Vanilla Custard Doughnuts; fluffy golden doughnuts generously filled with vanilla creme patissiere and dusted with sweet spiced sugar.
Are you a picky eater?
Do you have strict preferences? Or maybe a long list of food you wouldn’t touch, even in your worst nightmares?
Despite a past of pickiness and problems, my early 20s have seen me evolve into an eater of just about everything.
While I have my favourite foods (such as chocolate and obnoxiously strong cheese), I will happily devour or at least taste any comestibles that come my way. There is typically only one foodstuff I am particularly high-maintenance in my choices with. Doughnuts.
Ever since tasting my first ever filled treat from Glasgow’s Tantrum Doughnuts, I have never been the same. Notable mentions for London’s famous Crosstown Doughnuts and Bread Ahead Bakery too.
Now I am a strident activist for the fluffiest, lightest, most golden brioche doughnuts possible. Those that come with fillings and flavours crafted just for them, rather than a last resort or something picked from a supermarket shelf. Gregg’s and the like just can’t hit that spot for a doughnut fix anymore.
In this insatiable quest for only the best doughnuts, my lovely Polish subscribers on YouTube urged me to try Paczki. Deliciously fluffy glazed Polish doughnuts filled with fruit preserves, typically eaten before lent. This first foray into homemade doughnuts was life-changing.
Since then, while I’ve been crazy busy with work, homemade doughnuts are always on the brain. On that note, please accept this gracious gift of a recipe for Vanilla Custard Doughnuts.
Bite through the gentle dusting of spiced cinnamon and ginger sugar to a golden crust, giving way to a delightfully fluffy white interior. Feel the sweet kiss of that smooth creme patissiere laced with vanilla. It will be a heavenly bite into a doughnut that will up your standards forever.
But but but – what is creme patissiere? It’s a deliciously THICK French-style custard that is just perfect in these doughnuts. No runny canary yellow nonsense like you get in store-bought custard doughnuts here in the UK, squirting their dairy everywhere. This stuff is the real effing deal.
Obviously doughnuts do require a higher level of safety precaution than regular baking, especially if you have a gas hob. You’ll need to deep fry the lumps of dough, meaning you’ll need to be careful around the boiling oil. However, as long as you are gentle enough to ensure no splashing, and you don’t leave the room while it is hot, you’ll be perfectly fine! It’ll all be worth it for these Vanilla Custard Doughnuts.
You don’t need a deep fat fryer by any means. I cook all my doughnuts in large cast iron pots or in regular deep saucepans, and they turn out just right. You may find your first lump of dough may not cook properly – much like making pancakes, the first doughnut is a tester of the pan’s heat! Just be a bit patient and bit more careful, and you’ll have a banging batch of ‘nuts.
I really hope you love these Vanilla Custard Doughnuts as much as we have. Stay safe, and thanks as always for stopping by.
Want to save these Vanilla Custard Doughnuts for later? Pin the image below!
To make these Vanilla Custard Doughnuts, simply follow the recipe below!
Vanilla Custard Doughnuts
Notes
BE A MAVERICK: instead of spiced sugar, why not spoon these Vanilla Custard Doughnuts with a lovely melted chocolate topping instead?
These Vanilla Custard Doughnuts are best eaten on the day they are made, but will keep in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Ingredients
For the vanilla creme patissiere:
- 550ml (2 ⅓ cups) whole milk
- 4 large egg yolks
- 45g (⅓ cup) cornflour
- 150g (¾ cup) caster or icing sugar
- Seeds from 1 vanilla pod, or 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
For the doughnuts:
- 500g (2 ¾ cups) strong white bread flour
- 75g (⅓ cup) caster sugar, plus extra for dusting later
- 10g (2 tsp) salt
- 7g (1 ½ tsp) fast-action dried yeast
- 50g (3 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
- 2 large eggs
- 380ml (1 ½ cup) whole milk
- Vegetable oil for frying
To coat and fill:
- 200g (1 cup) caster sugar
- Pinches of ground cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and/or nutmeg
- 1 batch vanilla creme patissiere (recipe above)
Instructions
For the vanilla creme patissiere:
- Pour your milk into a medium saucepan and place it over a medium heat until gently steaming and hot to the touch.
- In a large bowl, whisk together your egg yolks, sugar, cornflour, vanilla and salt until you have a smooth orange-yellow paste.
- Slowly pour the full pan of hot milk into the bowl of paste, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from scrambling.
- Pour the mixture back into the pan and place back over a medium heat.
- Cook the mixture for 4-8 minutes, whisking constantly to ensure it stays smooth and silky.
- Once the mixture has thickened greatly into a smooth custard, remove it from the heat.
- Pour the hot custard into a clean bowl or jug and place a layer of clingfilm directly onto its surface. This prevents it from forming a skin.
- Allow it to cool to room temperature before chilling in the fridge until completely cold.
For the doughnuts:
- In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt and yeast.
- In a separate bowl or jug, whisk together the melted butter, the eggs and the milk until smooth.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix until you have a sticky dough.
- Tip your dough out onto a work surface rubbed with a little oil and knead it thoroughly for 10-12 minutes. By this time the dough should be smooth and stretchy. (You can also do this with a freestanding mixer if you have one!)
- Place the dough into a clean, oiled bowl and leave to rest for 60-90 minutes. Resting will let the yeast feed on the sugars in the dough, releasing gas and causing the dough to fill with air and expand.
- Once doubled in size, tip the dough back out onto your oiled work surface and roll it into a long sausage shape.
- Slice the dough sausage into 12 roughly even chunks.
- Roll your chunks of dough into little balls.
- Rest the 12 dough balls on an oiled tray or surface for a further hour. This will allow them to double in size again and be fluffy once cooked!
- Preheat a deep, wide pan filled with oil to 160 C. A sugar or probe thermometer will be a big help here!
- Once the oil reaches temperature, gently lower 2 dough balls into the hot oil using a slotted spoon or fish slice.
- Cook the dough balls for 2-4 minutes on each side until golden brown all over with a pale stripe around the middle. (Turning the heat under the pan down at this point will help stop the temperature from rising too much during cooking. Do check the temperature regularly with your thermometer!)
- Once cooked, gently remove the dough balls from the oil with your spoon/fish slice and rest them on paper towels to absorb any excess oil as they cool.
- Repeat the frying process until your have 12(ish) lovely golden brown doughnuts.
To coat and fill:
- In a medium bowl, stir together the caster sugar with your spices.
- When the doughnuts are cooked, roll the still-warm doughnuts in the spiced sugar until coated.
- Once the doughnuts are coated and cooled completely, it’s time to fill!
- Use a table knife to pierce a hole in the side of each doughnut, wiggling it around a little to create a nice nest for the filling.
- Fill a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle (or sandwich bag with a corner snipped off) with your cold creme patissiere.
- Gently pipe each doughnut full of the creme patissiere. You may not use it all, but there’s nothing wrong with leftovers!
- Enjoy!
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Step 1.
1 cup of milk = 236ml
1 1/4 cup of milk = 295ml.
Your recipe says “550ml (1/4 cups) whole milk”
Which is it? Is it 550ml which is 2 1/3 milk or 295ml for 1 1/4 cup milk…
Thanks again for pointing this out, it’s now been updated and rectified!