Wait..did you say cereal milk??
Ok, yeah it sounds a tiny bit weird BUT unless you've been living under a rock you've most likely heard of Christina Tosi, or at least Milk Bar. Milk Bar is a bakery in New York with some of the most inventive yet throwback treats I've ever had. Can it be a bit gimmicky? Yeah. But that's half the fun. I went to New York City with Will last summer, the first time he had ever been. I made sure our hotel was close enough to all of the bakeries I want us to try out, and on our first full day we trekked over to the West Village to grab some cereal milk soft serve.
I got one with everything on it - this includes pretzels and I think even potato chips (crisps)? It was an absolute delight. So, many moons later when I was practising donuts and wondering what type of filling to give, I knew that I had to give cereal milk a go.
A hodgepodge recipe
I basically smashed several recipes into one to create this. The donut dough is from the genius Erin McDowell, the custard is a creme patisserie similar to the ones at Bread Ahead Bakery and then the cereal milk comes from Milk Bar. This is a bit of a lengthy recipe and spanned 2 days so keep that in mind.
I make my donut dough the night before so it can rise overnight in my fridge. I also made part of my creme patisserie the night before too, adding the final ingredients just before I filled the donuts.
I used a large cast iron casserole pan to fry the donuts. To be honest before this I was absolutely terrified of deep fat frying, but with a casserole dish with such high sides and making sure there is no water anywhere, you should be good to go.
Recipe
Cereal Milk Donuts
Equipment
- Large Casserole Dish
Ingredients
Cereal Milk
- 100 grams cornflakes
- 825 grams cold milk
- 30 grams brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt or ⅛ if fine salt
Custard
- 500 ml cereal milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 egg yolks
- 125 grams caster sugar + 2 tablespoons
- 80 grams flour
- 200 ml double cream
Instructions
Donuts
- Make donuts following this recipe https://food52.com/recipes/28778-basic-yeast-donuts-with-many-variations Make the dough the night before.
Cereal Milk
- Heat oven to 150°Celsius. Line a bake sheet with parchment paper
- Spread the cornflakes on the sheet and bake for 15 minutes
- Let them cool completely then transfer to a large jug. Pour the milk into the jug and stir. Let it steep for around 20 minutes at room temperature.
- Strain the mixture through a sieve into a medium bowl. The milk towards the end will take a bit longer to come through, so you can use the back of a spatula to press on the cereal. Don't press too hard though as we don't want any cornflake to comes through the sieve!
- Whisk the brown sugar and salt into the milk until it's fully dissolved.
Custard
- Pour the cereal milk into a medium sized saucepan and add the vanilla extract. Bring to the boil slowly.
- In a separate bowl, place the egg yolks and the 125g of sugar and mix for a few seconds. Then, add the flour and mix again.
- Pour the milk (which should just be beginning to boil) over the egg mixture, whisking to prevent curdling, then return the whole mixture to the saucepan. Cook over a medium heat, constantly whisking for 5 minutes. It should become very thick, but make sure to keep whisking so it doesn't burn.
- Pass this thick mixture through a sieve into a bowl. Place a sheet of clingfilm on the surface so it doesn't form a skin. Leave to cool completely, then put in the fridge overnight.
- The next day, once your donuts have been fried, roll the donuts in sugar (while still hot or it won't stick!) and then allow them to cool.
- Whip the double cream and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a free-standing mixer until you get medium peaks. This takes about 3-4 minutes.
- Fold this mixture into the chilled custard. This takes a few minutes and will at first look a bit chunky, but keep folding and mixing until it smoothens out.
- Transfer mixture to a piping bag with a sharp tip. Take a sharp knife or chopstick to make a hole into each donut, and pipe custard in. You'll want to keep piping in until you can feel the skin of the donut is starting to stretch!
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