Baked Mashed Potato Doughnut (with Caramel Cinnamon Glaze)

First of all, I want to sorry for the lack of photographs on this post, as when I baked this, my blog wasn't released yet, so I wasn't really preparing this food to be a recipe post. Anyway, this recipe is one of the successful recipe I've made this far, so this one is still worth a post.

I was having these doughnuts as breakfast a month ago. When I created the recipe, I want to avoid the unhealthiness of deep-fried food, so I strolled over web pages, combined some recipes (this one and this one also), and formulated the new healthier one. This baked potato doughnut contains only 130 calories per serving; meanwhile normal doughnut each serving contains more than 300 calories. Potato is often considered as natural emulsifier; consequently potato doughnut will be fluffier than the regulars. This variety of doughnut is well known among countries; Malaysia, India, Indonesia, US, and Peru have their own version of potato doughnut.


The basic of doughnut, deep fried dough in chunk, is actually ancient as the Romans, Dutch, Arab, many groups did it. However, how did that chunk transform to doughnut? The first theory is doughnut was invented in New Amsterdam (Dutch immigrants’ settlement area, former New York) by adapting olykoek (oil cake, sweetened fried cake Dutch-origin) in mid 19th century. Even though the first theory is popularly believed, the second theory seems to be more reliable. Just in 2013, a British historian uncovered the first ever doughnut recipe in 213 year old cookbook that was coming from 1800, written by a British Baroness, Elizabeth Thomas Dimsdale. So now researchers start to believe that doughnut was created in Hertford, England, in 1800.

Anyway, is it doughnut or donut? “Dough-nut” is actually more logical, it describes the original form which didn’t have holes, filled with walnuts or hazelnuts. “Doughnut” is also the dictionary approved spelling. The shortened and simplified spelling “donut” was not popular at the first time, the “donut” spelling was finally boomed when Dunkin’ Donuts used that term in late 20th century.

Back to my recipe. I don’t have any doughnut cutter, also I consider buying those would be just wasting money and dough, and the effort to roll the dough in the morning before breakfast will be kind of troublesome. So I was just shape dough in to golf balls, flatten it with both of my palms, and made the holes with finger. The taste was still good, anyway, so please do ignore the messy shapes above :D

Baked Potato Doughnut with Caramel Cinnamon Glaze
Yield: 34 doughnuts

Ingredients:
- Dry:

• 3 1/5 cup (400 grams) all purpose flour
• 3 ½ tsp (11 grams) instant yeast
• 7 tbsp sugar (100 grams)
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp nutmeg powder

- Wet:

• 50 - 100 ml milk
• 300 grams potato, peeled, steamed or boiled, and mashed
• 5 tbsp butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

- Caramel Cinnamon Glaze

• ½ cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• 2 tbsp milk

Direction:

1. Prepare all dry ingredients in one bowl, mix until homogeneous
2. Combine mashed potato, milk, and eggs into the bowl until no dry ingredients remain
3. Dust your hand with flour, knead the dough for 15 minutes. The dough will be still sticky after kneaded and that's normal.
4. Shape dough to neat ball, then coat with oil, Cover the bowl with clean damp cloth and let those ferment for 60 minutes. Or ferment it overnight in a fridge, bowl covered with plastic wrap.
5. Preheat the oven 180 deg Celsius and prepare the baking pan by lining it with greased and dusted baking sheet
6. Re-knead the dough for 5 minutes. (If you choose to rise it overnight, make sure to let the dough has room temperature before re-kneading)
7. Form golf ball sized dough, flatten it with both of your palms and make the holes using your finger. Place on the lined baking pan. Repeat this step to the remaining dough.
8. Cover the baking pan with clean damp cloth, let the shaped dough doubles (it takes about 15 minutes).
9. Meanwhile, make the caramel cinnamon glaze. Boil all the ingredients for a minute.
10. Bake the doughnuts for 10 minutes
11. Brush the glaze on the top of doughnuts
12. Let it cool before peeling the baking sheet.