The Daring Bakers make doughnuts!

As soon as this challenge, chosen by Lori of Butter Me Up, was announced, many of her fellow Canadian members of the Daring Bakers came out of the woodwork and enthusiastically talked doughnuts. My favourite childhood doughnut memory is of pulling out my mother's deep fryer and making a batch of nutmeg scented cake doughnuts after school with my brother. We would roll and cut out a few, then give up and fling blobs of dough into the fryer. They were usually too big and uncooked in the centre, but we didn't care. We just tried to make and eat as many as possible before my parents got home. I'm sure they had nightmares about us burning the house down.

Ode to Tim Horton's: maple brown butter glazed cruller

Many folks also talked about Tim Horton's, and how they miss it when they're away from Canada. Tim Horton's is ubiquitous here, with outlets from coast to coast (but not coast to coast to coast, like the CBC), selling doughnuts, coffee, soup and sandwiches. You can actually plan your journey across Canada and map out all the Timmy's. Weird. Many people look down on Timmy's, but I have been known to have a cruller and a coffee. In fact, I had done just that the day this challenge was announced. My strangest encounter with this Canadian icon was walking down the road in Belfast a few years ago and seeing a giant Tim Horton's ad. Turns out that some gas stations there sell plastic-wrapped doughnuts and frothy 'cappuccino' out of an automated machine, kind of like what you'd see in a hospital waiting room. Well, not in a Canadian hospital, because they all have Timmy's outlets. :)

That irresistible custardy interior!

I really wanted to make crullers, as they are my favourite kind of doughnut, so I made these on Thanksgiving morning. They are made with the same dough used to make cream puffs, and they came together really quickly and easily. They did not hold their ridged shape when fried, but that was my fault, as I didn't let the dough cool enough. I am famously patient in my family, but not that day! I glazed them with a mixture of brown butter, maple syrup and icing sugar, and they were fantastic. I took a plate to my brother and his family, and my 2-year-old nephew ate 2 and started zooming around, yelling 'YUM!' and rubbing his and everyone else's tummies. Then he refused to have a nap. That's what aunts are for, right? Anyway, the cruller recipe was not one of the challenge ones, so I had another date with the deep fryer.

The amazing spherical doughnut!

I invited a couple of friends over for brunch and made the yeast doughnuts from the challenge. Marcellina had made some gorgeous cardamom doughnuts filled with raspberry jam, and I wanted some, but she lives in Australia, so I made my own half recipe and replaced the nutmeg in the recipe with cardamom. For the filling, I used the plum jam I had made for a Daring Cooks' challenge. Rather than inject the jam in the fried doughnuts, I rolled the dough thinly, cut it with a 2½" cutter, filled with a teaspoon of jam, covered with another round of dough, and cut the filled doughnut with a 2" cutter. I then left them to rise while I prepared the rest of the brunch. They didn't rise that much, but when I put them in the oil they puffed right up, becoming this bobbing ball of energy that was impossible to corral and turn over (kind of like my nephew on doughnuts). Anyway, cooking these was a team effort, and lots of fun. We let them cool while we ate brunch, being a bit wary of eating super-hot jam.

I kept taking bites, looking for the perfect shot. I never got it,
but this one looks kind of happy, and I got to eat 2 more doughnuts.

These were good too! They were a touch warm and not too sweet (mostly because I wasn't running the sugar shaker), and not greasy at all. Being an Ottawan, I really really wanted to make Beavertails, but I just didn't get around to it. I'll try to do one come winter, when I can do a full post on it and show you how to make a perfect Killaloe Sunrise. Check out the Daring Kitchen main page to see a slideshow of everyone's doughnuts. 

Blog-checking lines: The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Recipes and full challenge PDF after the jump

Daring Bakers: Pièce Montée (Croquembouche)

I was so excited when this challenge was revealed: cream puffs were a favourite childhood treat for my brother and I. No trip to Cantor's Bakery was complete without a giant cream puff. I have made them and éclairs, and even a Gâteau St-Honoré, but I had never assembled a croquembouche. It was tempting to jump in right away, as I had all the ingredients on hand, but I decided to wait and make it for my birthday. Of course, this also meant I could procrastinate a bit, which is always appreciated. 

One of the best things about this dessert is that it doesn't include chocolate! I decided to fill the puffs with vanilla pastry cream and passion fruit curd. For the glue, I used caramel. I wanted to make some spun sugar, but the day was a bit grey and drizzly, so I skipped it, though my first batch of caramel did spontaneously turn into spun sugar. I didn't have time at that point, as I didn't want to be late for my own brunch.

The pâte à choux was really easy to work with, and I got 35 puffs from the recipe given. I used about 30 to make the croquembouche, as that's all I could fill using the 2 batches of filling I made. I used the challenge recipe for the vanilla pastry cream, and the recipe for the passion fruit curd comes from Heavenly Cakes, by Rose Levy Berenbaum. The vanilla pastry cream was the perfect texture, but the passion fruit curd was runny, which made for some messy eating. You can find the recipe for this, as well as the rest of the challenge recipes at the end of the post.

I dipped the filled puffs in the molten caramel by hand, burning myself a number of times. Only one blister, though, which is not too bad, considering I dipped them top and bottom. It was quite easy to build the structure, as the caramel was like super glue. The croquembouche sat for a few hours while we ate our brunch, and the caramel got a bit too chewy in the humidity, but it was still delicious. I'll definitely be making this one again! Check out our host Cat's site here, and see the slideshow of creations from the Daring Bakers here.

Blog-checking lines: The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.


Recipes after the jump!