Jam Doughnuts

Method

1. Pour the water and OGGS® Aquafaba into a large bowl, then sprinkle over the yeast. Leave for 5 minutes to activate. There’s no need to whisk it – hallelujah!
   
   
2. Add the remaining doughnut ingredients: flour, sugar, melted margarine, salt, milk and vanilla extract. Using your hands, mix everything together until it starts to form a dough then knead well for about 5 minutes until it becomes smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl and has formed a ball. (If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, feel free to use this instead!)
   
   
3. Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour, then continue kneading the ball until the dough appears stretchy. This should take 5 minutes. If you have a freestanding mixer, use that, fitted with a dough hook.
   
   
4. Pop the dough back into a bowl and cover with a damp cloth and place it in a warm part of your kitchen to prove for 1 hour. We like to do this in an oven, with the light turned on, but no heat.
   
   
5. After an hour, the dough should have doubled in size, so knock out the air when it’s still in the bowl, divide it into 12 small pieces and roll each into a ball, weighing roughly 50g. Place onto a lightly oiled baking sheet and leave to prove for another hour in your chosen warm space. These need to be well spaced out as they will continue to puff up for this second proving stage.
   
   
6. Around 10 minutes before your dough has finished proving, line a large baking tray with a couple of pieces of kitchen roll. Start heating the oil in a deep saucepan over a medium heat until it’s beginning to simmer. You should aim for 175°C if you have a cooking thermometer, but if you don’t have one, wait until you start seeing bubbles simmering on the sides and do a tester. Nip a small piece of dough from one of the balls and carefully drop it into the oil. The dough should sizzle, not burn, and float to the top if the oil is hot enough.
   
   
7. Using a slotted spoon, lower each doughnut into the hot oil. They will grow in size so don’t panic if they look a little small when they go in. Flip over after about 1–2 minutes, once they are golden brown, and let the other half cook. We like to cook 2-3 doughballs at a time to ensure we don't crowd the pan.
   
   
8. Take them out with the same slotted spoon and place directly onto kitchen roll to mop up any excess oil.
   
   
9. While they’re still warm, make a hole into the centre the doughnut – we like to do this with a chopstick! Transfer the jam into a piping bag and snip a corner off. Place the nozzle end of the piping bag into the doughnut and give a good squeeze. Once they’re full, they will start spilling out the side…but that’s a good sign!
   
   
10. Sift icing sugar over the top of your doughnuts for a finishing touch or roll them in a shallow bowl of caster sugar

Top Tips

• Doughnuts taste best the day they’re made…eat them quickly!
• We’ve opted to pipe jam into them, but equally you could stuff with cream, chocolate… anything that you fancy and top with any sugar/glaze you wish.