Father's Day Fried Pies and Doughnuts

Today is Father's Day so I prepared meals for my dad. Normally, one will make some burgers for dad or prepare a carnivore feast but you know us, we love sweets and dad do not like to eat much meat anymore so I prepared some sweet and rich treats for him.

I made some fried pies. We really love fried pies especially peach and mango but I prepared a special one this time.



The dough is spiral pastry because I'm running low on butter and I still need a pretty large amount for all other things I'm going to make including the filling for this pie. Crimping the edges is my favorite part of pie making. I think I'm pretty good at it.



These are fried coconut cream pies and these are no ordinary pies. We love coconut sweets so when we harvested some young coconuts I thought of using it in a special dessert. Instead of packaged sweetened flaked coconut, young coconut called buko with soft thin delicate sweet meat is used here and it is what makes these pies special.



The filling is a milk based custard made more special by pandan extract from fresh pandan leaves. Buko pandan is a classic flavor combo in the Philippines; if you don't like it, just use vanilla but please use buko, it;s much better than packaged coconut with superb texture and flavor.



The pastry is flaky, golden, and crispy! It almost doubled and blistered after frying in hot oil. Its slightly salty flavor goes very very well with the sweet and rich custard filling.





Here it is bitten to reveal the filling and all those succulent young coconut strips! Enjoy!







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I served the pies in the morning and for lunch, I cooked some pancit. Again! This one has chorizo, braised pork leg and mushrooms, shirmp, and veggies! Very delicious and perfect for lunch.





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For the afternoon snack, I made doughnuts. Though made with commercial yeast, the overnight fermentation and quite a bit of butter makes it really flavorful. In the hotel where I had my practicum, doughnuts that were oval were considered "rejects" because of mishandling and unfit for sale and display but I see beauty in them so I purposely made my doughnuts oval. I plan this to be a my signature shape if I will ever open a doughnut shop, so don't steal it! :P I fried them right this time and learnt that a low flame is the secret for a perfect doughnut especially for filled doughnuts where no hole is punched in the center. The inside is done and the outside is golden brown and crispy.



Coffee and doughnuts go so well together and dad also love coffee so I rolled them into one dessert, coffee doughnuts! In the hotel I tasted a fantastic coffee doughnut filled with coffee whipped cream and glazed with a caramel glazed and decorated with pastry cream. It was so delicious but it costs $2.00 for a piece! I want to make something similar  and delicious. For just over $3.00 I made 4 with an extra little one from the scrap dough pieces. The filling is a coffee custard made with instant coffee powder; if I want to be fancy, I will use my own blend of coffee beans, roast them to my preference and infuse my milk with it. Still with it's simplicity, it was better than the hotel's not because of the taste (it's on par) but because of the fresh ingredients; no doughnut pre-mixes, no powdered pastry cream that just needs to be mixed with milk and no powdered glazes!



It goes great with hot chocolate. It was rainy and windy this afternoon and it's really comforting, I chose a simple dusting of icing sugar rather than a glaze since the filling is already sweet. Still, in my case it is a cold chocolate drink made from raw cocoa liquor that is pressed and dried into cakes.


 


The crust is crispy and light that only a real doughnut can have. Some may argue but in my opinion, baked doughnuts can be good but they can NEVER match a fried doughnut!





This is a "knife and fork" doughnut so I filled them generously with the custard. If you want to eat them on the go, fill them less. The crumb is ethereal! It so soft and fluffy and light and feathery! I think it's because of the kneading, I also think that I have improved in my kneading skills; before I spend more than an hour but now it takes just under 25 minutes for the dough to pass the windowpane. This is the first bread that I sliced using my serrated knife that my dad gave me on my birthday, without it I would be in trouble. It's like magic, it effortlessly sliced the very delicate doughnut without me applying any force, just slicing back and forth like playing a violin. Thank you and Happy Father's day daddy!



Crumb: sliced and bitten!



Thank God for this wonderful day!

Happy Father's Day to my dad and to all fathers out there!

Maligayang Araw ng mga Ama!

父親節快樂！

父亲节块乐！