This recipe for jelly-filled donuts makes the best light and fluffy yeasted donuts ever! They use equal parts of water and milk, so they are equal parts light and rich!
Why you will love this recipe:
These are the perfect doughnuts if you like very light and fluffy doughnuts. My favorite doughnuts growing up were always Krispy Kreme, and my goal was to get as close to their melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts as possible.
These doughnuts are also super easy to make. They just take a bit of time for the dough to rise, but other than that, there's not much more than mixing ingredients into a bowl.
You can use any jam, jelly, or cream to fill these doughnuts, but I used my favorite bourbon blackberry jam or strawberry bourbon jam.
Key Ingredients:
Milk and Water: This recipe uses the perfect balance of milk and water as liquid ingredients so that these donuts are but light from the water and rich from the milk.
Honey and Sugar: these are used to sweeten the donuts. I love using honey with sugar because honey adds a slightly deeper flavor profile.
Yeast: these are yeasted donuts and the yeast is what helps these donuts to rise. It also provides a subtle yeast flavor.
Bread Flour and AP Flour: a mix of high-protein bread flour and all-purpose flour makes these donuts chewy and a little bread-like, just like all fried donuts should be.
Vegetable Oil: these donuts are fried in vegetable oil. Use 4-6 cups and make sure that the donuts have enough room and aren't too crowded.
How to make filled donuts:
These donuts are really easy to make!
- First activate your active dry yeast with the water and milk by heating it to 105-110 degrees.
- After that, you mix in your egg, followed by all the other ingredients except the butter. Beat well, and then add in the butter. The big trick is to get the right amount of gluten. To see if there is enough gluten, take a section of dough and carefully pull it to see if it breaks right away or thins out and becomes translucent like a windowpane.
- After that, you let it sit and rise, cut the dough, and then fry them up. For me, the most intimidating part of the whole process was the frying, but it's so easy if you place each donut on a square of parchment and use that to slide the dough into the pot. This minimizes splashes of hot oil.
- Once cooled, roll through sugar and use a small pairing knife to create a hole to pipe in the jam, jelly, or cream.
The filling for these jelly donuts:
I used my absolute favorite bourbon blackberry jam, and the recipe for the jam is included in the donut recipe below. But you could use any filling you like! Store-bought raspberry jam or jelly would be incredible too; the donut is really the star of the show here.
Other donut filling options:
- Raspberry Jelly
- Strawberry jam
- Vanilla pastry cream
- Whipped cream and finely chopped strawberries
- Chocolate pastry cream
- Bourbon whipped cream
- Orange pastry cream
- My Mint Julep pastry cream from Mint Julep Cream Puffs would also be a fun Kentucky Derby treat!
Tips for perfect donuts:
- Make sure all your ingredients are room temp (except for the water and milk, which should be 105-110 degrees). If that isn't an option, just worry about the butter and zap it in the microwave for 15 seconds.
- Keep an eye on the rising dough; you don't want to over-proof them.
- Cut up individual squares of parchment paper for each donut for their 2nd rise. This will make it super easy to drop into the pot of oil.
- Sugar your donuts before filling them. The filling happens fast, and you don't want the jam to go everywhere.
- Use a small pairing knife to make an opening to pipe the filling into.
- Don't pour your oil down the sink; I let mine cool, and then I pour it back into the container.
FAQ's:
The unfilled donuts will keep in an airtight container for a few days, but they should be eaten the same day once filled. But they Are so good that is not a problem!
Looking for more breakfast recipes, check these out!
Jelly Filled Donuts
- Prep Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 6 minutes per donut
- Total Time: 7 minute
- Yield: 12 donuts 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Cuisine: American
Description
This recipe for jelly-filled donuts makes the best light and fluffy yeasted donuts ever! They use equal parts of water and milk, so they are equal parts light and rich!
Ingredients
For the donuts
- 1 package of active dry yeast
- ⅓ cup milk
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons butter softened
- 1 ¼ all-purpose flour
- 1 ¼ cup bread or strong flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ almond extract
- 4-6 cups of vegetable/canola oil
For the Jam
- 16 ounces of blackberries (fresh or frozen)
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ cup bourbon
Instructions
For the donuts:
- Heat the water and milk in a small pot until it reaches 105-110 degrees. Pour the yeast into a large bowl attached to a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. Pour the warmed milk and water mixture over the yeast and let it activate for 5 minutes.
- Whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl.
- Whisk the egg into the water, milk, and yeast.
- Add in the flour mixture, vanilla and almond extracts, and the honey to the bowl and mix until a dough forms.
- Add in the softened butter one tablespoon at a time and only add in the next tablespoon after the previous one has been fully incorporated.
- Keep kneading on the dough hook until enough gluten has formed to pass the windowpane test (see notes in the blog post) 5-10 minutes.
- Transfer to a large, lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until it's doubled in size. 1-2 hours depended on how warm your kitchen is.
- Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it's ½ - ¼ inch thick.
- Cut out circles with a 2 inch round cutter and place each donut on its own individual 4x4 square of parchment.
- Let rise again for 30 minutes.
- While the dough is rising, add the vegetable oil to a large pot and heat to 375 degrees.
- Once ready, add 3-4 donuts to the oil and cook on each side for 2-3 minutes or until they are golden in color.
- Remove from the oil and let cool on a plate lined with a paper towel. Once cooled, roll through sugar and use a small pairing knife to create a hole to pipe in the jam or jelly.
- Using a pastry bag, pipe the filling into the donuts until they are all filled.
For the jam:
- Put a small plate in the freezer.
- In a wide pot, mix the berries, sugar, lemon juice, and bourbon and set aside for about 30 minutes or until the sugar and bourbon has started to breakdown the blackberries.
- Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
- Reduce temperature to medium and simmer until mixture begins to thicken about 20 minutes. Keep stirring, so nothing sticks to the pot.
- Once the mixture starts to thicken, put a tablespoon of the mixture on the plate in the freezer and freeze for 1 minute. Test the gelling point of the jam by pushing your finger up against the cold jam to see how thick it is.
- Remove from heat and let cool.
Notes
Tips for perfect donuts:
- Make sure all your ingredients are room temp (except for the water and milk, which should be 105-110 degrees). If that isn't an option, just worry about the butter and zap it in the microwave for 15 seconds.
- Keep an eye on the rising dough; you don't want to over-proof them.
- Cut up individual squares of parchment paper for each donut for their 2nd rise. This will make it super easy to drop into the pot of oil.
- Sugar your donuts before filling them. The filling happens fast, and you don't want the jam to go everywhere.
- Use a small pairing knife to make an opening to pipe the filling into.
- Don't pour your oil down the sink; I let mine cool, and then I pour it back into the container.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 donut
- Calories: 271
- Sugar: 33.8g
- Sodium: 107.9mg
- Fat: 3.8g
- Saturated Fat: 2g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 55.6g
- Fiber: 2.8g
- Protein: 4.2g
- Cholesterol: 23.3mg
Keywords: Jelly Filled Donut
Anonymous says
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★★★★★