Yam Doughnut

There is little that is nothing like a doughnut.  It is something I don't make at home for a number of reasons.  I don't like deep frying in the house since it makes a mess and makes the house smell.  I don't really want to know how bad they are for me and if I make them then I know the badness they contain and best ones are time consuming to make. 

So when I saw these little gems, they were the answer to some of these issues.  They are baked rather then fried, they are a little better for you then your average doughnut and plus, they have yam in it and yam is just good.

Now the original recipe called for sweet potato but the images look like yams to me so I made them with yams since I think that would give a lovely flavour, although I am willing to try it with sweet potato.  *For me a Sweet Potato is the light yellow fleshed and tan skinned tuber while a Yam is the orange fleshed and red-ish skinned tuber.*

Spiced Yam Doughnut

Recipe from: leannebakes.blogspot.com

1 cup mashed yam total (I used 2 medium-sized potatoes)

3 tbsp unsalted butter (1.5oz)

½ cup milk

2¼ tsp instant dry yeast (I used traditional yeast since your still blooming it)

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed light brown sugar

1¼ tsp sea salt

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1 tbsp vanilla

1 extra large egg

2 extra large egg yolks

3.5 cups bread flour, plus more for rolling

Cinnamon Sugar Coating:

1 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Prick the yam several times with a fork and microwave for 8 minutes, until tender.  Cut the potato in half and scoop the flesh out.  It will be hot. Be careful. Mash it up with a fork.

Melt the butter, and let it cool.

In the microwave (or a saucepan if you’re fancy) heat the milk to just below 105F. Any higher will kill your yeast dead.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, let the yeast and warm milk sit for 5 minutes until foamy.  Add the sugar, brown sugar, salt, vanilla, nutmeg, and whisk to combine.  Add the mashed sweet potato, butter, egg and egg yolks, and beat until well combined.

Change to the dough hook, and add the flour.  Mix at medium for 2 minutes, then bump the speed up to medium high and knead until a soft dough forms and the sweet potato dough pulls away from the sides and toward the centre, about 5-7 minutes.  If it doesn’t pull together, add a little bit more flour.

Dump the dough out, form it into a ball, and let it rise on the countertop for 2 hours (don’t be alarmed if it doesn’t rise all that much… it won’t).

Gently redistribute the yeast by kneading lightly, and then roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  ¾ of an inch works. 

Using a circle cutter, gently cut out circles and poke the middles to make holes. If you have a donut cutter like I did, even better! It will do the annoying hole part for you. Place the doughnuts on two parchment paper lined sheet pans, and let them rise for 2 hours, covered with plastic wrap.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.   Bake the doughnuts in the centre of the oven for about 10 minutes, until ther have risen and are golden brown (they should be 200 degrees F on an instant read thermometer).

While the doughnuts are baking, make the cinnamon sugar topping by melting the butter in one bowl, and whisking the sugar and cinnamon in another.  While the doughnuts are hot out of the oven, toss them in the butter, then immediately toss in the cinnamon sugar.

I am lazy when it come to measuring butter, I usually weigh it since I don't need to worry about making it fit in a measuring cup and my husband likes to eat butter by it self, so there is rarely an unmolested block of butter to cut it off of.  This is 1.5 oz of butter or 3 tbsp.

I was a little shy on the yam since that is all I had in the house.

See you still bloom the yeast so traditional yeast should theoretically work as well.

Apparently I didn't mash up the yams sufficiently but the final results were still good.

Here is the ball of prepared dough before its first rise.  It looked pretty much the same after the 2 hours.

My favorite place to leave things to rise - in the oven with the light one. 

It was a little difficult to roll out and I wish I know that these flowers would turn out rather on the large side after baking.

They do look pretty.

Gigantic doughnuts. Since they are baked rather then fried there is nothing to keep the cinnamon sugar coating on, this is why they take a dip in some butter first.  Plus, butter is rather tasty.

I was going with the principle that doughnut holes have no calories, so I had to coat those with cinnamon sugar too.