Lemon Filled Donuts Recipe

This delicious lemon filled donut recipe is home made donuts and homemade lemon curd. It's good to make the curd ahead of time so it can cool.

Ingredients

Donuts
2 envelopes active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
1/2 cup graulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter
5 cups all purpose flour
1 quart oil for frying (make sure it has a high smoke point)

Lemon Curd; you can purchase pre-made or make it yourself.

Lemon Curd
1/4 cup fresh lemon zest we used 3 large lemons to make the zest)
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks
6 Tablespoons butter (3/4 stick), cut into 6 pieces , at room temperature
Makes about 1 1/2 cups of curd

granulated sugar for dusting sugar for dusting

Directions

DONUTS

Place active yeast to warm water, give a quick mix and set aside. Mix together all ingredients together. Once a dough has formed, you will need to knead for about 5 - 10 minutes. You should be able to pull at dough and it not tear right away. Cover this a cloth, and let sit for about 30 minutes to an hour. Punch out the air and roll out to about a 1/4 inch. Cut out shapes as close to each other as possible, you can re roll out excess dough and cut out more, until all the dough is used.

Heat oil to about 375F.

Fry donuts, for about 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Set on paper towel, to soak up excess oil.

Put lemon filling in a pipping bag, with a round tip. Poke a small hole in the side of donut and pipe the lemon in the middle of donut.

Putting sugar in a sieve, dust over donut and on both sides.

LEMON CURD

Zest your lemons.

Squeeze the lemons.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. You only need the yolks for this recipe.

In a heat proof bowl, combine the lemon zest, juice, sugar and salt and stir together.

Select a pan to fit the heat proof bowl and put about two inches of water in it. Bring it to the boil, then turn it down to simmer.

Put the heat proof bowl with ingredients already in it into the pot with the heated water.

Whisk in the egg yolks.

Let this cook for about 7-10 minutes, whisking while it is cooking. Once the mixture thickens you can remove it from the hot water pot.

Whisk in the butter pieces, one at a time until all the butter is in the curd.

Your curd can now be transferred to a container.

If you do not like the texture of the zest in the curd, you can put the curd through a strainer to remove it. We happen to like the texture so we leave it in.

Keep the lemon curd refrigerated. The curd is now ready for you to use with other recipes.