Easter Bunny Doughnuts - Apron & Whisk

Ingredients

FOR THE DOUGHNUTS:

400 g strong bread flour
170 ml milk lukewarm
45 g sugar
10 g active dry yeast
2 eggs
45 g cubed butter at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt

TO DECORATE:

Sugar
Smarties
40 g melted chocolate

Instructions

In a mixer bowl, activate the yeast by adding the yeast, milk and sugar. Let rest for 5 minutes until foamy.
To the yeast mixture, add the eggs, vanilla extract, flour and salt. With a hook attachment, knead the dough for about 3 minutes, until a soft dough starts taking shape.
Gently add the cubed butter one piece at a time until all the butter is incorporated. Let the dough knead fora bout 10 minutes. Make sure it passes the windowpane test. *
Place the dough in a bowl, cover and put it in a warm place until it doubles in size, for about 1 hour. Prepare a baking tray with small parchment paper squares. Set aside.
Once the dough is doubled in size, transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough until about 2cm thick. With a rabbit shaped cutter, cut out the doughnuts and place onto a prepared baking tray with parchment paper. Leave some space between each doughnut. Once ready, cover the baking tray and let them rest for 30 minutes.
Fill a large pot with vegetable oil. Pour enough oil so that the doughnuts have enough space to cook. Heat the oil to about 170°C/340°F.
Gently add the doughnuts to the hot oil and let them cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until both sides have a nice golden colour. Transfer the cooked doughnuts to a plate lined with paper towels so that it will dry out any excess oil. Fry in batches if necessary.
While still hot, transfer the doughnut to a plate prepared with sugar and cover the doughnut completely. Let the doughnuts cool completely.
Once cooled, decorate with melted chocolate and add a smarties candy as a nose. I like to pipe some chocolate on the back of the smarties so that it sticks.

Notes

*To carry out the windowpane test, take a small amount of dough and hold it with both hands (using the thumbs and first two fingers). Gently, spread open your hands so to stretch the dough. Keep stretching gently until the centre part of the dough is translucent. If the dough doesn’t break that means that the gluten has developed and you can prepare your dough for the rising part. However, if the dough breaks easily when you open your fingers, the gluten hasn’t yet fully developed so it needs more work. Therefore, transfer the dough ball back to the main dough and let it knead for more minutes. Try again until the dough passes the windowpane test.

Nutrition