I got out of the bed with wrong foot this morning, I hated everything and everyone, nothing was right and then I accidentally tipped the bin onto the floor and had to scrub all sorts of yuk off the floor. And then I decided to bake something good, I needed a lift from this morning. It’s been a while since doughnuts were made in this house, so I went with the same recipe from moje wypieki.com that worked, but not a third of the portion, half a portion this time and still ended up with 19 doughnuts. Deliberately, Keava got 5, as she now looks after Dusty when we go away and then Charlie got 4, Charlie, my fresh farm egg supplier. Young chap looked into the bag and said “woooooooow….tea!!!!!” 🙂

So, for this many fabulous, soft, fragrant and delicious doughnuts one needs 500 g of flour, 11 g of fresh yeast, 60 g of sugar, 250 ml of warm milk, 4 egg yolks, 50 g of melted butter, some vanilla paste, 20 ml of vodka,1/4 tsp of salt and a little lemon juice and zest too. Yeast got to work with some of that flour, sugar and milk, the all the other ingredients worked away in the kitchen aid, butter waiting towards the end to be slowly added. The dough proved for 1,5 hour, more than doubled. Got knocked down, rolled thickly and with a cookie cutter 19 doughnuts were formed. Again, 30 mins proving and then onto the veg oil heated up to 175 degrees. Once fried, plum conserve was injected in each, some icing and a few sprinkles of dried raspberry completed the picture. Premier League. Brawo ja! 🙂

Last week Florek ordered one of these in Cote and we loved it. It looked simple enough for a confident cook to try and bake, so I tried- and I succeeded!The recipe I found in BBC Good Food was a red onion and gruyere fougasse, there was some rosemary there too. Not my favourite herb, far too strong and fragrant, so I used a little of my fresh oregano from the garden and also the remaining piece of comte cheese.

It’s not a complicated thing; 250 g of strong bread flour, 8 g of fresh yeast crumbled in. 1 tsp of salt, 0,5 tsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of olive oil. 200 ml of warm water, one needs to be careful though, as the mixture is extremely wet and fiddly, I added about 2 more tbsps of flour to get it together, so probably about 150 ml would do. Kitchen Aid worked it for a few minutes, then I left it under cling film for an hour, shaped it into a leaf and got it ready for baking:

Some rock salt was sprinkled on top, as well as a brush of garlic olive oil. 220 degrees, 12-15 minutes.

It’s lovely and will be made again, but it’s a great idea to brush with olive oil again AFTER baking. Great starter. 🙂