two recipes using the same versatile dough

buttermilk glazed doughnuts and apricot frangipane buns

What I’m reading: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. I realise I’m quite late to the boat with this one but I thought it would be a good holiday read - and it was! I did find it a little slow at times, but entertaining and well-written nevertheless.

What I’m listening to: a lot of Billie Marten - specifically this album

What I’m eating: my favourite lunch every year - at Inishwallah on the West Quarter in Inishbofin (see below)

I’m on holidays this week in my favourite place in the world - mooching around between Clifden, Cleggan and Inishbofin in Connemara in the West of Ireland. The weather is (characteristically) abysmal - I missed the only two weeks of summer they got down here last month and now it’s grey and misty and wet. The craic, however, remains mighty. Sea swims, pints, bowls of hot chips and long walks leading into cosy evenings by the fire playing games or in the pub with trad music.

The recipes for this week are both based on a bread dough that I’ve been making in some shape or form for a few years now. I developed it for the toasties we used to make behind the bar at the Fat Badger before we opened the restaurant, and we still make the same loaves now for pub snacks and sometimes for little additions to dishes (chicken liver toast, trout rillettes on toast etc.).

I’ve since come to realise that this dough can kind of do it all. I’ve used it for French Toast, burger buns and, all to great success. Recently, I used the same dough to make buttermilk glazed doughnuts that we served as a special in the pub and then to make little apricot buns which was on the dessert menu on the restaurant. There’s nothing particularly complicated about the recipe: it’s essentially a milk bread which is enriched with milk, butter and egg. The crucial component is a “tangzhong”, which is sort of like a roux that you make with milk and flour, cooked to a thick paste. This gets incorporated into the dough and gelatinises some of the flour, allowing the dough to hold more moisture and stay fresher for longer. This is what makes the dough so soft and fluffy, and makes it perfect for doughnuts and the like.

You could even (if you felt like it) make both of the following recipes with the same batch of dough. Half of it could become glazed doughnuts to be enjoyed fresh with a cup of coffee and the other half could become the base for your favourite stone fruit with a secret centre of frangipane and a scoop of ice-cream on the side if you’re serving it for dessert. Alternatively, the same dough could become a loaf of soft, fluffy milk bread that you use to make a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. The world is truly your oyster. Happy baking x

recipe: buttermilk glazed doughnuts