Wild mushroom and thyme doughnut recipe

These are a wonderful snack to serve before a meal, ideally served warm.

Doughnut ingredients

strong white flour 250g
caster sugar 20g
salt 5g
dried yeast 4g
large eggs 2
lemon grated zest of 1/2
water 78ml
softened unsalted butter 62.5g
sunflower oil for deep frying

Mushroom filling ingredients

200g mixed varieties of mushrooms sliced finely

2 cloves of finely sliced garlic

8 stalks of thyme picked and sliced

100ml of double cream

20g salted butter

olive oil

sea salt

one piping bag to fill doughnuts

To serve

1 pot of crispy shallots

Doughnut recipe

Place all the ingredients except the butter and oil in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a beater. Mix on medium speed for 6 minutes, then scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medium speed again, adding the butter, 20g at a time, until all is incorporated. Keep mixing for 6-8 minutes, until the dough has come away from the bowl and looks smooth, glossy and elastic.

Place the dough in a large bowl, sprinkle the surface with flour and cover bowl with a tea towel. Leave to rise for 2-3 hours in a warm place, until doubled in size, then knock back. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Cut the dough into 25 pieces and roll into smooth balls. Place on floured baking sheets, leaving 5cm between each one. Cover with clingfilm and leave to prove for 2-3 hours to double in size.

Now make the mushroom filling while the doughnuts are proving. Fry the mushrooms with a pinch of salt in a large frying over a medium to high heat, do this in batches if you don’t have enough room in the frying pan. You want to reduce the cooking liquid down so the mushrooms are more intense add garlic and picked thyme. Cook for 1 minute more and add another cream to coated the mushrooms. Move to a jug and use a stick blender to puree the mushrooms to a fine puree adding more cream if needed. It needs to be stiff puree so it holds in side the doughnuts. Try the puree and readjust the season to taste.

Half-fill a deep fat fryer or a deep, heavy-based saucepan with sunflower oil and heat it to exactly 190C. Fry the doughnuts, in batches of 3 or 4, until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Check the temperature of the oil between each batch. As the doughnuts are done, place on kitchen paper to soak up excess oil, then toss in picked thyme.

Place the puree into a piping bag, using a pointy knife make little incisions in to the doughnut so you can make a hole inside to fill with puree.

Fill the warm doughnuts with as much puree as possible, top the puree with crispy shallots.

Eat them all as they won’t keep.