Easy Homemade Donuts Anyone Can Make

With so many people staying home during COVID-19, MK Unigroup would like to suggest making donuts yourself in your spare time. It's a great way to build your baking skills, and it's easy. Let's look at the steps.

Getting to Know Donuts

Donuts (or doughnuts) are one of the foreign bakery treats Thais love. They have a cake-like texture and can be fried or baked, depending on the recipe. They're usually ring-shaped with a hole in the centre, but there are also versions without a hole, in shapes that vary with the baker: round, oval or other forms, and they can be filled. The key ingredients are wheat flour, eggs, sugar, butter or vegetable fat, and other ingredients that add aroma and flavour.

Two Types of Donut

1. Yeast donuts use yeast as the main raising agent, so they have a bread-like texture: chewy and soft with a stretchy crumb. They're made with high-protein wheat flour, such as bread flour or all-purpose flour. They can be made with or without a hole and filled with savoury or sweet fillings as you like.
2. Cake donuts use baking powder as the main raising agent, so they have a finer, denser texture than yeast donuts. The batter is fairly runny rather than a dough, so a dropper is usually used to drop it into hot oil. Without a dropper, you can shape it into balls with a spoon and fry.

Donut Dough Ingredients (about 9 large donuts)

• 60 g sugar
• 8 g yeast
• 50 ml water
• 70 ml boxed fresh milk
• 2 g fine salt
• 1 egg (50–55 g)
• 250 g all-purpose flour
• 15 g unsalted butter
• Soybean shortening for frying

Icing Ingredients

• 2 tbsp boxed fresh milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 160 g icing sugar
• 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

How to Make the Donuts

1. Knead the sugar, water, yeast, milk, egg, all-purpose flour, salt and unsalted butter together by hand for about 40 minutes, then rest for about 30 minutes. The dough will rise noticeably.
2. Knead the dough again to knock out the air, then rest for another 30 minutes. Once it has roughly doubled in size, it's ready.
3. Roll the dough to about 1 cm thick, cut it with a cutter, then rest until the donuts rise.
4. Heat the soybean shortening in a pan or pot over medium heat. Fry until both sides puff up and stay pale first, then let each side turn golden one at a time.
5. When golden, lift them out, drain the oil, and dip them in the icing in the next step.

How to Make the Icing

1. Put the milk and butter in a pot over low heat and stir until melted.
2. When the milk starts to boil, add the vanilla and turn off the heat.
3. Sift the icing sugar, add it and stir until smooth, then add the cocoa powder. Turn the heat back on low and keep stirring until hot, then dip the donuts. Keep the icing hot the whole time you're dipping, because it cools very quickly.
4. Once dipped, leave the donuts to dry and they're ready to serve.

Give it a try while staying home or social distancing during COVID-19. These donuts are easy and delicious. Follow MK Unigroup for more news and baking tips, and like and share to spread the knowledge.