The Art of Cooking with Unconventional Ingredients: A Journey with Irish Potato Donuts

As we embarked on our culinary adventure, we discovered that sometimes the most unexpected ingredients can lead to truly remarkable creations. In this case, our journey began with an intriguing concept - potato donuts. Yes, you read that right - potatoes in donuts! It may sound unusual, but trust us, it's a game-changer.

We learned that the Irish have been using potatoes in their baked goods for ages, not just as a filler to keep them tender and shelf-stable, but also to enhance the flavor and texture. The idea of incorporating mashed potatoes into our donuts was met with skepticism at first, but we were eager to give it a try. And boy, are we glad we did! The addition of mashed potatoes added a unique layer of complexity to our donuts, making them both fluffy and tender.

One of the most significant advantages of using mashed potatoes in our donuts was their ability to absorb excess moisture. In traditional donut recipes, this can often lead to a dense or soggy texture. However, by incorporating the starchy potato into our batter, we were able to achieve a light and airy consistency that's hard to resist. And let's not forget about the added bonus of extended shelf life - a crucial consideration for any baker.

As we explored the world of Irish potato donuts, we discovered that they're not just limited to plain old sugar and cinnamon. Oh no! The Irish have a rich tradition of experimenting with flavors and combinations, from sweet treats like chocolate orange to savory delights like chili or herbs. Who knew that lavender could complement chocolate so beautifully? The possibilities are endless, and we can't wait to try them out.

Now that we've mastered the art of making potato donuts, it's time to put our newfound skills to the test. We're cooking in a field on the Irish Coastline, where the rain is pouring down and the wind is howling. But despite the challenging conditions, we're determined to produce some amazing treats. And boy, are they worth it! Our potato donuts are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and infused with just the right amount of sweetness.

As we worked in the field, we couldn't help but feel a sense of camaraderie with our Irish counterparts. We were cooking in a completely different environment, using ingredients that might seem strange to those not familiar with them. But in the end, it was all about embracing the unknown and having fun. And trust us, our potato donuts are worth trying - whether you're from Ireland or just visiting.

So, what's next for us? Will we be adding more unconventional ingredients to our repertoire? Absolutely! We've already started brainstorming ideas for future recipes, from savory pies filled with mashed potatoes to sweet treats that incorporate the richness of Irish cream. The possibilities are endless, and we can't wait to see where our culinary journey takes us.

As we wrapped up our cooking session in the field, we couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. We'd faced challenges head-on, adapted to new ingredients, and produced some truly remarkable donuts. And even though it's been raining all day, we knew that our treats would be worth the wait - warm, delicious, and infused with just the right amount of magic.

As we gazed out at the rain-soaked Irish landscape, we couldn't help but feel grateful for this unexpected culinary adventure. Who knew that a trip to Ireland would lead us to discover the joy of cooking with potatoes? Certainly not us, but now it's hard to imagine going back to traditional donut recipes ever again.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday we're outside cooking in the beautiful Irish Countryside thanks to your requests Tesco took us to Ireland where we met some great chocolateers to learn how the magical stuff gets made now we're knocking up six delicious chocolate recipes recommended of course by you so let's talk chocolate it's finally happened an outside video on the beautiful Irish Countryside I mean what a backdrop um hopefully that you you still will be able to concentrate on this incredible chocolate donut recipe and what Ben is about to deliver which is a chocolate donut recipe with mashed potato we're in Ireland and we thought we've got to give it an Irish twist so potato in cake is an old tradition and one we're going to do right now so we're going to make a doughnut batter first but it's not like a a yeasty bread batter it's more like a cake dough so all of our sugar going in there not from too much of a height or it blows right the FI so sugar butter butter now this was softened butter when you step outside it solidifies quite a lot so you're going to have to beat that together and cream it all together when you say you you're talking about me aren't you yeah you get cold if you don't use some work all right and to that we're going to add both eggs so it's two eggs sugar and butter you will need the weights and measures they will all be available in the link down below yeah this is a brick of butter Irish butter beautiful butter so basically beating together until it's nice and smooth and then we can add in everything else you can see they're all really simple store cut ingredients the exception of mashed potato so this morning when I got up peeled some spuds boiled them um and mashed them add nothing so not salt no added butter or milk like you would mashed potato this is just very flowy potato the thing I like about um the Irish and potatoes is how they pronounce them we call them potatoes they they take the tea and sort of tur it into a d and so it's potatoes potatoes it just flows off the tongue really it's lovely so what we're going to do is add in our flour next half the flour with the buttermilk and buttermilk another ingredient that isn't always that easy to get back at home you can get it from supermarket and stuff slightly soured milk but in Island they use an awful lot more in soda bread and baking so much easier to get hold of an island than actually back home everywhere isn't it we've made potato donuts once before ring Donuts long time ago and the potato keeps it fluffy doesn't it it's a really lovely batter um Mak a fluffy batter it's a fluffy it's described as tender now I wouldn't have used tender as a word to describe cake but basically the Irish put potato into cakes to keep it tender and to keep it shelf life so it extends the shelf life M there's lumps in this just bit elb and bit less moaning I'm honest okay here's me not moaning and there's your elbow greas I'll add this the cocoa can also go in so if you can just put the cocoa in brilliant fantastic thank you so we have made potato donuts before but never with chocolate you guys suggested it uh as chocolate donuts and we thought we'd up It Again by putting in mashed potatoes with chocolate mashed potato donuts all going in there flowy Mash along with the rest of our flour as well it's good that this is relatively simple if we can do it in the middle of the field you guys can do it in your kitchen yeah definitely and you'll look at it and you'll think that's not a dough it will look more like a cake batter okay but you do then have to just let it rest and let it do its magic and it kind of sets up in the fridge when I was mashing potatoes this morning mhm I also made a batch of this a couple of hours ago and it's been in the fridge setting up so I can now swap it for this one you see brilliant here's one I did earlier and that's it so it's a lot more solid now the butter and egg have set back up we can make ourselves some room and we're going to roll out Donuts you might want a handful of flour just kind of just to just to flour your hands and then just take small really small pieces you want a really small piece and then just roll it if you make them too big then as they go into the oil they kind of explode so you're better like that so they're better off being really small and dainty and they do expand because of the self-raising flour is that a spot of rain I think it might I think I just felt the first spot of rain hurry up quick quick there we go you keep rolling them and I'll get our oil ready so over here we've got vegetable oil in a pan Which I'm just going to heat up and we're looking for 155 160° C okay so quite low cuz they need to cook nice and slow you can add other flavors to this we've speaking to chocolate all week and they're all talking about combinations of chocolate and flavors you can put some cinnamon in here chili you could put some chili in here you put some orange zest chocolate orange always a great who we talking to that was talking about um th in chocolate Ben was he was saying herbs so time lavender things like that great with chocolate at this point we can start to lower a few of these into our oil they need to Bubble away for about 3 or 4 minutes turn them and move them in the pans they go nice and golden they will expand they'll fluff up then we can take them out drain them on kitchen roll and toss them in cinnamon sugar which would be amazing while they're still warm delicious how long do these get left for 3 to 4 minutes let's see if we can stand the rain until then at least the donuts are dry e in that wet oil Thanks James you're welcome so 3 or 4 minutes scoot them out drain them on kitchen roll and then what we got here is Casta sugar slightly damp with a little bit of cinnamon and that's an amazing flavor that I cannot wait inside and eat these we got a copy of the Irish Times here so fantas it's been a very different approach to cooking I've enjoyed it believe it or not but if we can cook in a field on the Irish Coastline in the rain and still produce amazing chocolate dut nuts with mashed potato then so can you cuz they are seded quick taste one while they're still warm while they're still warm are you having a laugh oh man they're good they so fluffy on the inside B One open Super spongy and fluffy on the inside it is been fun isn't it TR for you you've got a jumper a jacket a kidding it's up in in the same temperature and it's still raining out here with you who' have thought it potato chocolate and donuts potato potato about to rain againtoday we're outside cooking in the beautiful Irish Countryside thanks to your requests Tesco took us to Ireland where we met some great chocolateers to learn how the magical stuff gets made now we're knocking up six delicious chocolate recipes recommended of course by you so let's talk chocolate it's finally happened an outside video on the beautiful Irish Countryside I mean what a backdrop um hopefully that you you still will be able to concentrate on this incredible chocolate donut recipe and what Ben is about to deliver which is a chocolate donut recipe with mashed potato we're in Ireland and we thought we've got to give it an Irish twist so potato in cake is an old tradition and one we're going to do right now so we're going to make a doughnut batter first but it's not like a a yeasty bread batter it's more like a cake dough so all of our sugar going in there not from too much of a height or it blows right the FI so sugar butter butter now this was softened butter when you step outside it solidifies quite a lot so you're going to have to beat that together and cream it all together when you say you you're talking about me aren't you yeah you get cold if you don't use some work all right and to that we're going to add both eggs so it's two eggs sugar and butter you will need the weights and measures they will all be available in the link down below yeah this is a brick of butter Irish butter beautiful butter so basically beating together until it's nice and smooth and then we can add in everything else you can see they're all really simple store cut ingredients the exception of mashed potato so this morning when I got up peeled some spuds boiled them um and mashed them add nothing so not salt no added butter or milk like you would mashed potato this is just very flowy potato the thing I like about um the Irish and potatoes is how they pronounce them we call them potatoes they they take the tea and sort of tur it into a d and so it's potatoes potatoes it just flows off the tongue really it's lovely so what we're going to do is add in our flour next half the flour with the buttermilk and buttermilk another ingredient that isn't always that easy to get back at home you can get it from supermarket and stuff slightly soured milk but in Island they use an awful lot more in soda bread and baking so much easier to get hold of an island than actually back home everywhere isn't it we've made potato donuts once before ring Donuts long time ago and the potato keeps it fluffy doesn't it it's a really lovely batter um Mak a fluffy batter it's a fluffy it's described as tender now I wouldn't have used tender as a word to describe cake but basically the Irish put potato into cakes to keep it tender and to keep it shelf life so it extends the shelf life M there's lumps in this just bit elb and bit less moaning I'm honest okay here's me not moaning and there's your elbow greas I'll add this the cocoa can also go in so if you can just put the cocoa in brilliant fantastic thank you so we have made potato donuts before but never with chocolate you guys suggested it uh as chocolate donuts and we thought we'd up It Again by putting in mashed potatoes with chocolate mashed potato donuts all going in there flowy Mash along with the rest of our flour as well it's good that this is relatively simple if we can do it in the middle of the field you guys can do it in your kitchen yeah definitely and you'll look at it and you'll think that's not a dough it will look more like a cake batter okay but you do then have to just let it rest and let it do its magic and it kind of sets up in the fridge when I was mashing potatoes this morning mhm I also made a batch of this a couple of hours ago and it's been in the fridge setting up so I can now swap it for this one you see brilliant here's one I did earlier and that's it so it's a lot more solid now the butter and egg have set back up we can make ourselves some room and we're going to roll out Donuts you might want a handful of flour just kind of just to just to flour your hands and then just take small really small pieces you want a really small piece and then just roll it if you make them too big then as they go into the oil they kind of explode so you're better like that so they're better off being really small and dainty and they do expand because of the self-raising flour is that a spot of rain I think it might I think I just felt the first spot of rain hurry up quick quick there we go you keep rolling them and I'll get our oil ready so over here we've got vegetable oil in a pan Which I'm just going to heat up and we're looking for 155 160° C okay so quite low cuz they need to cook nice and slow you can add other flavors to this we've speaking to chocolate all week and they're all talking about combinations of chocolate and flavors you can put some cinnamon in here chili you could put some chili in here you put some orange zest chocolate orange always a great who we talking to that was talking about um th in chocolate Ben was he was saying herbs so time lavender things like that great with chocolate at this point we can start to lower a few of these into our oil they need to Bubble away for about 3 or 4 minutes turn them and move them in the pans they go nice and golden they will expand they'll fluff up then we can take them out drain them on kitchen roll and toss them in cinnamon sugar which would be amazing while they're still warm delicious how long do these get left for 3 to 4 minutes let's see if we can stand the rain until then at least the donuts are dry e in that wet oil Thanks James you're welcome so 3 or 4 minutes scoot them out drain them on kitchen roll and then what we got here is Casta sugar slightly damp with a little bit of cinnamon and that's an amazing flavor that I cannot wait inside and eat these we got a copy of the Irish Times here so fantas it's been a very different approach to cooking I've enjoyed it believe it or not but if we can cook in a field on the Irish Coastline in the rain and still produce amazing chocolate dut nuts with mashed potato then so can you cuz they are seded quick taste one while they're still warm while they're still warm are you having a laugh oh man they're good they so fluffy on the inside B One open Super spongy and fluffy on the inside it is been fun isn't it TR for you you've got a jumper a jacket a kidding it's up in in the same temperature and it's still raining out here with you who' have thought it potato chocolate and donuts potato potato about to rain again\n"