Gluten-Free Ratio Rally: Donut Holes

It’s that time of the month again … the Gluten-Free Ratio Rally! If you’ve caught our participation in past months, you’ve seen us make tortellini for the pasta theme, almond choux florentines for the pate a choux theme, and mesquite scones for the scone theme. This month the theme is donuts and fritters, and Meg at Gluten-Free Boulangerie is the host. (Be sure to check out her post for links to lots of other fabulous gluten-free bloggers participating in this month’s Ratio Rally!)

Donuts, as simple as they seem, come in a variety of styles (not counting the near-limitless flavor combinations). You have yeast donuts and cake donuts, fried donuts and baked donuts, whole donuts and donut holes. You get the idea.

We decided to focus our attention on donut holes. And not just any donut holes. Jelly-filled donut holes topped with powdered sugar. Something akin to the Munchins you’d find at Dunkin’ Donuts.

Now, I’m not one for giving disclaimers ahead of sharing a recipe, but I’m going to break with convention this time: The weight measurements for ingredients in the recipe are approximate. Hopefully, that approximation is pretty darned near exact. But in between test batches of donut holes, our digital kitchen scale kicked the bucket, so we had to switch from baking by weight to baking by volume, and then back-calculating the weight measurements. That said, let’s get on with the recipe…

Jelly Donut Holes
Makes 18 donut holes

Ingredients
120g milk (about 1/2 cup)
30g butter (about 2 tbsp)
1/4 tsp salt
53g sugar (about 1/4 cup)
1/2 tsp GF pure vanilla extract
50g egg, beaten (1 large)
190g Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
Oil for frying

Steps
1. Scald the milk. Then add the butter, salt, sugar and vanilla. When the mixture cools to 130 deg F, add the egg.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, xanthan gum and yeast.
3. Add the milk mixture to the flour, and mix until the dough is smooth.
4. Use a 1.5-inch diameter or similar cookie scoop, and scoop dough balls onto a greased cookie sheet. Spray or brush the dough balls with oil. Put in a warm place to rise for at least one hour.
5. Deep fry in oil, in batches, for 2 minutes 30 seconds at 360 deg F.
6. Pipe the jelly filling (recipe follows) into the donut holes and dust with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

This recipe is: gluten-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free, fish-free, shellfish-free, soy-free.

Raspberry Filling

Ingredients
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tbsp cold water
1 cup raspberries

Steps
1. Mix together the sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan.
2. Stir in the water.
3. Add the raspberries.
4. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for one minute, until the filling is thick and clear.

Note: For a smoother filling, you can also strain out the raspberry seeds, but we didn’t bother this time.

On a final and unrelated note, I’m thrilled to announce that I’m now more than 1/3 of the way toward my goal of raising $5,000 in the 2nd Annual Gluten-Free Ultramarathon Challenge. All donations benefit the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and the gluten-free community. There are less than 3 weeks to go until race day. Please visit my fundraising page and make a donation today! Every dollar helps! Thank you for your support!

– Pete