doughnut diaries (11/19/23): pumpkin brioche and vanilla bean pastry cream
It’s been a few months since I’ve shared a post about doughnuts, and I’m looking forward to taking some time to focus on a sort of…recipe development “reset”.
I put a lot of pressure on myself this Fall to blast my website with tons of new recipes. I had fun, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think I experienced any real growth after it was all done. I was playing it pretty safe, and that’s okay sometimes! But after a season of hard work, you’d hope you’d at least feel a little differently by the end of it.
Sometimes you want to stick with what you know and what’s comfortable, but after a while, to me, it becomes a bit of a waste (especially as a recipe developer). There’s more to development than just 12 different variations of the same cake recipe, if that makes sense.
So, now I’m back to my slightly uncomfortable spot again with doughnuts. Doughnuts are….perfectly imperfect. They don’t always behave, and they can be very temperamental. You can craft the most beautiful dough and have a breakdown by the fryer because nothing is going right – your dough is frying too dark, or it’s raw in the center, or there are weird bubbles forming and they look ominous and could explode at any moment.
My first test batch for these were mad - the oil wasn’t hot enough, so the dough balls soaked in tons of oil, resulting in a greasy product. I was dramatic about it, of course. But by the third try, I was feeling better about the process. And the results? Absolutely delicious.
That being said, I’m here to drop some more knowledge, tips, and whatever else the doughnut-verse wants to teach me. These fried little dough balls of joy are always worth it to me.
Pumpkin brioche sans spice
I recently posted a pumpkin concha muffin recipe on my website, and I received feedback the flavor was bland. When I asked for more detail, I learned they were expecting a pumpkin-spice flavor, rather than a pure pumpkin flavor complimented with a touch of warming spices.
These are not pumpkin spice doughnuts. I’m really not a fan of pumpkin spice at all, however pure pumpkin is okay to me!
If you’re wanting a pumpkin spice flavor, customize to your liking. I’d suggest adding pumpkin spices to the vanilla bean custard for a punch of flavor. Add the spices to the heavy cream and milk during the warming process - this is an easy way to activate the spices and infuse the custard.
These doughnuts are made with an entire can of pumpkin puree, a touch of Ceylon cinnamon and nutmeg. I wanted to do a different filling originally (salted brown sugar) but I thought that would easily overpower the pumpkin. Vanilla bean cream is the perfect companion to this fried dough.
PS my custard was a little runny because I ran out of heavy cream and whole milk. Yours will be thicker than the photos suggest, and much easier to work with. <3