Fried Milk Doughnuts
Whenever I’m at a Cantonese restaurant for dim sum, I always look for one very specific item - 炸鮮奶, or quite literally, fried milk. It’s a traditional Cantonese dish of piping hot, deep-fried milk pudding chunks, dusted in crunchy granulated sugar but served usually as a savoury dish. Growing up, these were the highlight of a Sunday lunchtime yum cha. The hidden dessert dish amongst towers of baos and dumplings, 炸鮮奶 are filled with velvety smooth milk pudding so delicate that it nearly bursts out of its paper thin batter shells. It’s nothing short of an edible magic trick.
The magic has slightly worn off now (turns out cornstarch does wonders), but the secret to that lightly sweet, and very creamy flavour is to use three different types of milk - milk, evaporated milk and condensed milk, all of which are key to Hong Kong Cantonese cuisine. At times though, lactose intolerance gets the better of most of us - so to make this a little more East Asian gut-friendly, these 炸鮮奶 are getting wrapped up in doughnut dough. I promise you’ve never had doughnut holes quite like this :)
Ingredients:
For the milk pudding
500ml milk
100ml evaporated milk
25g condensed milk
40g sugar
75g corn starch
For the doughnuts
125ml lukewarm evaporated milk
50g melted, unsalted butter
7g dried instant yeast
60g caster sugar
275g all purpose flour
1 egg
For dusting
1/4 cup of granulated sugar (adjust as needed)
3 tablespoons of cinnamon (adjust as needed)
Milk pudding:
First, prepare the milk pudding. Start by whisking the milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, sugar and corn starch together, until fully combined.
Melt a knob of butter in a saucepan on medium low heat, then add the milk mixture to the saucepan whilst stirring slowly.
Cook the milk mixture (whilst rapidly stirring), until it reduces and solidifies into a jelly-like mass.
Tip the milk "jelly" out into a greased container (glass or metal work best!) and let it cool in the fridge for a few hours until set.
Cut the milk jelly into cubes - if you’re frying these, just dip the cubes into your favourite light batter before frying for a few minutes.
Doughnuts:
Mix the evaporated milk, melted butter, yeast, and a few teaspoons of the sugar together, and let this sit for 5 minutes until the mixture is frothy and foamy.
Whilst waiting for the yeast mixture to become frothy, combine the rest of the sugar and flour in a bowl, and whisk together.
Add the flour-sugar mix into the bowl with the yeast mixture, along with one egg, and knead on medium-low speed for 5-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. When poked, the dough should gently bounce back, leaving a slight indentation.
Remove the dough from the bowl, and lightly grease with non-stick spray or vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and let it rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about 1-2 hours.
To assemble - first, gently punch the dough to push out any big air bubbles. Take a small piece of dough and stretch it out gently to flatten. Place one cube of milk pudding in its centre, and pull the edges of the dough over to wrap up the milk pudding. Set aside the doughnut hole to rest, seam-side down, overnight in the fridge. Repeat with the remaining doughnut dough and milk pudding.
When you’re ready to cook, gently brush each doughnut hole with a little oil (or alternatively, spray), before air frying them at 180°C for 5-6 minutes, or until golden.
Remove from the basket, and whilst the doughnut holes are still warm, roll these gently in a mixture of granulated sugar and cinnamon. Serve on the same day.