Sweet Potato Doughnuts

I actually started my blog because of Pille who was intrigued by my potato doughnuts. Being one of my favourites food bloggers, I often visit her blog and post comments. My comment on her "Melt-in-your-mouth curd cheese doughnuts" post was the first step, after that came her comment in which she said she was intrigued and wondered if there was a recipe for the doughnuts on my blog. One that same post I first found out that it's "Time to make doughnuts", an event hosted by Tartelette and Peabody. Not having a blog at that time, I decided it's time to make one and tananana here it is :).

Can't argue with these guys...so if they say it's time to fry, let us fry!

Ingredients

• 300 g / 10.5 oz. unbleached plain / all-purpose flour
• 50 g / 1.75 oz. unsalted butter
• 100 ml / aprox. 1/3 cup lukewarm milk
• ½ tsp. salt
• 15-20 g / 0.5-0.7 oz. fresh yeast
• 1½ Tbsp. white sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 100 g / 3.5 oz. mashed sweet potatoes
• Sunflower oil – for frying
• Icing sugar - for sprinkling

Directions

Let’s start with a tip: take the ingredients out of the fridge a bit ahead of time so that they are not cold, but instead they’re temperature is getting closer to your kitchen temperature. This little tip is actually pretty important because when lukewarm all the ingredients do their job better. Butter for instance is easier to evenly incorporate.

In a large mixing bowl mix the fresh yeast with the sugar, using a wooden spoon. Stir until the yeast is liquified. Add egg, butter, salt, flour and mashed potatoes. Blend with the spoon just until the dough starts to form, then start using your hands.

Knead for about 6-7 minutes until you get a nice smooth dough. Add some extra flour if it’s so sticky that you cannot make a dough out of it. Cover the bowl with a dry kitchen towel and let it rise for 15 minutes in a draft-free warm place.

Transfer dough to a floured surface and roll out to 2 cm/0.8 inch thick. Cut into 8 cm/3 inch diameter circle shapes. Let the circles rest for about 15 minutes.

In a deep frying pan, heat 5 cm/2 inch deep oil. You know if the oil is hot enough when “throwing” a small quantity of the dough (the size of a nut :) ), the dough rises sizzling to the surface. Start frying the first set of circles (don’t overlap them). The first side down should be the one that was left in the air while the circles were resting. Cover the pan and let it fry over medium heat for about 1-1 ½ minutes. Uncover the pan, turn the circles on their other sides and let them fry uncovered for about the same amount of time. The frying time depends on a lot of factors like heat, what your pan is made of etc, that’s why you will probably need to adjust it accordingly. Just fry until golden-brown on both sides.

Remove from heat and drain on clean, dry kitchen towels.

The dough makes about 33 doughnuts (yes, I know, that’s a lot!).

Sprinkle with icing sugar before serving. Serve while still warm.

Hope you’ll enjoy these pretty soon!

I certainly crave them after writing this recipe…must check if there are some left :)