here have a donut!
The single most important part in making donuts: be it fried
or baked, is to make the dough truly elastic. Punch it, beat it, or kneed it,
the dough must be elastic!
BAKED JAM DONUTS
3 cups flour
1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp sugar
2 pkg. instant yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm milk,
2 eggs
thick apricot jam
1 Tbsp melted butter
icing sugar
- Rub the butter into the flour by hand or pulse it in the food processor.
- Add sugar, instant yeast, lukewarm milk and the eggs and combine to form dough.
- Kneed, using the dough hook of a standing beater, for at least 10 minutes. Dough must become very elastic.
- Alternatively kneed the dough by hand for 10 minutes and then beat it down on the counter 100 times until very elastic.
- Place in a greased bowl, turn over and let it rise in a warm place until double.
- Punch down and divide the dough. Avoid too much rolling.
- Roll each part into a log and cut into slices.
- Turn the slices on their sides and flatten them out.
- Place a tsp of thick jam in the middle.
- Pull the sides up and pinch the ends together to form a ball with the jam inside.
- Arrange the balls, with the pinched side down, in the prepared pan, leaving space between for rising.
- Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.
- Place the pan in a cold oven and turn the oven to 375F.
- Set the timer for 20 minutes. [I have an electric stove]
- When timer goes off remove pan from the oven and quickly brush with the melted butter. This is important. The butter layer will keep the icing sugar from melting into the hot bun.
- Sprinkle the top with icing sugar.
- Recipe make 16 donuts, but easy to make half a recipe.
YUM
From the Canadian Air Farce here is a clip, the Donut Police
