This week’s challenge for the Great British Bake Off is advanced dough. I don’t know if I’d call this advanced (as I deliberately chose a recipe without yeast!) and I’m pretty sure it’ll be rather basic compared to all the extravagant flavours and shapes on tonight’s TV show, but I fancied baking a giant doughnut, so I went in search of a recipe and adapted it a little to fit in with the ingredients I had at home! You can add other flavours such as cinnamon or nutmeg, or even cocoa powder to create different versions of this yeast-free doughnut but I went for a plain vanilla base, with a lemon icing topping. 
I love the traditional pink of a Homer Simpson-esque glazed doughnut but I prefer the taste of lemon, so I mixed up the icing sugar with lemon juice rather than water, and scattered a few sprinkles on top. I’d really rather have used rainbow hundreds-and-thousands but I didn’t have any in the cupboard (I must have used them all up in my confetti fudge recipe!)
1 cup plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, ⅓ cup soft brown sugar, 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1 large egg, 1½ teaspoons vanilla, ½ cup buttermilk (or normal milk with a splash of lemon juice) Mix the melted butter and sugar together (and try not to eat it all, even though we know that sugar and butter is the most delicious thing in the world) before adding the egg and vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder (and any other spices you want to use) and whisk until combined. Pour in the buttermilk and mix into a smooth batter. Pour into a large greased ring tin, or into small ring molds if you want to make a number of smaller doughnuts. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes and test with a cocktail stick to make sure it’s cooked inside – if the stick comes out clean with nogloopy bits, it’s done.
Mine looked rather cracked on top, but when I turned it out onto the plate, it looked smooth and ready for icing. Allow to cool completely before pouring icing over the top and adding sprinkles. A chocolate doughnut would be great with a melted chocolate topping withchoccie sprinkles or drops and I’m sure that’ll be my next bake!
My lovely melamine plate is from The Caravan Trail
I ‘forced’ myself to make this giant doughnut as part of the Great Blogger Bake Off and plenty more bloggers around the country are doing the same! Search for #TheGreatBloggerBakeOff on Twitter orInstagram to see what we’ve all been baking and to check out their recipes too.
All this GBBO activity has made me think about my own Pieday Friday recipe book that I made last year and I’ve recently looked back over it. Although the recipes are some of my favourites and work perfectly well, I’ve been cringing at the photos I used and I would definitely like to start again to create a new Cassiefairy cook book. It could be just me, but I think it’s much easier to learn how to do something by watching a video (even if it’s a short one). For instance, making my own custom recipe book seems like it would be really complicated, but then I watched this video walking me through it and it became pretty understandable. Here, check out this video about how to make your very own book with Blurb and see if you think it would get you started too. In the meantime, I’m going to start sorting through my photos and recipes for my updated Pieday Friday book! If you fancy finding out more for yourself, here’s where I found the video: www.blurb.com/book-camp-using-booksmart
