Pimp That Snack

Giant Donut

by Ich bin ein Berliner 10 photos Rated 57% 297 votes when voting closed

After the relative success of my über chocolate pretzel, I decided to create a pimped version of myself – a giant donut!

To make this oil-soaked beast, you will need:

450g of plain flour
1 sachet of easy-blend dried yeast
25g of butter
75g of caster sugar
2 beaten eggs
6 tablespoons of warmed milk
6 tablespoons of warmed water
1 massive bottle of vegetable oil for deep-frying and greasing
Some suitable bling for the topping

Estimated cost: £4.50

Ingredients on a wooden worktop: icing sugar, butter, eggs, milk, vegetable oil and a stoneware jar

Mix the flour and yeast in a large bowl, and rub in butter to create a breadcrumb-like texture, and then add sugar.

A well of beaten egg and melted butter in the middle of flour in a metal bowl

Add the eggs, milk and water and mix to a smooth dough.

The kneaded ball of dough resting on a floured wooden worktop before shaping

Knead the dough on a floured work surface. If the work surface is not floured, the dough will probably stick everywhere. And then it’s a pig to scrape off.

When the dough is nice and elastic (not literally elastic, it won’t hold your trousers up), stick it back in the bowl and cover with oily cling film and leave ‘til the yeast has worked and the dough is double in size.

A long rope of dough stretched the whole length of the kitchen counter beside a floured tray

Plop the dough back onto the work surface, and knock out the air from the dough. With a lot of difficulty, roll the dough into a long sausage shape, and join up the ends to form a ring shape.

The dough rope joined end to end into a huge ring on a greased black baking tray

Place on a lightly greased and floured baking tray and cover with oily cling film again until the ring is doubled in size.

Fill a large wok with as much oil as you dare, and using a nifty cooking thermometer, heat the oil to 170 degrees C.

The dough ring frying in a shallow pan of oil on the gas hob, turning golden

Use two or three fish slices to make a lifting apparatus to lower the donut into the hot oil.

Cook until it is golden brown. I did manage to turn it halfway through cooking, with the help of some old man who arrived in the kitchen looking for his afternoon cup of tea.

Lift the donut out of the oil onto a kitchen towel covered baking tray. This absorbs all the excess oil and stops the donut from going soggy. Dispose of the oil when it is cool.

While the donut is cooling down, mix up some golden yellow icing, as gold is the pimp’s number one colour. The icing must be thick or it will run off everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Bright yellow icing being mixed with a fork in a metal bowl

Cover the donut with the yellow icing, and sprinkle hundreds and thousands, or in this case millions and billions, all over it (mmm… E-numbers).
Add some more bling. I could only find a few chocolate drops, so these had to do.

The finished ring donut under yellow icing and hundreds-and-thousands, "Mmm... Donut" piped across it

Close-up of "Mmm... Donut" piped in green and black across the yellow icing and sprinkles

Find a suitable use for some government property by using it to measure the diameter of the donut. Result? 250mm.

A House of Commons ruler held across the finished donut, its full width spanning the whole rule

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