Recipe: Pink lady Apple Doughnuts with Apple Purée

Recipe courtesy of Cook Vegetarian.

Serves: 24
Cooking time: 60 mins+

Ingredients
• Three Pink Lady apples, quartered and cored
• Two tbsp caster sugar
• 75ml apple juice
• Sunflower oil, for deep frying
• Golden caster sugar for dusting
• Double cream, whipped with a little icing sugar to serve (optional)

For the dough
• 280g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
• ¼ tsp salt
• 7g sachet fast action dried yeast
• 20g caster sugar
• 20g soft butter
• One small free-range egg
• 60ml live yoghurt
• 125ml lukewarm water

You’ll also need
• Two baking trays dusted with flour and a 5.75cm round cutter

Method

1. First make the dough. Mix the flour, salt, yeast and sugar in a processor, add the soft butter, egg, yoghurt and water and pulse until smooth. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, if necessary adding a little more flour, then bring into a ball.
2. Clean out the bowl and oil it lightly. Put the dough in the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge overnight (the dough can be kept up to 48 hours in the fridge).
3. To make the apple purée and the filling, cut the apple quarters into 5mm slices across and place straight into the pan; add the sugar and apple juice. Cover and cook on a moderate heat for about seven minutes until just softening.
4. Drain over a bowl, keeping the juice, and roughly chop the apple and cool. Put 100g to one side and reserve for the filling, then put the rest in a food processor with the juice and blitz to a textured purée to create the apple purée.
5. Cut the dough into four pieces and work with a piece at a time, keeping the remainder covered as you go. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm or even thinner and stamp out seven circles from each piece.
6. Put a quarter of a teaspoon of cooked apple in the centre of each circle, dab a little water around the edges and pinch the edges together to seal well. Put onto the floured trays, cover with dry cloths and leave for 30 minutes to an hour, until the doughnuts have almost doubled in size.
7. In a deep-fat fryer or appropriate pan, heat the oil to 175C. Fry the doughnuts in small batches for about 3-5 minutes until golden, turning them carefully as they cook.
8. Toss the doughnuts in sugar while hot. Serve with the sweetened cream for dipping.