Make Perfect Krispy Kreme Doughnuts with this Easy Copycat Recipe 🍩

Hi Bold Bakers! I'm Chef Gemma Stafford and this week on Bigger Bolder Baking, we are making these homemade Krispy Kremes from scratch. Here's how to do it. So Krispy Kreme is an iconic American donut and I learned about them, I'd say, a little less than 20 years ago but they're one of my favorites, I'll tell you why. They melt in your mouth, they just disappear and they have this lovely, very thin layer of vanilla glaze on the outside, just makes you come back for more. They are so delicious and there's a secret ingredient that makes them incredibly soft and I'm going to share that with you today. So the first thing we're going to do is, to make donuts, we're steaming a potato. That's right, the secret to a Krispy Kreme donut is potato. So I think they use potato flakes but we're going to do a fresh potato right now. It's a really fun ingredient but it makes them really light and fluffy. So the first thing you're going to want to do is steam a big potato for around 25 minutes to half an hour. You can also bake it, you want to get it really soft and tender in the middle. Now saying that, I'm going to go grab mine. I'm just going to take off the skin. One tip about the potato is get it cooked just before you need it. If you cook it too far in advance and it goes cold, it'll get gluey and it won't mash. And when it's hot, you can pass it through a sieve and it will go through there no problem. All we're trying to do is get the lumps out. Okie dokie, so now into our mashed potato, we are going to add in some room temperature milk, milk that's been slightly warmed. I'm going to add in an egg, a big ol' splash of vanilla, yummy, yummy, yummy. And some melted butter. And then just whisk all those ingredients together. Those other ingredients will cool down the potato. So now let's talk dry ingredients. Another key to getting those doughnuts as light as air is cake flour. Now cake flour often has a little bit of cornstarch in it which makes it extra light. You can buy cake flour in stores in America. If you can't buy it in your country, do not worry, I've got a Bold Baking Basics video on how you can make it yourself with cornstarch and flour, super easy. So we're going to put this into our mixer. We're going to add in a little bit of sugar, salt on one side of the bowl, and then instant yeast. I like to use instant yeast because it can go straight into the dry ingredients. If you use active, you're going to have to sponge it in that milk. Mix the yeast in separately, mix the salt in separately, then it can be mixed all together. So here's what we're going to do, turn our machine on to like, medium, and pour in our wet ingredients. What we're trying to do here is get this to form a ball. This dough by nature is very soft. It's just the way it is. It's the flour, it's the liquids, it's everything. So you will end up with a soft dough, but it will hold some sort of a shape. Lovely. This is going to come together and form a ball. So you want to knead this for around, you know, 6-8 minutes, something like that, on a medium speed. There you go, it's been a few minutes, so let me show you this dough. It is a soft dough, but there is structure to it, and it does hold its shape. It's not super wet. Right now what we're going to do is cover it up, and let it proof for around an hour and a half, two hours. We want it to double in size, and then it'll be ready to go to its next stage. I'm just going to pop it over here to the side and let it do its thing. So it's been an hour and a half, two hours. Look at that. Look how lovely and fluffy it is. I'm just going to put my face in there. Oh, this is why I love yeasted doughs, they almost talk to you. So here I have two pans. One is lined with parchment. I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of flour on there. We're going to put our doughnuts on there, and then I have another one, because that's going to go over our doughnuts while they're proofing. Now, I'm going to put a little bit of flour on my surface. Just go easy with the flour. Always go easy with the flour, unless I specify otherwise, and then turn out this lovely dough. Look at that. Look at that gorgeous dough. I'm going to put a little bit of flour on my hands, and then pat this out to around half an inch thick. So here I have a 3-inch cutter and a 1-inch cutter, so we're going to cut out a few doughnuts. This recipe is going to yield you around 12 doughnuts. And then cut out the middle. Save those little middly parts so we can fry those off. Put your doughnuts gently on your tray. Once you've cut out all your doughnuts, go ahead and re-roll those scraps. Cut out as many as you can until your dough is all gone. Now here's what we're going to do. Pop on that extra lid. Create a nice little warm, cozy home from them, and what we're going to do is let them proof. They're going to take anywhere from like a half an hour to 40 minutes to proof. They're going to rise a little bit. Then we're going to start to heat our oil and then fry them off. So it's been half an hour or so. My kitchen's lovely and warm. It's summertime in L.A., so I'm going to fry these off. Have a little look. You'll know when they're ready when they kind of puff up a little bit and they round on the edges. We're going to shallow fry these, so I have a nice wide saucepan here with high walls on the side, just to keep everybody safe. I have the heat on to a medium heat and a few inches, like 2-3 inches of vegetable oil in there. It's been heating up for a few minutes now. Give it some time before you start to add in your doughnuts. Carefully take your doughnuts, very carefully, because these are soft, and into your oil they go. Just fry off 2-3 at a time. They take around 2-3 minutes on each side. I have a pan here ready to drain the oil from them. You want a steady bubble there when you're doing your doughnuts. You don't want boiling. You want a controlled bubble. The aim of the game when frying dough is not to do it fast. We need these to cook the whole way through. That's why you want to have a nice medium heat on these. Once your dough is all fried off, this is when you want to dip them in that glaze. That's how you get this lovely thin shell all around. This is my favorite part of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, I think, is the glaze. It's just this lovely little bite of sweet, sugary goodness that has you coming back for more. When all your doughnuts are dipped in glaze, they are ready to be enjoyed. I know these doughnuts seem like a little bit of a labor of love, but they are well worth it. You can make these homemade Krispy Kremes from scratch in your very own home. They're a little bit crispy on the outside, like a fluffy pillow on the inside. So unbelievably soft. Check that out. This is such a treat to have homemade doughnuts from scratch, made in your very own kitchen. You didn't even have to go to the store. I know what I'm going to be doing the next time I get a doughnut craving, and it's not going to be going to the bakery. So if you're in the mood for more copycat recipes, or want more doughnut recipes, then stick around because I've got tons of each for you to watch. Thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you back here again really soon.