Polish Doughnuts to die for!

As winter is coming, I decided to put these nice spongy Polish doughnuts back to our menu immediately! They are traditionally served on Fat Thursday (or Shrove Thursday) but since I have such a sweet tooth, I am in the mood to make them slightly more often than only once a year! lol I have no doubt you will enjoy them with a morning coffee. They are simply fresh and soft, not too sweet and great for busy bees as all you need is 30 minutes of your time!

Ingredients:

500g plain flour
300g curd cheese
100g butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
15g vanilla sugar
(icing sugar for dusting, oil for cooking)

Preparation:

1. Mix flour with baking powder then add butter. Using a knife, cut the fat into small lumps then begin cutting them into the flour. Keep going until it's fairly blended.
2. Add remaining ingredients and gradually blend into a smooth dough.
3. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out fairly thick. Start cutting with a glass to get circles. Using a shot glass cut smaller circles inside your circles.
4. Heat the oil in a deep-fat fryer or a heavy-bottomed pan.
5. Fry on each side until golden brown (they get brown very quickly)
6. Pat dry on kitchen paper and sprinkle with icing sugar

Tips:

* butter has to be at room temperature and soft enough to be easily cut with a knife. If it is too cold, you end up kneading the dough twice as long

* make sure your dough is soft and sort of rubbery. If it is too hard, add a little lukewarm water and knead again until you get the right texture. Otherwise, your doughnuts will turn out rock hard (I am talking from experience :)) 

* use leftovers: fry spare small circles in order to get bite-size doughnuts

Smacznego! x