00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Pumpkin Focaccia Donuts.
00:08That's right, I'm going to show you something I learned from my grandma when I was a little kid,
00:12which I'm going to put a little seasonal twist on.
00:15But anyway, growing up, anytime my family made focaccia or pizza,
00:19my grandmother would save some of the dough and then fry it up later and toss it in sugar and
00:23serve it for dessert.
00:25And it was one of my favorite treats, and I'm hoping it's going to become one of yours.
00:30And to get started, we'll put together a very simple no-knead dough,
00:33which begins by sprinkling our yeast on some warm water and letting it sit for about 10 minutes,
00:39at which point we'll transfer in some pumpkin puree.
00:42And of course, we want the pure stuff from the can.
00:44Right, the only ingredient should be pumpkin.
00:47We'll also toss in a little bit of sugar, a nice drizzle of olive oil,
00:51followed by three-fourths of what we call in the business pumpkin spice.
00:55And that's going to be some ground ginger, some cinnamon, and some freshly grated nutmeg.
01:01And the fourth spice we're not adding would be ground clove,
01:04which I decided not to include here, but of course you can if you want.
01:08And that's it.
01:09We'll finish up with some all-purpose flour and a bit of salt.
01:12And then what we'll do is take the handle of a wooden spoon and stir this together,
01:16which is going to be way easier and less messy than using your hands.
01:20But fair warning, about halfway through, things are going to stiffen up and be harder to stir.
01:25But do not give up.
01:27Just keep at it.
01:28And I promise it will loosen up.
01:30And in just another minute or so, you should have something that looks like this.
01:34And once we do, we'll grab our bench scraper, or a spatula, and we'll clean off the dough.
01:39And then we'll go around scraping the inside of the bowl to clean that up as well.
01:43And once that's been accomplished, what we'll do is cover this.
01:46And we will let it sit for exactly 20 minutes.
01:50At which point we'll uncover it and give it its first set of stretch-and-folds,
01:53which, as usual, we'll do by wetting our hand first.
01:57And we'll reach down along the side and grab some dough and stretch it up over the top.
02:03And then we'll turn the bowl a few inches and do it again.
02:06And we'll do that six or seven times to begin to build some structure in the dough.
02:10And because the dough is so wet and sticky, it's virtually impossible to knead,
02:15which is why a series of folds is going to work better.
02:18And once we've done that and cleaned up the sides of the bowl, we'll cover it again and
02:23wait another 20 minutes, and then repeat the exact same process.
02:27And by this time, the dough's been fermenting for about 40 minutes, so it's going to feel
02:31much lighter and more elastic and very pleasurable to touch.
02:36And because we should have a good amount of gluten developed by now, when we finish this
02:40set of folds, we should be able to flip the dough over, and it should come together into
02:44a relatively well-behaved ball.
02:47And then what we'll do is wrap this up again and wait 20 more minutes, at which point we'll
02:52perform the last fold, which this time is something called a coil fold.
02:56And for this one, we'll wet both hands, and we'll grab that dough on either side and lift
03:01it up.
03:02And our invisible friend, Gravity, is going to pull that dough down, and we'll allow that
03:07front edge of the dough to curl underneath.
03:09And then we'll moisten our hands and do that again, again letting that edge curl underneath.
03:15And then we'll turn the bowl 180 degrees, and we'll do one more coil fold this way, and
03:21then we'll turn the bowl 90 degrees, and do it again.
03:24And then we'll spin the bowl and do it one last time.
03:27And with each coil fold, it's going to stretch less, as that gluten strengthens.
03:32But that's good, that's why we're doing it.
03:35And then what we'll do is wrap this up and let it rest for 15 minutes, at which point it
03:40should be ready to portion and shape.
03:41But before we do either of those things, we'll take some olive oil and rub it on the work
03:46surface, and then we'll grab the bowl and turn our dough out.
03:50And then we'll rub a little bit of olive oil on our hands, and we will press the air out
03:54of the dough, which is known as degassing.
03:57And while we're doing that, we're also shaping this into a rectangle, which is going to make
04:02it easier to divide into four pieces, which I'm going to do with an oiled bench scraper.
04:07But you could also use a pizza cutter.
04:09And once we have that cut into quarters, we will cut each quarter into quarters, for a
04:14grand total of 16 portions.
04:16And do not, under any circumstances, stress about getting these perfectly uniform.
04:21Okay, I don't know how many hundreds of these my grandmother made, but I never saw two that
04:25were exactly the same size.
04:27And then what we'll do once our dough is cut, is to quickly form it into a ball shape, by
04:32stretching the dough from the top and kind of pinching it underneath, and we'll transfer
04:36those onto an olive oil baking sheet, where we will let them rest exactly 15 minutes.
04:41And of course, we can use that time to heat up our oil.
04:44And after 15 minutes, we'll dip our fingers into some olive oil, and we'll poke a hole in
04:49the center of the dough ball, and then grab it and stretch it out, into some sort of ring
04:54shape.
04:55But my grandmother always gave it an extra stretch, on the way to the oil, so that it
04:59ended up being more of an oval.
05:01So I'm going to do one like that for grandma, and then the rest into a more classic donut
05:06shape.
05:07But either way, we'll fry those in about an inch of vegetable oil, that we've heated
05:11to 350 degrees, and we will fry these for about 1 1⁄2 to 2 minutes per side, or until
05:17beautifully puffed up and golden brown.
05:20And you can certainly use a deep fryer if you want, but these are going to fry floating
05:24on the surface no matter how deep your oil is.
05:26So I'll generally just do them in a pan like this, which doesn't require as much oil.
05:31And once they're done, we'll transfer those onto a paper towel lined plate, to absorb some
05:37of that oil for a few seconds, at which point we can transfer those onto a cooling rack.
05:41While we fry the rest, and try to maintain the temperature as close to 350 as you can.
05:47Alright, that temp's going to go up as these fry, so you may have to bump the heat down
05:51a little bit.
05:52Alright, what we want to avoid, is the outside getting super dark brown, before the inside
05:56has time to cook.
05:58But anyway, I went ahead and fried the rest, at which point we'll let these cool down before
06:02we try to ice them.
06:04But before that, I'm going to grab grandma's focaccia donut, and I'm going to tear it open
06:09and enjoy it as is, mostly because I was hungry, but also so I can show you just how amazing
06:14that texture is, which is all thanks to that high hydration dough.
06:18So that was pretty much perfect, crusty and chewy on the outside, and super light and tender
06:24an area on the inside, and it tasted like classic focaccia, with a wonderfully subtle touch of
06:30earthy sweetness, from the pumpkin and those warm spices.
06:33So I was really pleased with that.
06:36And then I let the rest cool, before I ice them, with what I'm calling a hot honey icing.
06:41And yes, of course that's going to be included in the recipe.
06:44But it's nothing more than powdered sugar, some honey, a little bit of milk, and a whole bunch
06:50of cayenne.
06:51And once that's spread on, if we want, we can garnish by sticking on some toasted pumpkin
06:56seeds.
06:56And pro tip, if you want those to stay nice and green, you've got to coat them in oil,
07:01before you roast them in a 300 degree oven, for just about 12 minutes.
07:05And I'll include those instructions on the written recipe as well.
07:09Oh, and speaking of grandma, I should mention at this point, she never iced her fried dough.
07:14Alright, it was always simply just tossed in sugar.
07:17So if you'd rather do that, feel free.
07:19I mean, you are after all the Genevieve of making something so good, it's hard to believe.
07:24But anyway, she never had to worry about contractually obligated pictures.
07:28So I went with the icing, and probably put on a little too much.
07:31But no matter how you finish these, you're in for a very special treat.
07:36And don't take my word for it.
07:38Michelle called these, quote, the best donuts I've ever had.
07:41And whether you end up just making these for the family, or to bring to that holiday
07:45get-together, focaccia dough, especially a pumpkin focaccia dough, really does make a
07:51fantastic donut, which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon.
07:56So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
08:01ranfo as usual, and as always, enjoy.
