Baked Doughnut Holes with Lavender Sugar

Pretty much all of last week I was home alone. Scott went on a little surf trip with a few buddies, as a sort of last hurrah before he becomes a married man. To say I missed him would be an understatement. When you spend most of your day with someone then they leave, there is this strange silence that seems to fill the space in an unfamiliar way.

The really weird part was my lack of interest in food. Cooking it, eating it, enjoying it; there was something missing. I never realized how much my joy of cooking and baking revolved around not just feeding myself, but others as well. How much Scott was an inspiration when I planned and prepared a meal. So besides this soup, I honestly didn't cook much. Days before he even came home though, I was already preparing all the things we would eat and enjoy together. These doughnuts were the first.

I hardly ever eat doughnuts, let alone make them myself, because I don't really like them very much. Scott on the other hand loves them. I wanted to surprise him when he came home with a fresh batch, but I hate to fry food. I always burn myself or inevitably end up finding grease stains on my clothes no matter how careful I try to be. Not to mention a small apartment is easy to fill up with the smell of a fry house. I decided to make a baked version instead and coat them in a lovely fragrant lavender sugar.

If you want the traditional taste of a doughnut, you won't find that with these. The dough almost reminded me of cinnamon roll dough, which might be why I enjoyed these over the fried version. The recipe below is a halved version of the original. I don't think even we could eat seven dozen doughnut holes! These really are the best the day you bake them, but we continued to enjoy them the next day or two, just warm them in your oven or microwave. We both really enjoyed the lavender sugar too. I was hesitant that Scott might not like it so I made few coated with cinnamon and sugar following them same method as below. Now I want to make a batch of sugar cookies and sprinkle some on top.

Baked Doughnut Holes with Lavender Sugar

Adapted from 101cookbooks
makes 3 1/2 dozen doughnut holes

1/2 plus 1/16 cups warm milk, 95 to 100 degrees, divided

1 1/8 teaspoons dry active yeast

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 cup cane sugar

1 egg

2 1/5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1/4 cup unsalted brown butter

1 cup cane sugar

1 teaspoon dried lavender

Place about 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Make sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt, just until the flour is incorporated.

With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. This is where you are going to need to make adjustments. If your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. If it's too dry add more milk a little at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover, put in a warm place, and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on a floured surface. I don't make doughnuts enough to own a special doughnut cutter, I also don't own a tiny cookie cutter, so instead I used a sharp knife to cut the dough into 1/2-inch wide strips, then again perpendicular to the first strips, making little dough squares. Then I took the dough pieces in my hand to from a rough ball and placed them onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake in a 375˚ oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes, start checking around 8 minutes. While the doughnuts are baking, make the brown butter in a small saucepan, set aside.

To make the lavender sugar, place both the sugar and lavender into a small food processor and blend until the lavender is thoroughly incorporated. This also makes the sugar very fine, which I liked. You can also make the sugar by placing lavender into a small piece of muslin and wrapping securely. Place it into a jar and cover with sugar. Leave this way for about 2 weeks, shaking it occasionally. Then discard the lavender and your sugar will have the lovely scent of lavender.

Once doughnuts are done baking, remove them from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. They are best eaten immediately.