The Wifey's Corner

I made this bread from the remaining of the eggless donuts dough that I tried and yet failed again. Instead of throwing them away, I hoped that it would be nicer to be baked as bread. And exactly true, the dough makes a good bread even though it does not contain any eggs. The water roux has acted as natural bread improver that creates soft texture bread.

So here we go, full recipe as seen on this post:

Divide the dough into two equal portions.

Add 1 tablespoon of sifted cocoa powder to one half and knead to mix well.

Flatten the white dough portion to a somewhat rectangular shape, try to match the length of your baking pan. Smother generously with chocolate spread (can be substituted with peanut butter or even water, lightly brushed) on the surface of the flatten white dough leaving about 1 cm of each sides. I made mistake by spreading it all the way through and made a massive chocolate mess when rolled the bread later.

Flatten the chocolate dough to about the same size as the white dough and lay on top of the chocolate spread.

Roll up the bread dough into an oblong shape, secure both ends.

Flatten the bread roll a little bit and cut into three portions, but not all the way through, leave about 2 cm of one end uncut. Braid the dough and place in a baking pan.

Let it rest for 15 minutes and bake on preheated oven at 180C until it is thoroughly cooked. (Mine took about 20 minutes)

Brush the bread with butter while it is still hot to have that glossy look 🙂

Up till today I have tried making donuts about four or five times and from all those experiments, it was only once that I am quite happy with, which was the no knead donuts. All the other experiments have pretty much failed, too hard, not cooked through with burnt skin, the donuts cracked when fried hence soggy with oil, and all other failures you can associate with donuts making. I have tried the basic donuts recipe to ones with mashed potatoes, which supposedly creates donuts with softer texture that lasts to the next day; none of them really worked for me for some reasons. The fact that I have tried many times and almost every time was a failure was really discouraging to even re-attempting again, but at the same time it intrigues my inner curiosity 😛 So here we go, another attempt on donut making.

I was just browsing through my Facebook updates and noticed a friend who shared a post on eggless donut recipe. The pictures of that soft pillowy looking donuts then prompted me to click on the post and there it was a not so detailed recipe. Since it has startled my curiosity, there was just no way I would stop there. Upon googling the recipe, I found this post that was very helpful and decided to give it a try, hoping that my donuts curse will be lifted 😀

Here are the ingredients:

• Water roux: 25 grams bread flour + 125 ml water
• 200 grams bread flour
• 50 grams all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of milk powder
• 1 tablespoon of instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 50 ml lukewarm water
• 50 grams of butter
• 3 – 5 tablespoons of lukewarm water (only if the dough was too dry)

Cook the water roux until it became sticky paste, cover with cling wrap directly on the surface of the water roux. Set aside to room temperature.

On a glass, mix the 50 ml lukewarm water with yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Stir and set aside for about 10-15 minutes until it is foamy.

On a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and milk powder together. Then add in the cooled water roux and the foamy yeast mixture. Knead the dough until it form a ball, add more water if it is too dry and vice versa flour if it is too wet. I ended up adding extra 2 tablespoons of water to the dough. Then add butter, knead again until elastic.

Set aside the dough for proofing for about 45 minutes until the dough is double in size.

Shape little balls on donuts and place on the floured baking pan and let them rest for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat up pan with plenty of cooking oil for deep frying with low heat. Poke a hole in the middle of each donuts just before dropping them for deep frying. Turn them over once the other side is golden. Don’t rush the deep frying process by cranking up the heat to ensure the donuts are thoroughly cooked and not burnt on the outside.

So, turned out my donuts cursed is not lifted yet. There must be something wrong with the way I cooked them, they are soaked with oil, again! The texture itself is pretty soft and would have been enjoyable if not soaking with oil. Phew maybe I should just not attempt on making donuts again, ever. I am sure there is nothing wrong with the recipe, as many have testified its results are wonderful. So dear readers, if you do give it a go, please let me know how yours turn out 🙂