Hanukah Cookout Part III

I was always brought up to waste not, want not and after the sfinge I still had half a packet of yeast left over. So I decided to try my hand at making doughnuts (No insanity does not run in my family) 

I didn't have any particular recipe in mind so I turned to my favourite solution - the internet. 

I found several interesting recipes which didn't require yeast and they will be saved for later. However most yeast doughnuts seemed essentially the same and I decided to follow this one.

3 cups of flour seemed a little excessive to me and in fact, when I mixed up the dough 2½ cups was more than enough.

I left the dough to leaven but there was a problem. Although Israel is in the middle of winter, we live in a well-insulated apartment and as we hardly suffer the sub-zero temperatures we having no need for any form of central heating. This means that while our flat is not cold for a human being in a warm sweater it is a little chilly for yeast doing it's darnedest to leaven. Especially when it's a cloudy day and there is no sunbeam to lie in. What I mean to say is that the yeast didn't seem to active.

Meanwhile I decided that the lady I was visiting

 later that afternoon would appreciate something sweet and fluffy - Chocolate Mousse.

Chocolate Mousse is one of my standard recipes because it is easy to remember and the ingredients can almost always be found in my kitchen.

It is also popular with my guests, though its popularity can lead to its downfall as making enough can be an expensive proposition! 

Chocolate Mousse

4oz (125g) bittersweet chocolate

4 eggs

Melt chocolate in a bain-marie or in the microwave. Cool.

Separate eggs. Beat whites until stiff. Beat yolks until thick and creamy. 

Mix chocolate into yolk mixture, stirring thoroughly so the warmth of the chocolate doesn't cook the egg... When chocolate is mixed into yolk so there are no streaks of colour carefully fold in egg whites. Mix carefully until there are no streaks of colour.

Chill in fridge for a couple of hours. It may be necessary to padlock the fridge door.

As far as possible I like to make my cakes and desserts non-dairy as I make them for Shabbat and holiday meals which are normally meat. However if you are eating dairy or keeping kosher does not play a part in your lives the yield of this recipe can be almost doubled by adding cream. It also makes it, surprisingly, less rich.

Take 4floz (125ml) of whipping cream, beat it until stiff and then add it to the chocolate mixture before the egg whites.

After that short chocolaty interval, back to the doughnuts.

Actually it was a good thing I had been nibbling (well I call it nibbling...:0) on some mood uplifting chocolate because my dough hadn't uplifted much at all.

Despite that fact, the dough still seemed quite light so I fired up the fryer.

I rolled two walnut sized balls of dough and dropped them in the oil. The seemed to brown much more quickly than the sfinge and, as I suspected, when I performed the obligatory taste test the centre wasn't properly cooked. 

I turned the fryer to its lowest temperature setting and tried again. After a second taste test, and this time I was also joined by my daughter, I concluded that the problem had been solved.