Sluttishly Olympic: Doughnuts

My edible version of the opening ceremony, that's Kat on the right with Kenneth Brannagh over on the left, obviously.

How amazing was the Olympic opening ceremony? I basically blubbed my way though the vast majority of it whilst trying to spot Kat being awesome somewhere amongst it all. I was completely blown away by the fiery rings so have decided to recreate that wonderful moment in doughnut form.

I've never made doughnuts before and thought they would be a bit tricky to get right and I would get spattered in burning oil (I don't have a deep fat fryer) but they are actually really easy to make and they didn't spit at all, hurray!

 I made a mixture of vanilla caster sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon zest to sprinkle over them whilst still hot then sprayed with some edible gold shimmer spray that I bought from Tescos. You could also get some food colourings that match the colours of the rings and add to some icing sugar and water to make a paste then paint the doughnuts for some seriously Olympic tastiness.

You'll need: (makes about 20)

• 600g strong white bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 90g sugar
• 10g dried fast action yeast
• 50g butter, soft.
• 2 eggs
• 100ml warm milk
• To sprinkle: caster sugar (vanilla works really well), cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest 
• edible gold shimmer spray
• Oil for deep frying, I use vegetable

Make it!

1. Sift together your flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a big bowl then rub in the butter until your mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
2. Crack your eggs into a jug and add your warm milk and beat until well mixed then add to your flour mixture. It will be pretty sticky. Depending on what type of flour you use you may need to add a little bit more flour or milk to get a nice dough consistency. Turn your dough out onto a clean floured work surface and knead for about 10 minutes or so until your dough is smooth and stretchy. Sometimes this can take 5 minutes, sometimes 20, it all depends on your flour.
3. Put your dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave until doubled in size (about an hour or so). Roll out your dough to about 1cm thick then using pastry cutters make large circle cut outs. I used a wine bottle lid to make the small inner circles. Any excess dough just re-roll and make more, I fried off the little inner circles as a special "cook's treat".
4. Combine your sugar and spice sprinkle mixture, in my opinion you can never have too much cinnamon!
5. Heat your oil in a small saucepan or deep fat fryer to about 180C or until a little bit of bread turns golden when dropped in.
6. Gently lower your ring in, it will sink at first then rise to the surface, at this point gently turn it over to brown on the other side then remove with a slotted spoon, put it on a plate and cover with your sugar and spice sprinkle mixture whilst still hot. Repeat with the rest of the rings then spray with your gold shimmer. Eat whilst warm.