Coffee Doughnut - || Cooking with Family and Friends - #1 ||

Cooking is delightful when you have people around who love your food and even more so when you have people you love cooking with you. How much more exciting can this new series on cooking with family and friends (that was on my mind for long) kick off when it is your mother you are cooking with:)

On my parents first visit to Dubai last week- my Dad happened to make a comment - 'where did you learn to cook from? I do not remember you cooking much at home.' So very true! I never cooked much at home but I did spend considerable amount of time in the kitchen chit chatting with mom when she cooked, probably that rubbed on me somehow. My mom started cooking for her family during her high school days itself as grandmother being a teacher would be transferred around schools in Kerala and wasn't home often. She loved trying out recipes from magazines and newspapers ( google wasn't an option back then!! Life gets easier as time passes by) and the recipes of Mrs. K M Mathew - the founder chief editor of the largest selling women's magazine - Vanitha was the main recipe source. On one of her college trips, she happened to take doughnuts - her maiden attempt at that from the recipes of Mrs K M Mathew. Her classmates spared no time in finishing the doughnuts just like we spared no time in finishing our batch!

Although we were unable to trace the same recipe, she managed to take a walk by the memory lane and we landed up with a recipe that turned out just as well. The empty doughnut packets certify the delightful flavors of this fried dough confectionery. To make it even more special, we added a hint of coffee to it!

So here is the recipe from our kitchen - the story of a happy cooking time together with Mom from whom I learnt the basics and still continue to learn!

Ingredients

( Makes about 25 medium sized doughnuts)

1. All purpose flour - 3 cups
2. White sugar - 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
3. Baking powder - 1 tbsp
4. Salt - 1/2 tsp
5. Ground cinnamon - 1/2 tsp + 1/2 tsp
6. Milk - 1/3 cup
7. Instant coffee powder - 1 tsp
8. Egg - 1 beaten
9. Ghee/ Melted Butter - 4 tbsp
10. Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
11. Oil for frying

Method

• Powder the sugar and set aside 2 tbsp heaped. Warm the milk and stir in the coffee powder.
• Sieve the remaining sugar powdered along with all purpose flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon powder.
• Add the beaten egg, vanilla essence and melted butter and fork it together. 
• Slowly pour in the coffee mixing the dough till the desired consistency is obtained. Do not add the coffee at one go as it may get too watery and may not hold together. You should be able to make a ball out of the dough kneading it for about 5 minutes. 
• Place the dough in a well greased bowl and let it rest covered for about an hour.
• Make smaller balls out of the dough and roll it out to about 1/2 an inch thick using a roller. Using a cookie cutter ( bottle caps also work just as well) cut out large circles and using smaller cutters, cut out smaller concentric ones at the center and remove the excess dough at the center.
• Heat oil in a pan. Fry the doughnuts on medium flame till you attain the delightful brown color you want. Transfer it onto a towel for draining off excess oil.
• Add a half a tsp of cinnamon powder and 2 tbsp of powdered sugar into a ziploc cover. Transfer the fried doughnuts into this bag and give it a good shake to ensure that all the doughnuts are coated well in the mix.

There you are the doughnuts are ready!

You may also note -

• While frying the doughnuts keep the flame on medium so that the inside gets cooked as well. On high flame, the inside may not get cooked even if the outer layer has browned well.
• You could make mini doughnut poppers out of the second concentric circle at the center. I am sure kids will love them.