Crème Brûlée Donuts Recipe – No Stand Mixer is Needed (2024)

This recipe teaches us how to make crème brûlée donuts with a tanghulu-like crunchy caramelized topping and a creamy homemade custard filling.

For the donut dough: The higher the water content of the dough, the fluffier the donuts will be, it will also help keep thedonutssoft for a longer period of time.

A good news is that you can totally knead this moist dough by hand – no stand mixer is needed for this recipe.

For the creamy custard filling: We have made this classic pastry cream for our strawberry cream puffs. In this crème brûlée donuts recipe, I blended some homemade less-sweet strawberry jam into the original flavor custard sauce to add some fruity flavor🍓.

For the brûlée topping: It’s the same as the tanghulu’s hardened sugar syrup coat. You can check out my tanghulu recipe for more detailed instructions for making and testing the sugar syrup.

EQUIPMENT for making crème brûlée donuts:

• Large mixing bowl – for making the dough
• Medium pot – for deep frying the donuts
• Piping bag – for piping the custard filling
• Cooling rack – for draining the excess oil
• Food thermometer (optional) – for monitoring the sugar syrup’s temperature

INGREDIENTSfor making crème brûlée donuts:

Donut Dough:

• 1large egg(about 50g without shell)
• 145gmilk(½ cup + 1 tbsp) – You may need to increase or reduce the amount of milk based on the size of the egg. Make sure that the total weight of egg and milk is 195 grams.
• 4ginstant yeast(1¼ tsp) – Instant yeast doesn’t require proofing before adding to the dough.You can substitute instant yeast 1:1 by weight for active dry yeast. If so, make sure you proof the active dry yeasts with lukewarm milk (about 100°F) before adding the flour. (You can follow step 1 and step 2 in this bread recipe.)
• 300gall purpose flour(2 cups + 2 tbsps) – You can also use bread flour to make your donuts soft yet chewy! But do not use cake flour.
• 30ggranulated sugar(2½ tbsp)
• 3gsalt(½ tsp) – Skip the salt if you use salted butter.
• 35gunsalted butter(Room temperature softened. 2½ tbsp) – See how to soften butter in this post.
• Cooking oil (about 2 inch depth of oil in your pot)– Ideally use vegetable oil. You can also use corn oil, sunflower oil, and canola oil.

Brûlée Syrup:

• 1cupgranulated sugar
• ½cupwater

Custard filling:

• 3egg yolks
• 30ggranulated sugar(2½ tbsp)
• 15gcornstarch(2 tbsp)
• 7.5gall purpose flour(1 tbsp)
• 300gmilk(1¼ cup) – You can also use soymilk, cashew, oat milk, or coconut milk.
• 10gunsalted butter
• 150g strawberry jam (optional) – Ideally use homemade strawberry jam which is less sweet.

Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS:

To make the custard filing

1. In a bowl, whiskegg yolksandsugaruntil pale. Addcornstarchandflourto the egg yolks, whisk until smooth.

2. In a small saucepan, bringmilk(or soymilk, cashew milk …) to asimmerovermedium heat. Use a ladle togradually drizzle the hot milkover the egg yolks.Keep whiskingwhile adding the hot milk, otherwise the egg yolks might be cooked and get lumpy.

3. Pour the egg milk mixture back to the saucepan, cook overmedium heat,stir constantlywith a spatula or whisk.

4. Once the mixture turnsthickened and start to bubble, cook for 1 more minute then turn off the heat. Add inbutter, stir until well combined.

5. Transfer the custard to ashallow container(so that it cools down faster).Cover the surfacewith food wrapdirectly touchingthe custard to prevent the formation of drying skin.

6. Cool down the custard with anice bathfor about 10 minutes.

7. Once completely cooled, add the custard to apiping bagtipped with around tip. Keep the custard filling in the refrigerator until ready to use. (See Note 1)

To make the donut dough

1. Addegg, milk, instant yeast, all purpose flour, granulated sugar, andsaltto a large mixing bowl.Stir with a spatulauntil roughly combined. (The dough is very sticky now, so do not knead the dough with your hands yet.)

2. Cover the bowl with food wrap,rest the dough for 15 minutes. (The dough will beless stickyafter the resting.)

3. Remove the food wrap,add the softened butterto the dough. Use your hands toknead the dough for about 3 minutesuntil the butter is fully absorbed. Then use the “slap & fold technique” (see note 2) to knead the dough for5 more minutesuntil smooth.

4. Place the dough in the mixing bowl, cover the bowl with food wrap,rise the doughin a warm place for 1½ hour, or until it’s doubled in size. (Ideally use theproof/warm modeof your oven. It might take the dough 2 hours to rise under room temperature during winter time.)

5. Transfer the dough to anonstick pastry mat,punch out the airfrom the dough by making a fist with your hands and punching the dough to deflate it.

6. Evenly divide the dough into10 pieces(about 55g each). Knead each piece of the dough for 1 minute to removeair pockets, then roll into 10 balls.

7. Cut a sheet of parchment paper into 10 pieces of 5”x5” squares,arrange them ona baking pan. Place one dough ball on each piece of the parchment paper. Cover the baking pan with food wrap.Proof the dough ballsin a warm place for 1 hour, or until they are doubled in size. (Ideally use theproof/warm modeof your oven. It might take the dough 2 hours to rise under room temperature during winter time.)

8. Gently flatten each dough ball into3” diameter x 1” thickoblate spheroid.

9. Heat a pot of oil (about 2 inch depth of oil) to330°F. Carefully place the doughwith the parchment paperinto the hot oil, hold one corner of the paper to lift it away. Deep fry one side of the donut for2 minutes, flip and fry the other side for2 minutesuntil golden. (Usemedium low heatto keep the oil temperature stay between320°F – 340 °F.)

10. Remove the donuts with a pair of tongs, place the fried donuts on a cooling rack (put a large baking pan underneath) todrain oil.

To make the brûlée topping

1. Addsugar and waterto a small saucepan, boil over medium heat until the syrup’s temperature reaches300 °F (see note 3). (It takes about 30 minutes for the syrup to reaches the desired status. So you can actually start to boil the syrup before you pipe the filling.)

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2. Insert a chopstickinto the donut until it almost reaches the opposite side, swing it left and right to create some space inside of the donut for the filling. Insert the tip of the piping bag into the donut, squeeze about 30g custardfillinginto each donut.

3. Once the syrup has reached 300 °F, remove it from the heat.Carefully dip one side of each donutinto the hot syrup (IT’S VERY HOT),allowanyexcesssugar todripback in the saucepan (otherwise the brûlée topping will be too thick), then place the donut on a cooling rack with the brûlée side facing up.

4. Enjoy after the brûlée topping is hardened. (A successful brûlée topping shouldharden almost immediately. If the topping is still sticky after 1 minute of resting, you should boil the syrup again to make sure that it reaches 300 °F.)

Storage of Crème Brûlée Donuts

• If you don’t fill the donuts with the custard filling, you can leave the brûlée donuts in an airtight containerunder room temperature for 2 daysorin the fridge for 1 week.
• While donutsfilled with custardneed to be stored in an airtight container in the fridge, they can last for 2-3 days.

Notes & Tips for making crème brûlée donuts:

1: Strawberry Flavor Custard Filling

You should be able to get about350g original flavor custardwith the given ingredients. You can fill your donuts with this original flavor custard filling. Or if you prefer a strawberry flavor custard filling, you can mix150g strawberry jamwith the original custard.

Since the brûlée toppingis ready very sweet, I prefer thefilling to be less sweet. Generally the fruit-to-sugar ratio for traditional strawberry jams is1:1. Ialways prefer making my ownstrawberry jam with a5:1 fruit-to-sugar ratio.

To easily make this strawberry jam, we add250g chopped fresh strawberriesand50g granulated sugarto a small pot, stir until well combined. Cook the mixture over medium heat, keep stirring until the amount of the mixture has beenreduced to half.

You should end up getting about150g strawberry jam.Transfer the strawberry jam to a bowl, let cool to room temperature, then store in an airtight container the fridge until ready to use.

2. Slap & Fold Technique

The slap & fold technique is often used when the dough is very sticky and hard to be knead.

You just need to pick up the dough, hold one end of the dough, and slap the other end down to the bowl, then fold it over. Repeat for about 5 minutes until the dough turns from sticky to smooth.

3.Iced water test

If you don’t have a food thermometer, you can do an iced water test to see if the syrup has reached the proper status.

Dip chopsticks into the syrup, then dip into iced water for 2 seconds. Take the chopsticks out from iced water, taste the syrup on chopsticks tips. When it turns hard and crunchy, the syrup has reached the proper status.

If the syrup is still sticky after going through iced water, that means the syrup hasn’t reached 300°F yet. You need to keep boiling it until it passes the iced water test.

4. The white line on donuts

The white line around the center of the donut is often considered as a symbol of a successful donut.

When fried, a successfully proofed fluffy donut will float above the mid-line, so that the top and bottom parts of the donut will be fried into golden brown, with a whitebeautifulring on its waist.

If your donut doesn’t have the white line, one of the reason could be that it needs to be proofed for a longer time.

Another possible reason could be that you have flipped the donut for too many times in the hot oil. Once you put a donut dough in the hot oil, don’t flip it until the bottom side turns golden. We will fry each side of the donut for 2 minutes, which means that you will only need to flip it for 1 time! If you flip the donut too often, the middle line will also be fried and get colored.

5. Skip the custard filling and the brûlée topping

By following this recipe, you will get some fluffy, soft, yet chewy fried donuts. The warm freshly fried donuts already taste amazing when dipped into a simple cinnamon sugarmixture.

It’s totally fine if you don’t have the patience to make the custard filling or the sugar syrup. Simply mix ½ cup of granulated sugar and 1 tbsp of cinnamon powder, toss the donuts in the bowl of cinnamon sugar, and enjoy them warm!

6. How to proof dough in winter

In winter, I set my room temperature at 66 °F, which seemed to be too cold for proofing the donut dough. I left the dough to proof under room temperature for 1 hour, but it barely rose.

Then I surprisingly found out that my oven actually had a “proof/warm” mode. Yes, I had been living with my new oven for almost half year, and just found out its hidden function today.

My donut dough doubled in size within 30 minutes in the oven with the “proof/warm” mode. You can also set your oven to 100°F/ 38°C to create the ideal proofing environment for the dough.

If your oven can’t be set to a low temperature, you can place a large bowl ofboiling water by the donut dough. Close the oven door and allow the dough to proof in the warm and humid oven.

7. Punch out the air

One of my favorite steps in making crème brûlée donuts is punching the dough. This important step is not only for fun, but also for breaking the large air pockets in the dough.

After the first 1.5 hour of rising, the dough is doubled in size with lots of large air pockets inside. We have to punch and knead the dough to remove the large bubbles, so that the dough can form even and fine bubbles during the final proofing process.

If you skip the punching or kneading step before roll the dough into small balls, your donuts will rise unevenly, fall apart in the pot, and have a hollow inside.

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