Romanian Donuts

Romanian donuts recipe by Romanian Food for Foreigners

Photo via https://pixabay.com

Time: 3 hours

Servings: about 60 Romanian donuts

Ingredients

1kg of plain white flour
1 teaspoon of salt
400ml of milk
1 egg
2 small packets of vanilla-flavored sugar (8g each)
1 teaspoon of grated lemon rind
200g sugar
100ml of oil (sunflower) or melted butter
Fresh yeast
More oil for deep frying
Icing sugar for dusting

Method

1. Prepare the yeast starter by mixing 3 tablespoons of milk, the yeast, a teaspoon of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of flour in a bowl (better if the milk isn’t too cold) and leaving it in a warm place. You should quickly see a froth forming on the top, which lets you know the yeast is good and activated.

2. In the meantime, gently warm up the rest of the milk, add the rest of the sugar, the teaspoon of salt, the two packets of vanilla-flavored sugar, the lemon rind, and mix until the sugar has dissolved.

3. Into a large mixing bowl, put the rest of the flour, break an egg into a well in the middle of the flour, add the yeast mixture from step 1 and the milk mixture from step 2 and incorporate the flour into the liquid slowly until a dough starts to form.

4. Knead the resulting dough until it starts to become more consistent in texture and de-sticks more easily from your hands and the bowl.

5. Step by step mix in the oil or butter and knead into the dough mixture. It should be less sticky now and easier to work.

6. Sprinkle a little flour on the dough ball and put, covered, in a warm spot and leave it to prove for a couple of hours, until it has doubled in size.

7. Put about 4cm of cooking oil in a pan and bring to a high temperature.

8. While it heats up, take a handful of the mixture, and on a floured board with a rolling pin (maybe also sprinkled with flour to prevent sticking) roll it out until it’s about 3-4mm thick. Take a drinking glass, dip it in flour, and use it to cut out some rounds of the rolled-out dough. Collect up the remaining parts, form into a ball, roll out again, and so on until all the dough is used up. The rest of the dough should remain in the bowl, covered until you have fried the first batch.

9. In batches of two or three (depending on the size of the pan), fry the dough rounds for a couple of minutes, turning once if necessary or making sure the oil covers them well until they’ve puffed up and turned golden. Remove them with a slotted spoon, shake off the excess oil, and drop them into a large bowl in which you have put the icing sugar and shake them around to coat them well. Remove them and put them on a large serving tray.

10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 with the rest of the dough, a handful at a time, leaving the rest covered in the bowl, until you’ve used up all the dough.

Enjoy your Romanian donuts!