Festive doughnuts with rum by grandma Anica

In Slovenia this type of donuts are a symbol of a carnival that happens in February or March every year. And for me they also represent spring and childhood. Something soft, crunchy. Something you want to be filled with a lot of jam. This recipe is my grandma”s and I have been making them by it for a long time. I really like the rum part – it’s hiding in the filling and in the dough. If you follow the instructions carefully you will end up with beautiful donuts as you can see on photos.

For around 30 donuts ; Medium difficulty; Time of preparation 120 min

1 kg flour (I used 600 g of white flour and 400 g of less fine white flour.)

90 g yeast

5 dl milk

7 egg yolks

0,5 dl rum

1 dl oil *in this point my grandma said that I should put a bit more rum and less oil

1 vanilla sugar

60 g sugar (set aside one tablespoon – you will need it for yeast)

Salt (around 15 g)

For the filling:

700 g apricot jam

Some – a lot – tablespoons of rum

1. Mix egg yolks, vanilla sugar and sugar in a bowl with an electric whisk. Add oil and mix for 2 more minutes. Add rum and mix for 2 more minutes.
2. In warm (not too hot!) milk put yeast, two spoons of flour and one spoon of sugar. Mix well and set in a warm place to activate the yeast.
3. Put flour in a big bowl. Add activated yeast and mixture of eggs and sugar. Add salt also.
4. Mix for 10 minutes with electric mixer (you need to use hooks for the dough).
5. Cover the dough with kitchen towel and set to a warm place for 20 minutes. Meanwhile set your working space (wooden plates maybe) where you are going to place donuts-to-be. Prepare also extra flour.
6. From the dough for 65-70 g heavy balls and smoothen them. Place them on floured surface of your choice and cover them with kitchen towel.
7. When you will be forming the last balls the first ones should be already rising. But you can also leave them for half an hour to rise some more before you start frying them.
8. It’s really important for the balls to rise! Double in size I’d say.
9. In a bigger pot heat oil (around 3 fingers of it). I fry donuts on the smallest fire set on the low. We don’t want them to be over-baked on the outside and raw on the inside.
10. Put balls in the pot (you put them with that side that was on top while they were rising) and cover with a lid. After 3 minutes turn them around and fry for 3 minutes more uncovered.
11. When they are done place them on a paper towel because it will soak fat.
12. When they are all done and cooled down fill them with mixture of jam and rum. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar for the finishing touch.

Wise-ass corner

One time I accidentally put homemade Jagermaister in them. Try to not repeat that mistake.