Pastry Pockets with Nutella Filling

It feels like a long time since I last posted here.... Been pretty busy this past month... spent the first part of the holidays decluttering the house, which has not been an easy task especially since we have lived in this house for 20 years now.... We also spent a week in UAE for a family getaway.... that, was truly awesome since we had not gone for a holiday outside SE Asia for the longest time! It was also an eye-opening experience for the family as this is our first (except for my husband) visit to the Middle East. Now we are back to continue with the decluttering  before the school term starts in two week's time. Oh no!!

So today's recipe is inspired after I tasted some addictive pastry pockets from Tim Hortons when we were in Dubai. They are basically doughnuts, cut in rectangles & filled with Nutella... but they taste so good, especially when I had them with the hot cardamon chai. Just talking about it makes me want to have it right now! Haha.. 

If you had made doughnuts before, this would not be too difficult... the only messy part was when I tried to pipe the filling..... but believe me, the mess is all worth it! For the dough, I used the potato doughnut recipe which I shared before as I just love its soft & fluffy texture. Do try making these gems.... I know it's not something out of the ordinary but anybody who tries them would definitely have only good things to say.... just don't let them talk about the calories. :D

I went overboard with the filling for this piece... hehe..

Pastry Pockets with Nutella Filling

Ingredients:
250g high protein flour (bread flour)
25g milk powder
5g instant yeast (1 tsp)
50g sugar
100g potato
50 ml cold water (I added 3 tsp more water. See note no. 1)
2 egg yolk
40g butter
1/4 tsp salt

vegetable oil for deep frying
Nutella spread (for filling)
icing sugar for coating the pockets

Method:

1. Steam, microwave or roast the potato. Leave to cool slightly. Remove the skin and blend with the cold water until it becomes a smooth puree. Leave to cool. (I peeled & cut the potato into big pieces & roasted them until cooked & soft. I roasted them because I was also roasting some potatoes for my roasted-potato bread.)
2. Combine flour, milk powder, yeast and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the blended potato and egg yolk and mix using the dough hook for about 2 minutes. 
3. Add in butter and continue mixing for about 2 minutes. Finally, add in salt and mix for another 3 minutes until the dough is smooth & elastic.
4. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape it into a ball and place it in a clean & greased bowl. Cover the dough with a cloth & leave it to prove for about 45 minutes.
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead for 4 minutes or until the bubbles are out of the bread. Leave to rest for 10 minutes.
6. Roll out the dough evenly into about 1 cm thickness. Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut the dough into rectangle or diamond-shaped pieces. Place the cut pieces onto a floured tray. Cover with tea towel & leave to proof for about 35 minutes.
7. Deep fry in medium hot oil till golden brown.
8. Fill up a piping bag with Nutella spread. Using a small plain nozzle, make a hole on one side of the fried pastry & pipe the filling. Finally coat  with fine sugar.

Notes & modifications:

1. The mixture will look very dry at first, just carry on mixing until a soft dough is formed. If the mixture is still dry, add some more water, one teaspoon at a time until it forms a smooth & soft dough. I think the amount of water needed will depend on the type of potato used. Previously when using this recipe, I did not have to add more water but this time, I added 3 teaspoons.
2. I started mixing the dough late at night. So after step 3, I placed the dough in an air-tight bowl & left it in the fridge. The next morning, I took the bowl out of the fridge & left it in room temperature for about 30 minutes. Then I continued with step 5.
3. The above recipe is half the original recipe & it yields quite a lot of pastry pockets. So for small serving, you may want to start with half the above recipe. But I must warn you, these pockets are quite addictive! 

Salted Caramel Apple Doughnuts

I made these doughnuts this morning just because I wanted to make something using apples as I was hoping to submit at least an entry for the Little Thumbs Up event for this month. Actually I was planning to make something more elaborate for the event but I got a little distracted (an understatement!). I had all the ingredients for these easy-to-make & delightful doughnut balls. While waiting for the dough to rise, I kept myself busy on my desktop & finally managed to complete the laksa post. Anyway, if you happen to have all the ingredients, try making these. They are really good!

Salted Caramel Apple Doughnuts

Ingredients:

75 ml milk
25g butter, cut into small pieces
200g plain flour (I used bread flour.)
4g sachet fast-action dried yeast
25g caster sugar, plus 50g extra for dusting
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, plus 1 tsp (or more) for dusting
1 small egg, beaten
1/2 apple, grated (I used Granny Smith.)
vegetable or sunflower oil for frying, plus extra for greasing
about 200ml salted caramel sauce

Method:

1. Warm the milk in a saucepan. Add the butter and set aside until the milk has cooled to hand temperature and the butter has melted. Put the flour in a large bowl with the yeast, sugar, cinnamon and 1⁄2 tsp salt, mix well. Make a well in the centre and pour in the warm milk mixture, egg and apple. Combine with a wooden spoon, then tip out onto a work surface and knead for a few mins to combine. Pop into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and leave somewhere warm to rise until doubled in size – about 2 hrs.
2. Lightly grease 1 large baking tray. 
3. Uncover the dough and knock out all the air. Remove a lump of dough, roughly the size of a walnut, and roll into a smooth ball. Put on a tray and squash gently with your palm. Repeat with the remaining dough. Cover the tray with a sheet of oiled cling film and leave to prove until doubled in size again – about 30 mins.
4. Line a large plate or baking tray with kitchen paper, and mix the remaining sugar and cinnamon on another. Pour enough oil to come halfway up the sides of a large saucepan. If you have a thermometer the temperature should reach 180C. If you don’t have one, drop in a small chunk of bread. The oil is ready when it browns in about 30 secs. Drop in 3-4 doughnuts at a time (depending on the size of your pan) and cook for 4-5 mins until each one is deep golden brown and puffed up. Drain on the kitchen paper, then quickly toss in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Repeat with the remaining doughnuts.
5. To fill the doughnuts, use a skewer or cocktail stick to make a hole in each one. Wiggle it around in the middle to create a cavity. Transfer the caramel to a piping bag fitted with small nozzle, insert the nozzle into the doughnut and squeeze as you pull it out, filling generously. Continue with the remaining doughnuts. Serve with extra caramel for dunking.

Adapted recipe from BBC Good Food.

Notes & modifications:

1. I made only half the original recipe. It made 14 fist-size doughnuts after dividing the dough into 30g-balls. I intended to make bite-sized doughnuts but they turned out rather big. Next time, I'd form into 15g balls.
2. I mixed my dough using my cake mixer using the dough hook until the dough developed a membrane. 
3. For step 2, I lined the tray with silicone paper & dusted some flour on it.
4. Instead of filling the fried doughnuts with store-bought caramel-in-a-can, I filled mine with my homemade salted caramel sauce.

I'm submitting this post to the Little Thumbs Up (Oct: Apple) event organized by Bake For Happy Kids with My Little Favourite DIY & hosted by I-Lost in Austen.

Sweet Potato Doughnuts

My Indonesian maid returned to her hometown for good on Wednesday after working with us for two years. She's happy to go home after settling her debts..... She also managed to bring home some cash. Hope it'll come handy for her wedding & family expenses. Just hope no other individuals have other plans with the cash... Wish her good luck!

Anyway, she used to work in a doughnut shop back in Indonesia, mixing & shaping hundreds of doughnuts manually everyday! So you can imagine how delighted she was to share with me her  doughnut-shaping skill. These sweet potato doughnuts were her last contribution. I mixed the dough & she shaped & fried the doughnnuts.

The recipe is actually based on the Potato Doughnut I made before. I love the  super soft potato doughnuts  &  wondered what it would be like if I had used sweet potato instead. So I decided to experiment on Sunday. The doughnuts were delicious! And not only were they super soft, they were also so flavourful. I coated more than half of them with cinnamon sugar & top the rest with strawberry ganache, although mine was quite runny. 

If you would like to try this recipe, please take note of some adjustments that I made. The cooked Japanese sweet potato turned out to be less moist than cooked potatoes. So I had to add more liquid in order to produce a soft dough. The liquid required may vary with different types of sweet potatoes, so please adjust the liquid accordingly. Besides that, instead of using water & milk powder, I used fresh milk. 

Sweet Potato Doughnuts
Adapted from the Potato Doughnut recipe.

Ingredients:
500g high protein flour
11g (1 sachet) instant yeast
100g sugar
200g sweet potato - cooked & mashed (I used Japanese sweet potato.)
150-200ml fresh milk
4 egg yolk
75g butter
1/2 tsp salt



Method:

1. Combine flour, yeast and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add mashed sweet potato, 150ml milk and egg yolk and mix using dough hook for about 2 minutes.
2. Add in butter and continue mixing for about 2 minutes. If necessary, add in remaining milk, bit by bit, Finally, add in salt and mix for another 3 minutes until dough is smooth & elastic. (The dough should be soft but not sticky.) 
3. Remove dough from bowl and shape it into a ball and place it in a clean bowl. Leave it to prove for about 45 minutes.
4. Divide the dough into small portions of about 30g each and mould them into smooth balls. Leave them to rest for 10 minutes. Then shape them into ring doughnuts.
5. Leave to prove for 35 minutes.
6. Deep fry in medium hot oil till goden brown.
7. Coat doughnuts with fine sugar or top with ganache.

Super Soft Potato Doughnuts...........

          Finally,  I  found a doughnut recipe that's supersoft and best of all, the doughnuts stayed soft even after 24 hours!!!! My kids and I could'nt stop eating them! I've made them twice within a week...hehe...

          I saw this recipe at  Yatie's blog, Sinar Kehidupanku. Apparently, many bloggers have tried this recipe which was originally posted by an Indonesian lady, Madam Fatmah Bahalwan, in her website NCC Indonesia. Thank you Madam Fatmah for sharing this recipe. The pictures you see here are the ones I made today. I mixed the dough about 7 in the morning and left it (in a bowl, covered) in the fridge to prove and left the house to run some errands. When I returned in the afternoon, I took the dough out and left it in room temperature for about 30 minutes. Then I continued with dividing, shaping and frying the doughnuts. So if you or your family love doughnuts, you must try this recipe.

Ingredients:

500g...................... ...high protein flour

50g............................milk powder

11g (1 sachet)........ ...instant yeast

100g .........................sugar

200g .........................potato

100ml .......................cold water

4 ...............................egg yolk

75g ...........................butter

1/2 tsp ......................salt

Method:

1. Steam or microwave the potato. Leave to cool slightly. Remove the skin and blend with the cold water until it becomes a smooth puree. Then I left it in the fridge to cool.
2. Combine flour, milk powder, yeast and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the blended potato and egg yolk and mix using  the dough hook for about 2 minutes. ( The mixture looked very dry at first, so don't add anymore water!)
3. Add in butter and continue mixing for about 2 minutes. Finally, add in salt and mix for another 3 minutes until the dough is smooth.
4. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape it into a ball and place it in a clean bowl. Leave it to prove for about 45 minutes.
5. Divide the dough into small portions of about 40g each and mould them into smooth balls. Leave them to rest for 10 minutes. Then shape them into ring doughnuts.
6. Leave to prove for 35 minutes.
7. Deep fry in medium hot oil till goden brown.
8. Coat the doughnuts with fine sugar. (I coated mine with cinnamon sugar and chocolate ganache with colourful sprinkle.)