FTF: Healthy Doughnuts

Who wouldn't want to take a bite of a freshly fried doughnut? But what if I told you that my doughnuts are made with a special ingredient, would you dare? I have been a fan of doughnuts (especially when served with free-flowing coffee!) ever since. So I could definitely tell you that I have noticed how their size and quality have dropped over the years. And this is the reason why I started to look for the best donut recipe. I wanted my kid to savor doughnuts the way it should.

So what is the special ingredient, you might wonder. The lowly potato has been boiled and then mashed and mixed in with the other ingredients. I have read on somewhere that adding in potato flour to the dough will give it a soft and moist finish product. I could not find any potato flour or starch in the market so what I did was mash a medium sized potato and mix it to the other ingredients. The result was great! You could not even tell that there was potato on these doughnuts. The kid loved it and that makes me a happy mom.

Ingredients:
1 medium sized potato, baked and mashed,
2 cups bread flour + some more for kneading
1 cup milk warmed
5 teaspoons yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups oil for frying + 2 tablespoons to be added to the dough

1. Put the yeast in the warmed milk. Make sure that the milk is not hot as this could "kill" the yeast. If the milk is too cold then it will not bloom. If you are going to use a cooking thermometer, milk should be warmed anywhere in between 80 to 95 F.
2. Poke the potato and then bake in the oven or pop in the microwave for 4 minutes. Once this is cooled, mash then set aside.
3. In a bowl, mix flour, potato, sugar and salt.
4. Add milk-yeast mixture and about 2tablespoons of oil. Mix until well blended.
5. Rest dough for about five minutes.
6. Generously sprinkle flour on the kneading surface and then roll dough to about 1/2 inch thick.
7. Cut dough using cookie cutters. To make the hole, I use the cap of a bottle.
8. Heat oil to 375 F then fry doughnuts.

Our family enjoyed the doughnuts with chocolate and honey glaze. But they are great as they are, plain and simple. But for me, this is best served with home brewed Batangas coffee.