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French Crullers, Gluten-Free
Yield: 10-12 doughnuts
NOTE: These are piped using a pastry bag and a number #827 tip
Ingredients
For the Crullers
6 tablespoons butter (3/4 stick; 85 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup (235 ml) water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup (175 g) Jeanne’s Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour mix
3 whole extra large eggs 2 extra large egg whites
Oil for frying (I use Rice Bran oil, but you can use canola or another high heat oil)
Extra melted butter for greasing the aluminum foil
For the Glazes
Chocolate Glaze
1/4 cup (55 g) unsalted butter
1/3 cup (2 oz; 55 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 or more tablespoons hot water
1 cup (140 g) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1-2 tablespoon hot water
Melt butter and chocolate together in a small, heavy bottomed saucepan. Remove from heat. Whisk in vanilla and confectioner’s sugar. Whisk in 1 tablespoon hot water until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, whisk in another tablespoon of hot water.
Coffee Glaze
1/4 cup (60 ml) heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso granules (decaf is fine)
2 cups (280 g) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
In a medium bowl, whisk together whipping cream and vanilla extract. Add coffee granules. Whisk in confectioner’s sugar until smooth.
Maple Glaze
Same ingredients and method as Coffee Glaze, but substitute 2 teaspoons maple extract for the coffee granules.
Vanilla Glaze
1/4 cup (60 ml) milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (280g) powdered (confectioner’s sugar), sifted
In a large bowl, whisk milk and vanilla extract together. Add confectioner’s sugar and whisk until smooth.
To make the crullers
In a medium-sized heavy bottomed pan, place water, butter, salt, and sugar. Bring to a rolling boil over medium high heat. Add vanilla extract. Reduce heat to medium low and add flour all at once. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes. The mixture will be sticky and hard to stir–just keep doing it the best you can, making sure that all parts of the dough hit the bottom of the pan.
After 3 minutes, remove from heat. Dump the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment Mix dough on medium high until all of the steam has been released from the dough (about 1 or 2 minutes). It will look like greasy Play Doh.
Once all of the steam has been released from the dough, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing a bit between each addition. Add egg whites, one at a time, mixing between each addition. At this point your dough will look like a lumpy mess. Don’t worry–it’s supposed to look this way.
Mix the dough on medium high for a couple more minutes until the dough is smooth and shiny and looks nice–like you’d expect dough to look.
Line a large baking sheet with paper towels. You will use this to drain the fried crullers. Place a wire cooling rack over another large baking sheet. You will place your glazed crullers on this to set.
Place 4 inches of oil into a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Place a candy thermometer in the oil to gauge the temperature. Let the oil temperature reach 350 degrees F/180 degrees C before starting.
While your oil is heating, prepare your dough to be piped. First, grease a large sheet of aluminum foil with the additional melted butter. You will pipe your crullers onto this.
Fill your pastry bag fitted with your star tip with dough. Pipe circles that are about 3 inches in diameter and with a 1 inch middle hole onto your greased aluminum foil. Repeat process until you’ve used all of your dough.
Now cut out the aluminum foil around each piped cruller. You will be dropping each cruller, on its piece of aluminum foil, into the oil. The foil will detach from the cruller as it fries in the oil. Once it is detached, you can remove it with a pair of metal tongs.
Once the oil has reached 350 degrees F, carefully and gently slide individual crullers into the oil, aluminum foil and all. Make sure that each cruller has room to cook and that the oil isn’t too crowded. The pan I use accommodates 3 crullers at a time in the oil. I find that the aluminum foil releases most quickly when I place the crullers into the oil dough-side down–although you will be turning the dough in the oil as it cooks, so it doesn’t really matter what side is down at first. The aluminum will detach anytime from right away to a few minutes into frying time.
With a pair of metal tongs, carefully remove the aluminum foil pieces from the oil as they release from the crullers. I keep a bowl that I keep next to the stove that I put them in during this process. Work very carefully–-the oil is very hot.
Cook the crullers, turning each in the oil every minute or so, for 6 to 10 minutes–until they are uniformly golden brown all over. They will expand to about 2 times their original size. You will find that many of your crullers will crack as they cook because they expand so much–don’t worry about this, the cracked part will just cook in the oil.
With a pair of metal tongs, remove each cruller from the oil after it has cooked for 6 to 10 minutes and is uniformly golden brown. As you remove each cooked cruller from the oil, place it on the paper towel-lined cookie sheet to drain. They will be amazingly light.
During this process, monitor your oil so it maintains a temperature of between 350 degrees F and 360 degrees F. Let the oil come back to temperature after frying each batch of crullers.
After you have fried all of your crullers, remove oil from heat and let it cool completely before disposing of it.
While the crullers are cooling, make your glaze(s).
After the crullers have cooled, glaze them with the glaze of your choice. Dip the top of each cruller into the glaze. Set the glazed cruller on a wire rack, glaze side up, for the glaze to set.
The crullers are best eaten the day they are glazed. If you want to serve them the next day, wait until the day you eat them to glaze them. The glaze will begin to re-liquefy and ooze off of the crullers if you store glazed crullers in a sealed environment like a Tupperware container.
Store, unglazed, in a paper bag for up to 3 days at room temperature.