Crème Brûlée Donuts

This recipe teaches us how to make crème brûlée donuts with a tanghulu-like crunchy caramelized topping and a creamy custard filling. No stand mixer is needed for making this soft and fluffy donut dough.

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% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

In a bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale. Add cornstarch and flour to the egg yolks, whisk until smooth.

Step 2

In a small saucepan, bring milk (or soymilk, cashew milk …) to a simmer over medium heat. Use a ladle to gradually drizzle the hot milk over the egg yolks. Keep whisking while adding the hot milk, otherwise the egg yolks might be cooked and get lumpy.

Step 3

Pour the egg milk mixture back to the saucepan, cook over medium heat, stir constantly with a spatula or whisk.

Step 4

Once the mixture turns thickened and start to bubble, cook for 1 more minute then turn off the heat. Add in butter, stir until well combined.

Step 5

Transfer the custard to a shallow container (so that it cools down faster). Cover the surface with food wrap directly touching the custard to prevent the formation of drying skin.

Step 6

Cool down the custard with an ice bath for about 10 minutes.

Step 7

Once completely cooled, add the custard to a piping bag tipped with a round tip. Keep the custard filling in the refrigerator until ready to use. (See Note 1)

Step 8

Add egg, milk, instant yeast, all purpose flour, granulated sugar, and salt to a large mixing bowl. Stir with a spatula until roughly combined. (The dough is very sticky now, so do not knead the dough with your hands yet.)

Step 9

Cover the bowl with food wrap, rest the dough for 15 minutes. (The dough will be less sticky after the resting.)

Step 10

Remove the food wrap, add the softened butter to the dough. Use your hands to knead the dough for about 3 minutes until the butter is fully absorbed. Then use the "slap & fold technique" (see note 2) to knead the dough for 5 more minutes until smooth.

Step 11

Place the dough in the mixing bowl, cover the bowl with food wrap, rise the dough in a warm place for 1½ hour, or until it's doubled in size. (Ideally use the proof/warm mode of your oven. It might take the dough 2 hours to rise under room temperature during winter time.)

Step 12

Transfer the dough to a nonstick pastry mat, punch out the air from the dough by making a fist with your hands and punching the dough to deflate it.

Step 13

Evenly divide the dough into 10 pieces (about 55g each). Knead each piece of the dough for 1 minute to remove air pockets, then roll into 10 balls.

Step 14

Cut a sheet of parchment paper into 10 pieces of 5''x5'' squares, arrange them on a baking pan. Place one dough ball on each piece of the parchment paper. Cover the baking pan with food wrap. Proof the dough balls in a warm place for 1 hour, or until they are doubled in size. (Ideally use the proof/warm mode of your oven. It might take the dough 2 hours to rise under room temperature during winter time.)

Step 15

Gently flatten each dough ball into 3'' diameter x 1'' thick oblate spheroid.

Step 16

Heat a pot of oil (about 2 inch depth of oil) to 330°F. Carefully place the dough with the parchment paper into the hot oil, hold one corner of the paper to lift it away. Deep fry one side of the donut for 2 minutes, flip and fry the other side for 2 minutes until golden. (Use medium low heat to keep the oil temperature stay between 320°F - 340 °F.)

Step 17

Remove the donuts with a pair of tongs, place the fried donuts on a cooling rack (put a large baking pan underneath) to drain oil.

Step 18

Add sugar and water to a small saucepan, boil over medium heat until the syrup's temperature reaches 300 °F (see note 3). (It takes about 30 minutes for the syrup to reaches the desired status. So you can actually start to boil the syrup before you pipe the filling.)

Step 19

Insert a chopstick into the donut until it almost reaches the opposite side, swing it left and right to create some space inside of the donut for the filling. Insert the tip of the piping bag into the donut, squeeze about 30g custard filling into each donut.

Step 20

Once the syrup has reached 300 °F, remove it from the heat. Carefully dip one side of each donut into the hot syrup (IT'S VERY HOT), allow any excess sugar to drip back in the saucepan (otherwise the brûlée topping will be too thick), then place the donut on a cooling rack with the brûlée side facing up.

Step 21

Enjoy after the brûlée topping is hardened. (A successful brûlée topping should harden almost immediately. If the topping is still sticky after 1 minute of resting, you should boil the syrup again to make sure that it reaches 300 °F.)

Step 22

If you don't fill the donuts with the custard filling, you can leave the brûlée donuts in an airtight container under room temperature for 2 days or in the fridge for 1 week. While donuts filled with custard need to be stored in an airtight container in the fridge, they can last for 2-3 days.

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