In Hungary the carnival season (Farsang) that precedes Lent starts early January and ends mid February. During this time many fun festivities, masquerades, balls taking place in order to scare off winter and welcome spring. One of the traditional foods are these sweet doughnuts served with apricot jam.

Busójárás 2013 Mohács © Magdi Elekes

Ingredients to make about 15 doughnuts

• 600 g pastry flour
• 14 g fast action dried yeast
• 250 ml milk
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 50 ml rum (optional)
• a pinch salt
• 1 lemon or orange rind grated
• 80 g  melted butter
• 1000 ml sunflower oil for cooking the doughnuts in

How to make

1. Combine all ingredients well apart from the melted butter.  Knead for about 15 minutes to get a soft elastic dough, at the very end add the melted butter – not too hot just melted –  and make sure it gets worked in well.
   The rum reduces the amount of oil the dough would absorb during cooking making it lighter and tastes nice too,  so it’s a good idea to use if have it. (If not using a bit more milk is needed instead).
2.  Proof the dough in an oiled bowl at room temperature covered with cling film till doubles in size.
3. Place it on a floured surface and flatten evenly using your hand till its just an inch high.
4. Using a cookie cutter create doughnuts shape disks, cover and let them proof for another half an hour.
5. Heat sunflower oil in a bigger pan.  Make a dent on each doughnuts then place them into the oil the holed side down, cover with a lid and fry for about 1.5 minutes, turn the doughnuts and cook for a further minute or so without the lid this time. The oil needs to be at moderate heat, the doughnuts can burn easily on the outside.
6. Once both sides cooked, lift the doughnuts onto a plate lined with a paper towel to absorb any surplus oil.
7. Serve sprinkled with icing sugar and a little apricot jam in the middle of each doughnuts.