Brioche Donut Bites with Chocolate and Raspberry Filling

I kid you not, these will be the best donuts you ever put in your mouth! The raspberry filled are by far my favorites of the two varieties. The Brioche dough is so incredibly tender and soft and buttery. It compliments the bright raspberry flavor perfectly. Expect everyone in the house to start crowding around to snatch up the donuts as soon as they are ready! Thank you Paul Hollywood for the recipe. I added strawberries to his recipe and a couple of small changes.

Brioche Donut Bites with Chocolate Strawberry and Raspberry Filling

Brioche Donut Dough

250 grams flour
4 grams salt
25 grams caster sugar
5 grams Instant yeast
70 mL whole milk
2 large free range eggs
125 g unsalted butter softened
Sunflower or avocado oil for frying

Donut Decorations and filling

9 large raspberries
2 strawberries cubed (about 2 grams each)
50 grams semi sweet or milk chocolate broken into 9 equal pieces
9 strawberry slices 
Caster sugar

1. Put the flower in a freestanding mixer. Add sugar and salt on one side of the bowl, and used on the other. Add the milk and eggs mixing on low speed for two minutes. Then mix on medium speed for an additional 6 to 8 minutes until the dough is soft, glossy, and elastic.

2. Add soft butter and mix for 4 to 5 minutes more, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally to get all of the butter mixed in. Door will be very soft.

3. Place the dough in a plastic or glass bowl covered with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight or for at least seven hours.

4. Tip dough onto a very lightly floured surface and kneed it a few times.

5. Divide dough into 18 equal portions. Approximately 26-28 g each. Flatten each portion with your fingers and place a piece of chocolate (I use 2 milk chocolate chips) and 1 strawberry cube in the center and then gently fold the dough up and over the chocolate, pinching the dough together at the top. Shape into a ball and set aside on a baking tray to prove for 20 minutes. make sure to keep the chocolate and raspberry donuts separated so that you will know which is which after they have been fried.  Continue flattening the dough and put a raspberry in the center of the remaining 9 portions, folding the dough over each raspberry and pinching at the top. Roll them into a ball and prove for 20 minutes. Don’t be tempted to prove more than 25 minutes or else the donuts will deflate as you transfer them into the fryer. I also think it’s helpful to slightly flatten each ball of dough after you put it on the tray so that the donuts are easier to manage in the frying pan as you flip them on each side.

6. Preheat the oil to 170°C. Lower the chocolate donuts carefully into the fryer cooking each side for about three minutes until they are golden brown. Use a slotted spoon to remove the donuts from the oil instead of side on a paper towel covered cooling rack. Continue this process with the raspberry donuts. After each raspberry donut comes out of the oil it needs to be rolled in caster sugar immediately so that the oil from the frying will help the sugar to stick.

7. To decorate the chocolate donuts, set a strawberry slice on each donut. Microwave the chocolate in small ramekins at 20 second intervals, stopping to stir every 20 seconds. When the chocolate is melted, spoon the white chocolate into a piping or a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off. Spoon the melted milk chocolate into a separate bag with the corner snipped off and then drizzle first the milk chocolate, and then the white chocolate over the donuts in a zig zag pattern. Leave the chocolate to set, and then serve.

8. To decorate the raspberry donuts, put the caster sugar in a small bowl and roll the fried raspberry donuts into the caster sugar as soon as they come out of the fryer so that the oil helps the sugar stick to the donuts.