Put the 'Doh!' in Doughnuts
It is a great disappointment to many coeliacs (myself included) that it is widely impossible to find gluten free doughnuts.
For a while, Tesco sold their own 'ready to bake' gluten free doughnuts. They were reasonably small bricks that could be easily used to commit violent crime, but were at least filled with a sticky raspberry jam. The one saving grace for these edible weapons was that heating them up DID soften them...but not if you followed the heating instructions. 'Place in an oven heated to 160 degrees C for 10 minutes', they implored. Anyone following these instructions would have been greatly disappointed, and I learned the only way to make them really soft and tasty was to heat at between 170-180, and for 20 minutes, rather than 10.
Unsurprisingly, Tesco withdrew their jam doughnuts within 18 months or so and have never so far attempted to provide an alternative.
The Wheat Free Bakery (http://www.wheat-freebakerydirect.com) was the next company (and so far one of the only ones) to have another bash at doughnuts. My Father insists that on his first taste, they were soft, squidgy and virtually indistinguishable from their gluten-containing counterparts. So I was a little disappointed when I ordered some and they felt rather like quoits (anyone remember them?)
I'm sure you'll agree, fun to play with as a child; not so tasty as an after-dinner treat!
Bearing all this in mind, I should have suspected that doughnuts would not be the easiest of things to create. But what can I say? I'm an optimist!
To be honest, I felt like I was betting on a losing horse right from the start. The recipe I was using (taken from the Rachel Allen Bake! book) called for 450g plain flour and only 25g butter. The instructions said to 'rub butter into the flour by hand until the mixture resembled breadcrumbs'. Well, I didn't hold out much hope for that with only 25g butter to go into the battle with, but off I went. Predictably, no breadcrumb-like texture emerged, but on I ploughed, determined - for once - to follow the recipe exactly to start with.
It didn't get any better. After mixing the egg, milk and water, I had mix glued to my hands and the dough had gone incredibly dry. I added water, which helped a little, but the overall result was still a very dense dough.
Still following the instructions, I attempted to knead it but, well, have you ever tried kneading a fully-inflated football? Because that's what it was like. I ended up breaking it into individual pieces to knead. I made one big ball of it afterwards, and placed it in our airing cupboard to prove for 90 minutes.
The good news is it had actually risen! Yay!! But after re-kneading it, breaking it into balls and proving for a further 30 minutes, they hadn't actually grown at all. Not a jot. They still looked like slightly over-sized golf balls. Hmmm.
At this point, I'm afraid I decided to call it quits and not bother wasting the oil trying to cook them. It wasn't really worth it.
However, I'm not giving this one up. Next time, I shall try a specifically gluten free recipe for doughnuts and see how that works out. EVERY recipe I've seen (with the exception of the Rachel Allen one - I'm quite upset as I'm a fan of hers) requires much more butter, egg, milk and water, despite using much less flour, whether it's a gluten free recipe or not. So I'll try it again soon and if it works, I will provide a picture of the finished product. Since I wasn't able to do that this time, here's a lovely picture of a funny cat instead. Enjoy!
To be honest, I felt like I was betting on a losing horse right from the start. The recipe I was using (taken from the Rachel Allen Bake! book) called for 450g plain flour and only 25g butter. The instructions said to 'rub butter into the flour by hand until the mixture resembled breadcrumbs'. Well, I didn't hold out much hope for that with only 25g butter to go into the battle with, but off I went. Predictably, no breadcrumb-like texture emerged, but on I ploughed, determined - for once - to follow the recipe exactly to start with.
It didn't get any better. After mixing the egg, milk and water, I had mix glued to my hands and the dough had gone incredibly dry. I added water, which helped a little, but the overall result was still a very dense dough.
Still following the instructions, I attempted to knead it but, well, have you ever tried kneading a fully-inflated football? Because that's what it was like. I ended up breaking it into individual pieces to knead. I made one big ball of it afterwards, and placed it in our airing cupboard to prove for 90 minutes.
The good news is it had actually risen! Yay!! But after re-kneading it, breaking it into balls and proving for a further 30 minutes, they hadn't actually grown at all. Not a jot. They still looked like slightly over-sized golf balls. Hmmm.
At this point, I'm afraid I decided to call it quits and not bother wasting the oil trying to cook them. It wasn't really worth it.
However, I'm not giving this one up. Next time, I shall try a specifically gluten free recipe for doughnuts and see how that works out. EVERY recipe I've seen (with the exception of the Rachel Allen one - I'm quite upset as I'm a fan of hers) requires much more butter, egg, milk and water, despite using much less flour, whether it's a gluten free recipe or not. So I'll try it again soon and if it works, I will provide a picture of the finished product. Since I wasn't able to do that this time, here's a lovely picture of a funny cat instead. Enjoy!
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