The Ultimate Boston Cream Donut Recipe

Recipe: Boston Cream Donuts Recipe »

These homemade Boston Cream donuts are ultra light and fluffy and filled with silky vanilla custard and dipped in rich chocolate glaze. Made with a soft brioche style dough and cold fermented for incredible flavour and texture, these bakery style custard doughnuts are definitely worth making.

About Boston Cream Donuts

Boston Cream Donuts are a classic American donut filled with vanilla custard or pastry cream and half dipped in chocolate glaze. They're based on the popular Boston Cream Pie and became the official donut flavour of Boston in 2003. My version of Boston cream donuts uses a brioche style high hydration dough enriched with eggs and butter (based on this malasada recipe).

I'll show you how to turn out donuts using this high hydration style dough perfectly every single time and you'll never be intimidated by sticky dough again! This dough keeps better and doesn't dry out as easily plus it gives you an amazing airy texture to the donuts.

Why You'll Love These Boston Cream Donuts

These donuts are incredibly light and puffy. They also have the flavour of vanilla in the dough as well as the custard.

Using a high hydration dough creates more steam when frying which expands the donuts so that they are airier and larger inside - perfect for filled donuts! A high hydration dough also absorbs less oil.

Cold fermenting is great for doughs and we do the bulk rise in the fridge for 2 nights. This means that the flavour of the dough is better and you get less "yeasty" flavour. Plus this improves the dough's texture which again helps them absorb less oil.

Cold fermented overnight doughs are also very practical because all you have to do on the day is cut them, let them rise for 30 minutes at room temperature (while the oil is coming to temperature) and then fry! It takes around 45-60 minutes on the day so you can serve these in the morning.

This recipe makes a dozen perfect Boston Cream donuts. And y'all know that it saves a lot of money making things from scratch ;) Plus you'll also get a bonus treat too because you deserve it! Read on for that...

Video How To Make Boston Cream Donuts

Video: Boston Cream Donut Recipe

Ingredients For Boston Cream Donuts

Yeast - We use instant dried yeast (just check that it is still in date). Lorraine's tip: I keep my instant dried yeast in the freezer just to keep it fresh.

Sugar - White caster or superfine sugar.

Bread flour - Bread flour has a higher % of protein, around 11.5-12% protein. This gives the donuts better structure and allows the donuts to rise high to its maximum volume without collapsing.

Salt - Fine salt.

Milk - Whole or full cream milk.

Eggs - Large eggs.

Butter - Salted butter.

Vanilla - We used vanilla bean paste but extract or essence also works.

Cornflour/cornstarch - Cornflour or fine cornstarch to thicken the custard.

Chocolate - Dark chocolate is the traditional chocolate for Boston Cream Pie and Boston Cream donuts. Use chocolate bits or chop it finely so that the hot cream can melt it easily.

Cream - Thickened or pure cream.

Tips For Making Boston Cream Donuts

1 - If the yeast and water mixture in step 1 doesn't become foamy, the yeast is not activated properly. The yeast may be either out of date or the temperature was not right (too cold or too hot). In this case, discard and start again.

2 - This dough will be very soft and in fact it is quite pourable. Make sure to place it in a very large and deep container, around 20X14x10cms/8x5.5x4inch is perfect or 3 litres/101ozs. If you don't have a big enough container, split the dough in half and put it in two containers . Don't worry about the texture, the dough will firm up in the fridge.

3 - On the day you want to serve them, take the dough out of the fridge and then cut them while the dough is cold. Place them immediately on an individual square of parchment. You will use this square of parchment to lift and fry the dough so that the dough stays perfectly round. Do not do the individual rise for more than 30 minutes.

4 - The Creme Patisserie or pastry cream can be made 1 day ahead of time and chilled in the fridge. Or you can make it that morning before you cut the dough into discs. I make it in the Thermomix so that it is easy and hands off.

5 - The dough rises for 30 minutes at room temperature and during that time I get my oil ready. I don't have a deep fat fryer so I use a cast iron pot to deep fry and let it come slowly to temperature 175C/347F and it usually takes around 20 minutes.

6 - BONUS RECIPE! You can reroll the extra dough but I find that the donuts are not as perfect as the first roll. What I usually do is repurpose it into another recipe. Roll the dough out thinly like a pizza dough, spread it with pizza sauce, grated cheese, salami, olives and onion and roll up and bake at 180C/350F for 25 minutes to make a rough stromboli! Deeelicious and that's lunch sorted!

7 - If you have a Bismarck piping tip, use that to fill the Boston Cream donuts (it has a tapered, narrow tip). Otherwise a plain #1 tip will work. Make sure that the custard is either cold or lukewarm when piping.

8 - First fill the donuts with custard and then dip them in the chocolate glaze.

9 - Like all deep fried foods, these donuts are best enjoyed within 2-3 hours of cooking them. They do need to be refrigerated if you are keeping them for longer and this will affect the texture.

Boston Cream Donuts Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 60 minutes plus 1-2 nights rising time

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Serves: 12

Ingredients Needed

For dough

• 80ml/2.7 fl oz water at 37C/98.6F
• 1 tablespoon/9g/0.3oz instant dried yeast
• 65g/2.3oz caster or superfine sugar
• 660g/1.5lbs bread flour
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 250ml/8.8fl oz milk
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 80g/2.7oz melted butter
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
• Oil for deep frying

For Creme Patisserie

• 250ml/8.8 fl oz milk
• 45g/1.4oz sugar
• 13g/0.5oz cornflour/fine cornstarch
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• 30g/1oz butter

For Chocolate Glaze

• 125g/4oz dark chocolate bits
• 90g/3oz cream

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 ACTIVATE - In a small or medium bowl, add the water and stir in the sugar. Mix the yeast in with a fork and cover. Leave for 5-10 minutes and allow to foam.

Step 2 KNEAD - In a mixer bowl, whisk the flour and salt together. Whisk the milk, eggs and butter together in a jug and add to the dry mixture. Add the foamed yeast mixture and vanilla and stir in. You will get a shaggy mixture. Knead for 15 minutes on low speed. The dough will be very sticky, pourable but smooth and you should be able to get the window pane effect where you pull the dough apart and it doesn't break but it becomes semi translucent. Place into a large 3 litre or 101oz container with lid (mine was 20X14x10cms/8x5.5x4inch) and refrigerate for 2 nights (up to 3 nights).

Step 3 CREME PATISSERIE - In a Thermomix add the milk, sugar, cornflour, egg, egg yolk, vanilla and butter and set to 7 minutes/90C/Speed #4. Scoop out into a bowl and cover with cling film directly on top of the custard. Or make it on the stovetop. Whisk the egg, egg yolk with the sugar and cornflour in a large jug until the mixture is pale and there are no lumps. Place the milk and vanilla in a saucepan and almost bring to a boil. Temper the mixture by slowly pouring a third of the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture, whisking it in. Gradually add more milk and stir. Then return the whole mixture to the saucepan and cook on low-medium heat stirring until it is thickened and smooth ensuring that the custard doesn't catch on the base or in the corners. Once it can coat the back of a spoon well, place in a wide, shallow bowl and cover the top directly with cling film. Cool.

Step 4 CUT - Cover a bench well with flour and cut out 12 squares of parchment in 2 inch squares. Take dough out of fridge and spread out with greased hands until it is around 2cms/0.8inch thick. Take a 6cm/2.3inch round cutter and flour it well. Cut out 12 rounds dipping in the flour between each cut and place each on a square of parchment. Place on a tray at room temperature for 30 minutes for the final proof.

Step 5 FRY - When your donuts have 15-20 minutes to go on their final proof, heat up the oil. In a cast iron pot add 5cms/2inches of oil and heat it 175C/347F slowly. When the oil is ready, add 3 or 4 dough rounds lifting up the parchment and placing the dough on the parchment in the oil (the parchment will separate from the dough once fried). Fry for 2 minutes on each side. Place on double layer of paper towels and repeat with the remaining dough balls.

Step 6 FILL - Place some of the custard into a piping bag fitted with a Bismarck or #1 plain piping tip. Using a sharp small knife, cut a little hole in the side of the donut and then pipe custard into the donut. Repeat with the remaining donuts.

Step 7 CHOCOLATE - Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl. Heat the cream until almost boiling and then pour on top of the chocolate. Cover and leave for 5-7 minutes. Stir the chocolate and cream together until smooth. If there are small lumps, microwave the mixture on 50% heat in 15 second bursts until the chocolate has softened so that it can be completely melted. Dip one half of a donut into the chocolate and place chocolate side up to set.

Substitution notes:

You can also use this donut dough to make strawberry jam donuts or bombolini/munkki donuts.

Personal Note

While testing this recipe I went through a lot of eggs - easily over a dozen eggs trying to get it juuust right. I wanted the dough to be delicious but I also wanted it to be light. Some donut doughs don't use eggs but in this, it gives it a richer flavour and a really nice texture.

Two boys that really loved me going through the eggs were Teddy and Milo. They both love eggs not only to eat but when I've finished with the carton I cut it in half and then drizzle it with peanut butter and give them one carton each as an enrichment toy.

But what each dog does with that carton is very different. Tiny Teddy either sleeps with the carton or gets it open and licks the peanut butter while more boisterous Milo rips the carton apart. Teddy is only about a kilo lighter than Milo but that's just his personality while Milo approaches life with enthusiasm and hunger!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like Boston Cream Donuts?