Joy the Baker

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

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Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Have you heard about the latest trend?  Don’t say Kylie Jenner… don’t you dare.  

The latest trend has everything to do with fire, applied with intention and concentration to… basically anything and everything covered in granulated sugar.  

A few weeks ago we all pat ourselves on the back for Meyer Lemon Bar Brûlée.  We were a success and deserved the recognition.  This week we’re getting down and torchy  with crisp-sugar-topped, browned butter, soft and tender yeasted doughnuts.

Yea.  I mean… we all know you didn’t come here for bronzer or hair tips.  You came for doughnuts.  Let’s not beat around the bush. 

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes


Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Before we get started, it’s best to take a deep inhale and scream at the top of our lungs ‘DOOOUUUGGHHNNUUUTTS!”.  It’s a battle cry.  Lettin’ our neighbors know what’s up.  

Brûléed Doughnut Holes

The dry ingredients include all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, and a few dashes of ground cinnamon for dough flavor depth.  

Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Everyone needs a sunny Kitchen Aid mixer.  Buttercup yellow?  Too good. Kitchen dreams, right?  

Dry ingredients into the mixer fitted with a dough hook.  

Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Wet ingredients, one at a time.  

In with three egg yolks and the risen yeast mixture. 

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Butter is melted to until browned because we respect butter enough to make it as delicious as possible.  

Related:  How To Brown Butter!  

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Milk is streamed into the dough as the mixer spins on low.  

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

The dough will be soft and wet.  Not sticky, but certainly not dry.  

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

The mixer does all the work of kneading the dough this round.  The bottom of the bowl is scraped, a good dusting of flour on top, plastic wrap, and a nice warm place for the dough to rest and rise.  

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

A thoughtful hour of rise time and we’re one step closer to doughnuts! 

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Now we knead.  

Lightly floured.  Risen and soft.  We knead the dough into shape before rolling.  This is the softest, most lovely dough.  It’s my favorite yeasted dough.  Eggs and browned butter, too easy. 

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

The soft dough is rolled to somewhere between 1/2-inch to 1-inch thick.  

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

A 1 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter to make our doughnut rounds.  

The dough is left to rise for about 30 minutes while a few inches of canola oil heat in a medium saucepan.  

Every time I make doughnuts I insist that you make this fry thermometer a part of your kitchen arsenal.  I’m bossy.  It’s important to know that our oil is at 350 degrees F to make for golden, perfectly cooked doughnut rounds.   

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

As soon as the doughnuts come out of the fryer, they’re smothered in granulated sugar.  The hot oil will make the sugar stick, hence… fryer to the sugar.  

This would be a perfectly reasonable place to pause, look over your shoulder, and shove as many of these doughnut bites into your mouth as possible.  

But why would we stop at this reasonable place when we own a blow torch! 

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Sugar torching.  

A quality pastime.  

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

Now would be a good time to call a friend and brew some coffee.  

Life is short and these are doughnuts.  Also… browned butter + brûlée!  

Someone stop the world.  (That’s a Maxwell song… not sorry.)

Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

If your instinct is to add a cream filling to these doughnuts, thus making them Creme Brûlée Doughnuts… you’re a genius.  Get on it.  

Photos with and by Jon Melendez.

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Brown Butter Brûléed Doughnut Holes

  • Author: Joy the Baker
  • Prep Time: 105
  • Cook Time: 10
  • Total Time: 1 hour 55 minutes
  • Yield: 20 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 (1/4-oz) package active dry yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons)
  • 2 tablespoons warm water (105–115°F)
  • pinch of sugar
  • 3 1/4 to 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for sprinkling and rolling out dough
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted until browned and cooled slightly
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • About 10 cups vegetable oil for deep frying
  • 2–4 cups granulated sugar for rolling and torching

Instructions

  1. Stir together yeast, warm water, and pinch of sugar in a small bowl until yeast is dissolved. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If yeast doesn’t foam, discard and start over with new yeast.)
  2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, combie flour (3 1/4 cups), milk, butter, yolks, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and yeast mixture. I like to stir the mixture by hand, with a spatula, to loosely incorporate before transferring to the stand mixer to beat with the dough hook.
  3. Beat at low speed on the mixer with the dough hook until a soft dough forms, about 3 minutes. Add a bit more flour if the dough seems too wet. It will tend to stick to the sides of the bowl a bit, but add flour it it seems overly wet and soft. Increase speed to medium and beat 5 minutes more.
  4. Scrape dough down side of bowl (all around) into center, then sprinkle lightly with flour (to keep a crust from forming). Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. (Alternatively, let dough rise in bowl in refrigerator 8 to 12 hours and make fresh doughnuts in the morning.)
  5. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out with a lightly floured rolling pin into a roughly 12-inch round (1/2 inch thick). Cut out as many rounds as possible with 1 1/2-inch cutter and transfer doughnuts to a lightly floured large baking sheet. Cover doughnuts with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until slightly puffed, about 30 minutes (45 minutes if dough was cold when cutting out doughnuts). Do not reroll scraps. They tend to get tough.
  6. While the doughnut rounds rise, prepare your frying ingredients. Begin to heat your oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Spread sugar on a rimmed baking sheet for after the doughnuts have been fried.
  7. Heat 2 1/2 inches oil in a deep 4-quart heavy pot until it registers 350°F on thermometer. A thermometer is key for this recipe. You need to know just how hot your oil is before the doughnuts fry. Fry doughnuts, 3 at a time, turning occasionally with a wire or mesh skimmer or a slotted spoon, until puffed and golden brown, about 2 minutes per batch (1 minute per side). Transfer the freshly fried, hot doughnuts to the sugar and immediately toss to coat. Coating the doughnuts in sugar works best just out of the fryer so the sugar can stick to the hot oil. Remove from the sugar and allow to rest on a cooling rack before torching.
  8. Return oil to 350°F between batches.
  9. Once the doughnuts are all fried and generously coated in granulated sugar, using a kitchen torch to brûlée the tops of the doughnuts. Allow to cool and set before serving.
  10. Doughnuts are best enjoy the day they’re fried.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ellie Peck

    Oh my word – me and my MAJ just made these – and used up the extra bits from cutting out too, as our own version of churros. All worked as per recipe and taste DELICIOUS! We have had to move away from the kitchen so we don’t eat them all in one go! I was scared about frying them but it was so easy! We altered ours to cinnamon sugar after too which cut through the sugar a tiny bit and reminded me of child hood chelsea buns we have in the UK. Thanks again Joy!

    Reply

  3. Amber Renee

    OH MY GOSH. I love bruleed anything. Especially donuts. mmmm!

    I’m also a blogger. I blog about art/lifestyle and diy mostly. I was searching for beautiful style blogs that I enjoy so that I can expand my blog community. <3

    I'm looking for any blog-community building advice you could offer as well! I think it's more tough when one has their own domain; it's standalone from the community. I've heard of bloggers promoting content through blog listings like bloglovin', as well as sites where you can earn promotional opportunities for having good content content like Advowire (https://advowire.com//users/profile/new?referral_code=AW36707). Do you use any of these sites to promote content or to collaborate with other bloggers? Do you know of other sites/resources you'd like to recommend?

    Thank you so much for reading! Hope to hear from you. xox

    Reply

  5. debraneedles

    I never knew I would want a blow torch for my kitchen. I do now. Can I be the friend that comes over for coffee and doughnuts??? Puh-leeeeease???

    Reply

  6. Acacia

    I am now extremely hungry. I think I am going to try this this weekend. My family loves anything and everything donuts and these look soooooooo delicious.

    Reply

  7. vintagekittycom

    Doughnuts are my weakness! These are going to make me fall off the wagon! They look so so, irresistibly good!

    Reply

  10. Shantanu Sinha

    Hey Joythebaker,

    WOW! that’s really delicious.

    Can’t resist any long just having a piece of these.
    Surely not a piece, do not know how much would I end up eating.

    Thanks for having this such a delicious recipe.

    Keep blogging.

    Shantanu si

    Reply

  16. Denise

    Can the dough be made, up to the point of rolling, and frozen for a week or so? I would think so, and then defrost in the fridge overnight and bring to room temperature before rolling, the 2nd rise, cutting and frying?

    Reply

  17. Rosie @ Notes of Bacon

    I swear you do things with brown butter that make me drool on my keyboard every time! I also very much want your yellow kitchen aid – what a looker.

    I’ve never been confident enough to bake my own doughnuts so this looks like a good place to start. Delish!

    Reply

  24. sharon / tpt

    creme brulee is my #1 restaurant dessert, and donuts my #1 late night early morning stop for treat. –of course this recipe makes me very happy!!
    and . . . your #letgo video from Sunday was a brilliant light. thank you.

    Reply

  28. Paula

    Do you deliver? These look amazing and the teachers at my school would devour them! This might be just the incentive I need to get a blow torch as a kitchen tool. I just made your brown butter pumpkin scones last week and that’s what I ate all week long at work as I doubled the recipe. So much brown butter goodness!

    Reply

  29. thebrickkitchen

    Caramelizing your doughnut holes is seriously a stroke of genius – love it! Also, any excuse to use a blow torch is okay with me <3

    Reply

  31. Desha

    First of all, ‘Milk is streamed into the dough as the mixer spins on low.’ – the unintentional (?) rhyming there made me giggle:)
    Second, BRB going to buy a fryer and a kitchen torch. I’m a dietitian by day, I should not be going out to buy a fryer! Rebel at heart.
    These doughnuts look beyond amazing.

    Reply

  48. Kristina

    Oh my. These are amazing. I think I would end up sick on the floor with stomach cramps if/when I would/will make them. I would (will!) start just with one, to taste, and then end up eating a lot more.

    Reply

  51. ryehumour

    YUM! You have solved the brûlée doughnut problem that broke my heart. About a year ago, I paid too much money for a doughnut that should have been the perfect doughnut (brûléed and then injected with Grand Marnier), but it was brûléed on all sides instead of just the tops and thereby rendered unbiteable. Can’t wait to try these and redeem that day.

    Reply

  52. Sharon

    Oh, creme brulee donuts!

    Seriously think you should dump the mixer and knead the dough yourself. Think of it as the healthier option, using up some of the calories you’re going to consume as donuts!

    Reply

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