Our neighborhood doughnut and coffee joint has amazing doughnut flavors, and they are super delicious! I am in love with all the flavors they have there. They have tropical flavors and then they have fan favorites too like a Smore’s Doughnut or a Coffee doughnut etc. They carry Verve coffee too, which has an amazing aroma! Although I am a tea drinker, this is one coffee that I really love. Another favorite brand is Sight Glass Coffee which is delicious too! There is a lot of depth in flavor, and both companies originated in the Bay Area!
So this doughnut shop had a calamansi doughnut, and I found calamansi fruit recently at the farmer’s market, so I was intrigued to try it and see it tasted like. The doughnut was phenomenal! I loved the tart and sweet taste of the calamansi. The lady said they used canned calamansi puree for the icing and that you get it at the Filipino stores. So ofcourse I was intrigued. I had the calamansis from the booth at the farmer’s market. That booth is run by this 80 year old lady. She is feisty, always smiling, and knows how to sell, even at her age. I make it a point to buy something from her, cause she is so sweet! Reminds me of my grandma who is 87 years old(tears!).
Calamansis have a lot of good properties. Calamansi is packed with vitamin C, so it is great to prevent oral problems, may help in weight loss, strengthens the immune system, regulates bowel moments, and many more. You can get calamansi juice from Amazon here.
I have made yeasted doughnuts before, but never posted the recipe. They are fairly easy to make. The dough is pretty standard, with flour, yeast, eggs, sugar, milk or buttermilk…….. The dough can be made the day before and let it rest overnight in the fridge. The next morning, you simply divide the dough into 2 halves, roll out the dough so that it is about ½ inch thick, cut out with about a 3 inch cutter. I had a 2 ¾ inch cutter so that is what I used. For the middle I used a ½ inch pastry nozzle to cut out the center of the doughnut. I kept the centers to fry them as well. You let the cut doughnuts rest for about an hour, covered with a plastic wrap, making sure that the plastic wrap does not touch the doughnuts. Once ready to fry, make sure that the temperature of the oil is about 350 degrees, OR you can put a tiny piece of dough and if it rises up instantly, you know that the oil is ready.
For the cinnamon sugar doughnuts, you fry them, wait for 20 seconds and then roll it in the cinnamon sugar mixture so that it sticks to the doughnut while it is hot. For the icing, I used calamansi juice, and a drop of yellow food coloring to make them poppy! Yellow seems to be the color that I am simply loving right now! What with the Kumquat Bundt Cake and now the Calamansi Doughnut! LOL. I used calamansi curd to pipe it into the donut holes, once they were rolled in cinnamon sugar! They were so delicious and so cute!
The doughnuts turned out fabulous! I had made candied calamansi, similar to the candied kumquats, to top off the doughnuts. The taste was amazing, and I was very happy with how they turned out! Calamansi is a great flavor, extremely tart, I feel it is tarter(is that even a word?!) than lemon! They work beautifully in desserts, and am sure in savory dishes too as I have seen online, while doing my research on calamansi. I plan to plant a calamansi tree so that they are at my expense when I need them! I need to find a store where they have the plant!
Hope you get a chance to try these doughnuts. You can get calamansi juice online as well. I have seen it even at Trader Joe’s.
Happy Almost Spring!
XO
Amisha
Ingredients
Yeasted Doughnuts:
- 6 cups(730gms) bread flour, and more if dough is sticky, ½ cup at a time.
- 1 ½ cups (370gms) whole milk
- 4 tbsp (60gms) unsalted melted butter
- 50 gm vegetable oil
- ¼ cup (50gms) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 packet active dry yeast
- 1 tsp table salt
Calamansi Glaze:
- 3 cups powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar
- 5-6 tbsp calamansi juice(you can get it online on Amazon.com)
- Drop of yellow food coloring(I used Americolor)
Candied Calamansi:
- 8oz calamansi, sliced into 3, and seeds removed. (Seeds are bitter, so they need to be removed)
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup water
- 1 tbsp grated ginger
- 1 cinnamon stick
*Calamansi Curd: *
- ½ cup of calamansi juice
- 3 whole eggs at room temperature
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
Cinnamon-Sugar mixture:
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
Calamansi Curd:
- In a medium bowl, add in the eggs, and whisk for a minute to blend. Add in the sugar and juice and whisk again to blend well.
- Now in a small pot, on medium heat, add in the mixture, and keep stirring with a wooden spoon, till the mixture begins to thicken and coats the back of the spoon. The process should not take more than 5 minutes. Now take it off the heat, and slowly add 1 tbsp of butter at a time, and whisk until smooth.
- Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a glass bowl, to catch the uncooked egg bits. Cover with a plastic wrap, touching the curd, so as not to form a skin on the top. Refrigerate for 4 hours until it is chilled. Then it is ready to eat.
- For the doughnut holes, I use half of the calamansi curd, put it into a 12 inch pastry bag with a doughnut pastry tip(which is longer than usual). If you want to use the calamansi curd for
Candied Calamansi:
- Cut the calamansi into 3-4 slices. Remove any seeds. The seeds are very bitter. Make sure to collect all the juice in a bowl.
- In a small saucepan, on medium heat, put the water and sugar, and let it dissolve, for about 2 minutes. Now add in the ginger, cinnamon stick and calamansi, and let it boil for about 5-7 minutes until the kumquat is translucent. Switch off the gas, and put gently remove the slices into a glass jar, with a spoon. Drain the remaining liquid into a small bowl, to discard the ginger and cinnamon. Add the sugary syrup into the glass jar. Cover and keep it refrigerated for about 3 weeks.
Yeasted Doughnuts:
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan, over medium to low heat. Once butter is melted, add in the oil and room temperature milk and whisk. Add in the egg and whisk again to mix well. Heat the mixture, whisking continuously so as not to cook the egg. Make sure that the temperature is not more than 100 degrees F. Transfer it to a stand mixer bowl. Add in the yeast and whisk in well. Let it stand for 10 minutes and do its thing of foaming at the brim. That means that the yeast is alive.
- In a large bowl, add in the flour, sugar and salt and whisk well. Use a dough hook for the stand mixer. Add in the flour ½ cup at a time, and let it mix. After all the dough is added and combined, set the mixer to medium high and mix the dough until it pulls away from the sides of the stand mixer, about 10-15 minutes. If it is still sticky, add about ½ cup extra flour at a time to check the elasticity.
- Now transfer the dough, formed into a ball, into a large bowl, that has been coated with oil or a non-stick spray. Cover with a plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour, or overnight.
- Flour your work surface. Punch down the dough, and transfer it the floured surface. Dust the top with the flour too. Divide the dough into 2 halves if your work surface is not big enough, as was in my case. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick. Use a 3 inch cutter to cut out the holes. Use a 1 inch cutter to cut out a hole in the middle. Make sure that you dip the cutters in flour and then cut through, so that it does not stick.
- Use parchment paper on a baking tray, spray it with non-stick spray, and line the doughnuts and the holes on the paper, keeping some distance between them, giving them room to rise. Cover with plastic wrap, making sure that it does not touch the doughnuts. Allow them to proof for about an hour, until doubled in size.
- In a large pot, over medium heat, add in about 6 cups of vegetable oil and let the temperature come up to 350 degrees F. You can even check by putting a tiny piece of dough. If it rises up you know that the oil is ready. Work one a time, put one doughnut into the fryer, and after 15 seconds flip it. Let it cook for about 1 minute, until it turns a light brown color, and then flip. Cook for another minute or so, and flip again. Remove the doughnut with a strainer. Repeat with the rest of the doughnuts. Set up a baking tray with a wire rack, and let the doughnuts rest on it. Glaze once all doughnuts are fried. For the doughnut holes, you need to have the cinnamon sugar ready so that after frying the holes, can go straight into the sugar to be coated. The coating sticks well when still hot.
Calamansi Glaze:
- In a medium bowl, add the sifted confectioner’s sugar. Add in the calamansi juice. Whisk until the consistency is smooth. Make sure the icing is NOT runny. If it is, add in more confectioner’s sugar ¼ cup at a time, until it reaches a desired consistency. I prefer the glaze to be a bit thick, so it forms a nice layer on the doughnut. Put the glaze in a narrow bowl, big enough to dip the doughnut into. The glaze should be slightly deep for the layer to form.
Assembly:
- Create an assembly line of doughnuts and doughnut holes, then the cinnamon sugar mixture, then the calamansi glaze and calamansi curd in the piping bag, and lastly the candied calamansi. Make sure that the candied calamansi is placed individually on a wire rack, to drain out any liquid atleast half hour before assembly so as not to make the doughnuts soggy.
- For the cinnamon-sugar mixture, in a large shallow bowl, add in the granulated sugar and cinnamon and mix together. For the doughnut holes, make sure that they are placed in the cinnamon sugar mixture immediately, so that they are coated while they are hot.
- First take the doughnut and carefully dip it into the glaze. Let the excess glaze drip off. Let it rest on a wire rack, placed on a baking tray. Do the same with all the doughnuts. For the doughnut holes, pipe the curd into each doughnut hole. I presented them by placing each hole in the doughnut to get a taste comparison of the curd versus the glaze. Place a couple candied calamansi on each doughnut.
- They should be eaten the day of making the doughnuts. They do not stay fresh otherwise.
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