It is common knowledge that pregnant women have cravings. Some, more than others, but we all heard stories about a girl waking up in a middle on the night craving ice-cream and cheeseburger right after. I have never experienced such a strong urge as to devour pickles dipped in a melted chocolate but I remember having real appetite for certain things. One of them was donuts.

I am a big fan of those fluffy, fried buns with variety of fillings; briar marmalade, cream or caramel… I enjoy pretty much all kinds. Maybe the weakness for donuts is embedded in my culture? In Poland, where I come from, there is one day a year, called ‘Fat Thursday’- not very flattering name for such a brilliant occasion, when we all eat donuts. On that day you are allowed to eat as many as you wish, with no remorse. As you can imagine, as I child I would eat donuts and only donuts, nothing else, whole day long.

As you grow older, you get wiser (at least that’s what they say) and learn how to tame the beast… For years I was convinced that I had mine under control, until I got pregnant.

On the day of usual celebration I came up with a brilliant idea of frying some donuts! I am not going to bore you with details of that story but let me tell you, as much as I wanted and loved them, baby in my tummy didn’t. She made me acutely aware of that. I did not want to try, smell or even hear about donuts since that day!

Everything changed when I saw recipe for these tiny, shiny bites which were almost smiling at me from the picture in the cook book. Try us, try- they were whispering 😉 Every gourmand will understand perfectly what I mean. I didn’t have a choice, I had to overcome my reluctance and make it work this time. And you know what, I am glad I did because in all honesty, they were to die for!

Having such team of sous-chefs though, it couldn’t be any different!

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Original Recipe Orange Donuts

Ingredients
For the dough:
orange zest and juice- from one orange
orange juice from the box- 1 cup
all purpose flour- 180 g
butter- 100 g
salt- a pinch
eggs- 4
vegetable oil- 1 l (for frying)

For the glaze:
glass sugar- 120 g
orange juice from the box- 40 ml
orange zest- up to you, it’s only for decoration 

Directions
For the dough: 
1. Squeeze juice from orange and top it up with orange juice from the box so you have 220 ml of liquid. Grate the peel and add to the juice.
2. Pour liquid to a medium pan, add butter and pinch of salt and boil until butter is fully melted. Add flour to the boiling mix and stir vigorously for a minute. Take the dough out of the pan and cool completely. 
3. Next, add all eggs and make sure they are well incorporated. 
4. Prepare parchment paper; cut it into 10 x 10 cm pieces. Using confectioner sleeve create round nests of dough on each of pieces of paper. 
5. Heat up vegetable oil in a pan (ensure oil level is not lower than 4 cm and temperature oscillates around 175C).
6. Dip dough nests into the oil, leaving them on the parchment paper (you will be able to take it out of pan after few seconds as it will almost instantly come off by itself).
7. Fry donuts until golden brown. Once ready, remove donuts from pan and place on a kitchen towel so it soaks in all the excess oil. 

For the glaze:
1. Pour all ingredients into a small pan and keep on fire for about three minutes, until sugar is completely melted. Dunk your donuts in glaze once still warm. Cool down before serving.

Enjoy!

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