cranberry orange

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Vegan Challah Cranberry Orange Jelly Donuts

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Donuts how I love thee, let me count the ways….

If I were counting, I would love them a million different ways, including this one.

I make love making vegan donuts and make them often enough and my regular glazed donut recipe is DELICIOUS! I always make homemade vegan donuts for Hanukkah, but never until recently did it occur to me to try and make them with challah dough. I mean why, WHY did this revelation take me so long. They are both yeast doughs and pretty similar, but challah dough is an easier dough to make with less ingredients!

I make challah almost every week for shabbat. I make plain challah, stuffed challah, challah pretzels, challah rolls..all the challah things, but never a donut. I have never until now fried challah dough. And I am from the south and we fry everything down here.

After a week of testing various holiday challah recipe, I was honesty challahed out….I didn’t even think it was possible, but it is. I didn’t want to make another loaf of challah this week.

Never the less it is Friday and I feel like every shabbat NEEDS challah so I went to mix up my dough when it occurred to me to try and fry it up as a donut!! AND further more, try and make a Thanksgiving themed jelly filled donut on shabbat because on this particular year Hanukkah begins 3 days after Thanksgiving! A holiday donut mashup if you will.

Not that you could only eat this vegan challah donut for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah.. This cranberry orange challah donut would be good any and every day.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cranberry and orange together! It might be one of my all time favorite desserts combos. I think I love it so much because the tartness fo the cranberries offsets the sweetness of a desert and that I can appreciate. I don’t love super sweet desserts, and I want frosting in very measured portions. So this donut has now become my favorite that I have ever made, and filing a donut with cranberry is now my favorite vegan donut jelly filling!!

If you don’t want to make cranberry sauce, you can use store bought as well. If using whole cranberry sauce, make sure the cranberries are mashed up pretty well. If you don’t want the cute little cranberry on top, that Is no issue either, but candied cranberries are super easy to make and a real tasty snack. or cute cocktail garnish…just sayin.

So if you love donuts, love challah, and love all things orange cranberry, these donuts are for you. And even if you have never made or had challah, it is an easy dough that fries up to one amazing donut!

And if you are celebrating a shabbat, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, or whatever, Happy Challah days, y’all! And if you are making challah donuts just because, then happy eating!!

INGREDIENTS:

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Follow instructions for preparing challah dough but add 1 teaspoons of vanilla and zest from half an orange to the dough…follow the remaining instructions up until the first rise.

  2. Prepare cranberry sauce while dough is rising.

  3. Prepare candied cranberries while dough is rising.

  4. Once the dough has finished its first rise, transfer to a lightly floured countertop. I like to divide the dough in half and work it in two batches. It makes it easier to roll out. Roll out one half of the dough to about 1/4- 1/2 inch thick. Using a 3 inch circle biscuit or cookie cutter (or donut cutter if you have one) begin cutting circles. Repeat with other half of dough. You should get 14-18 donuts depending on cutter size.

  5. Place donuts on cookies sheets, and let rest for about 25-30 minutes. They will become bigger as they rest.

  6. While they are resting, heat 2 - 3 inches of oil in a deep skillet or medium sized pot to 350 degrees. I’d you do not have a thermometer you can poke a wooden chopstick or skewer to the bottom of the pan. If tiny bubbles form around the tip then the oil is ready.

  7. Once oil is hot, begin adding the donuts to the oil, 2 or 3 at a time. Fry the donuts for about 20 second on each side then flip. Repeat one more time. This helps them cook though and not burn. If you don't have enough oil in the pan, and they are hitting the bottom, they will easily burn. So make sure to use enough oil! If the donuts seem to browning too quickly, reduce your heat.

  8. Allow donuts to cool on a wire cooling rack, placed on top of a paper-towel-lined cookie sheet. Once donuts have cooled, use a long piping/filling tip (we used Witons 230 tip) or use a regular fat piping tip ( #12) and chop stick or skewer to poke a hole into the donut on one side. You can kind of turn the chop stick or skewer inside the donut to widen the hole. This is making room for the jelly. You want to make sure you have created enough room for a good amount of filling .

  9. Fit a piping bag fitted with a filler tip or a large piping tip, and fill with cranberry sauce. I will warn if using a filling tip the cranberry skins will tend to clog it, I had to use a skewer to unclog it every couple of donuts, a large piping tip should not clog as much but the filler tip is easy to use since it is long enough to get to the center of the donut without having to create a hole with a chopstick. Fill each donut with the cranberry sauce.

  10. Mix the 3 cups of powdered sugar with zest from half of an orange and remaining vanilla extract. Using a few teaspoons of milk at a time, mix the frosting for the donuts. I like a thick frosting that needs to be applied with a spreader. You are looking for a cake frosting consistency.

  11. Spread frosting on each donut and top with a candied cranberry. Store in the fridge or at room temperature in an air tight container.

If you like this recipe, try these:

Vegan Jelly Donut

Vegan Jelly Donut

Vegan Maple Bacon Donut

Vegan Maple Bacon Donut

Vegan Key Lime Donut

Vegan Cranberry Orange Cupcakes

Vegan Cranberry Orange Cupcakes

When I think about the holidays, I always think about all things cranberry and orange. I love sweet citrus and the bright tartness of cranberries together.

So when I recently made a batch of candied cranberries I knew I needed to come up with a delicious cake or cupcake to use them for garnish!! I mean I guess that is kind of working backwards, but this delicious cupcake was a result of that backward thinking so who cares.

These sweet orange cupcakes are filled with tart cranberry filing, topped with more orange flavor in the butter cream, and topped with a pretty little candied jewel of a cranberry. These cupcakes are so pretty and so tasty! They would be perfect on any holiday table this fall or winter, or as long as you can find fresh cranberries in season.

I used homemade cranberry sauce for the filling but canned will work just as well. I really do encourage you not to skip out on making the candied cranberries. They are great for garnishing desserts, using in cocktails, or just as at sweet and tart little snack.

Tis the season to make cranberry everything, while the getting is good so to speak!!! So go stock up on some fresh cranberries, and add these cupcakes to your holiday “to make” list! You won’t regret it!

INGREDIENTS:

  • 3 cups all purpose flour

  • 2 cups white sugar

  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • 2/3 cups fresh orange juice juice

  • zest from 1 large orange

  • 2 cups plant milk (I like to bake with oat milk)

  • 1/2 cup melted vegan butter

  • 1 teaspoons vanilla extract

CRANBERRY FILLING

  • 6 tablespoons Homemade or canned cranberry sauce

  • 1 tablespoon sugar

  • 2-3 tablespoons orange juice (use the orange you zest for the frosting)

VEGAN ORANGE FROSTING:

  • 1/4 cup vegan butter

  • 1/4 cup shortening

  • 3-4 cups powdered sugar

  • Zest from one orange

  • juice from orange to thin out the frosting

  • candied cranberries for garnish

Vegan Cranberry Orange Cupcakes Filling

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

  1. In a large bowl, whisk together dry cake ingredients. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients along with the zest.

  2. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until well combined.

  3. Line a muffin tin with 24 cupcake liners. We actually have a tin that holds 2 dozen cupcakes, but if yours holds 1 dozen, you will need to bake in batches.

  4. Fill the cups 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.

  5. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely.

  6. Make a small hole in the center of each of the cupcake. You can use a small knife or turn a large piping tip upside down, twisting it into the cupcake and puling out a perfect little bit of cake from the center. Mix the cranberry sauce, sugar and juice in a small blow. My homemade cranberry sauce is super thick. If the sauce you are using is kind of thin, you likely won’t need the juice or as much juice. You need the sauce just thin enough to pipe into the cupcake, but not too thin. Fill a piping bag, or zip lock bag with the corner cut with the cranberry filling and pipe a little into each cupcake.

  7. In a stand mixer, or using a hand mixer, cream together the butter and shortening. Add in the vanilla and orange zest. Begin adding the powdered sugar a little at a time and beat it in until the frosting is the desired stiffness. If the frosting is too thick you can use some juice from the orange to thin it out.

  8. Pipe or spread frosting onto cooled cupcakes and garnish with a candied cranberry

If you like this recipe, try these:

 
Vegan Cranberry Orange Cupcakes