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:

batch vegan Challah Dough
1 batch homemade Cranberry Sauce
1 batch candied cranberries (optional)
1 orange
2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
3 cups powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons plant milk or plant milk plain or vanilla coffee creamer

INSTRUCTIONS:

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.
Prepare cranberry sauce while dough is rising.
Prepare candied cranberries while dough is rising.
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.
Place donuts on cookies sheets, and let rest for about 25-30 minutes. They will become bigger as they rest.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
Spread frosting on each donut and top with a candied cranberry. Store in the fridge or at room temperature in an air tight container.

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