Doughnuts filled with Milk Tart Mousse

These eggless doughnuts are wonderfully light and fluffy, with a slightly crisp outside – and perfectly complemented by the delicious, airy milk tart mousse.

My mum does not eat eggs and as a result, often does not get to enjoy my baked treats. I am therefore always on the lookout for wonderful eggless recipes. My mum loves the eggless doughnuts from Woolworths and I wanted to try and create something similar for a while now.

I came across Bakealotlady’s website a while back that has a wonderful mix of recipes – many with an indian twist. When I saw her post for eggless doughnuts, I immediately wanted to try them. The have a wonderfully crispy exterior, whilst being light and fluffy on the inside.

Coincidentally, we were going on a hike (well, meant to, at least, but the weather did not play along) the next day. Ok, maybe it was not that much of a coincidence – I usually bake things to share with friends, so I do not have to eat all the testing recipes alone. A friend was joking that I should bring “Melktart” along.

Milk tart, or Melktert in Afrikaans, is a South African tart with a short pastry base, a looser custard achieved through the high ratio of milk to eggs and topped off with a generous dusting of cinnamon.

It was from this jest, that I had the idea of filling these with a milk tart mousse. I made a slightly thicker version of a milk tart filling and folded whipped cream through it. I had to constrain myself to not eat it all before filling these doughnuts. This will probably be archived as a filling which I will adapt for cakes and filling cupcakes as well.

Everyone on the hike (which turned into coffee and a walk along the promenade, due to the ominous clouds) was very complimentary about them – the only criticism being that there were too few!

I did make a few notes/changes to the recipe:

• Instead of melting the butter as the recipe suggests, I used softened butter and kneaded it in at the end.
• The recipe states that the dough should proof for between 45 minutes and 2 hours. I was about throw mine out at the end of two hours as it had not risen at all – be patient! It is currently winter in Cape Town and our home is sometimes as cold as 10 degrees C. This is a slow proof dough and may take up to four hours to double in size. Do not think you have done something wrong if it has not risen much in two hours. This will vary depending where in the world you are.
• Make sure the oil is at the correct temperature to prevent the doughnuts from absorbing too much and becoming greasy.
• Fry at most three at a time so as to not crowd the pan and lower the temperature of the oil.
• Also, listen to the recipe when it says you do not wan to keep rekneading off-cuts of the dough to cut out new doughnuts. Do this at most once. I ended up with a few wonky ones as a result (still delicious though).

EGGLESS DOUGHNUTS

I used Bakesalotlady’s recipe for the doughnuts, which may be found here. Once the doughnuts come out of the oven, drain them for a few seconds on a paper towel and then toss them in cinnamon sugar. I would say I used 200g of caster sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon (I didn’t quite measure this).

MILK TART MOUSSE FILLING

• 725ml full cream milk
• 30g salted butter
• 60g caster sugar
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• a small pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 large egg
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 Tbs cornflour
• 2Tbs cake flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 180ml whipping cream

METHOD

1. Place 500ml of milk, butter, caster sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium saucepan and heat until it just comes to a boil.
2. In a separate bowl, add the egg, egg yolks, cornflour, cake flour and salt in a bowl and whisk to combine. You can do this with a hand whisk.
3. Add the remaining 125ml milk to this egg mixture and whisk until combined.
4. Very slowly pour the heated milk mixture into the bowl with the egg and milk mixture. Make sure to add this gradually so that you do not curdle your eggs.
5. Once everything is combined, place this mixture on the stove and cook on medium heat, whisking constantly. The custard should come up to a boil when it’s ready, with a thick and glossy look.
6. Pour the custard into a bowl, cover the surface with clingwrap to prevent a skin from forming, and place in the fridge to chill.
7. Once chilled, whip the cream until stiff peaks form and slowly fold into the milk tart mixture.
8. Fill the mousse into a piping bag, make a hole down the middle of the doughnut and pipe the mousse into the doughnuts.
9. Any leftover mousse can be refrigerated and used within a week.

Recipe by adventureswithsugar.com