Been wanting to make these doughnuts for a while, from Pease Pudding.

My niece Sophie actually made some salted caramel beforehand and there was a lot left over so I had to make something to go with it!

350g plain flour

50g brown sugar

1 tsp instant yeast

165ml luke warm milk

1 free range egg

70g butter, melted

vegetable oil for frying

Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl.

Add the yeast to the milk and put aside for a few minutes until it starts to ferment. Then whisk the yeasty milk together with the eggs and melted butter. Add to the flour mix and combine into a dough ball.

Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes and press dough out on a floured working surface to approximately an inch thick.

Using a medium & very small cookie cutter, cut the doughnuts out with the large cutter and the cut the centres out of each doughnut with the small cutter. Place the doughnuts and the ‘whole’ separately on an oiled tray to prove, leaving enough space between them to double in size.

Oil the top if the doughnuts and cover the whole tray with plastic wrap.

Re-knead any dough left over and cut out further doughnuts.

Once dough is doubled in size they are ready to bake.

Heat approximately 300ml of vegetable oil to 190C in a heavy bottom pan, enough to be half the depth of the doughnuts. If you don’t have a themometer just do a test with a little piece of dough to check when it is hot enough. It should slowly brown.

Add 2 to 3 to the pan and fry the doughnuts for approximately 1 minute then turn and fry for the same amount of time on second side.

Remove from saucepan with a slotted spoon and allow doughnuts to cool on kitchen paper.

Make the caramel at this stage and once it is ready the doughnuts will be cool enough to dip.

Caramel

1 cup brown sugar

100g butter

3 Tbsp water

1tsp salt

Combine the sugar, butter & water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar has melted, stirring constantly.

Increase the heat and bring the caramel up to 146C (you will need a sugar thermometer)

Once it has reached temperature turn the heat off and lett it settle for a minute then dip both the doughnuts into the caramel.

You can add an extra sprinkle of salt to the caramel if you wish.

I was pretty pleased with my first attempt at doughnuts. I couldn't wait till they were cool and put the caramel on top, so it all melted into the doughnut - not a bad thing!