Baked apple and maple doughnuts

One of the many things I loved about NY was the food: I ate wonderful things in several places, and brought home some great ingredients, too; I had many, many addresses on my list and unfortunately couldn’t go to all of them, and one of those places was the Doughnut Plant – my plan was to try their crème brûlée doughnut, but that will have to be done on my next trip to NY.
While that doesn’t happen, I made doughnuts at home – a very nice baked version I found in the glorious Gourmet Traveller.

Baked apple and maple doughnuts
from the beautiful Australian Gourmet Traveller

Dough:
5 1/3 cups (745g) all purpose flour
2/3 cup + 1 tablespoon (145g) granulated sugar
2 ¼ teaspoons (7g) dried yeast
1 cup (240ml) lukewarm whole milk + a bit extra for brushing
1/3 cup (80ml) buttermilk*
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, melted

Apple-maple filling:
2 Granny Smith apples, cored and coarsely chopped
½ cup (120ml) maple syrup
½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (60ml) water
juice of 1 orange
juice of 1 lemon
2 cinnamon quills

For assembling:
½ cup (113g/1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar combined with 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine flour, sugar and yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and mix to combine. In another bowl, whisk together milk, buttermilk, eggs and butter. With motor running, add milk mixture and mix on medium speed until dough is smooth and elastic (4-5 minutes). Form into a ball, place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place until double in size (1-1½ hours).
Meanwhile, for apple-maple filling, combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and stir over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then cook over medium heat until apple is tender and liquid is syrupy (about 10 minutes), then cool completely.
Line two large baking sheets with foil.
Knock down dough, turn onto a lightly floured work surface and roll to 5mm thick. Using an 8cm-diameter cutter, cut 24rounds from dough (re-roll scraps if necessary). Place half the rounds 5cm (2in) apart on the prepared baking sheets and place a heaped teaspoon of apple-maple filling in centre of each (try to remove the excess syrup from each portion of filling before placing it onto the dough). Brush edges with milk, cover with the remaining dough rounds and press to seal edges well. Trim edges by cutting with a 7cm-diameter cutter. Cover with a tea towel and stand in a warm place until risen (1-1½ hours).
Preheat oven to 190°C/375°F. Brush doughnuts with milk then bake until bottoms are just golden (8-10 minutes). While the doughnuts are still hot, dip them in the melted butter, toss in the cinnamon sugar and serve with maple syrup and any leftover apple/syrup mixture.

* homemade buttermilk: to make 1 cup buttermilk place 1 tablespoon lemon juice in a 240ml-capacity measuring cup and complete with whole milk (room temperature). Wait 10 minutes for it to thicken slightly, then use the whole mixture in your recipe

Makes 12 – I halved the recipe above, used 8cm and 7cm cutters and still got 12 doughnuts