Yum yums are basically twisted spiral donuts with a slightly more flaky / fluffy texture than a standard donut and seem to be super popular at the moment. I’m sure there’s other names for them around the World, but nothing really comes close to a homemade donut, that freshness of making your own dough from scratch, then drenching the yum yum in an icing sugar glaze makes it all worth it. Play around with the recipe if you try it out with different shapes and spirals, ultimately though, it tastes bloomin’ epic!
How to make homemade Yum Yums
First up we’ll make the donut batter (or is it dough) well doh! I guess it’s dough, but hey all good.
Add the yeast to the warm water in a jug and leave to get going to one side whilst we work on the other ingredients for the dough. So in a bowl add the other dry ingredients – the flour, salt, sugar and mix well. Work in the butter by rubbing your fingers and thumbs, you don’t have to make it fully blend, but just break down the big lumps of butter so they are very small pieces, once happy it’s mostly lump free add in the egg and the yeast water mixture and bring together with a spoon, using your hands towards the end to bring it to a big ball, if it’s still a bit dry add a little tsp of water at a time, but don’t overdo it, if it’s too wet add flour at a time, until you have a nice ball of dough. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rest for 30mins.
Take the dough out of the bowl and flour your surface and a rolling pin. Roll the dough out into a long rectangle then bring the sides back in overlapping in the centres on itself, so it looks like 3 layers. Turn the square of dough 90 degrees, roll out again into a rectangle and fold up, repeat this 2 more times then put back in the bowl for another 30 minutes covered with a damp tea towel.
Once that time is up take out the dough, slice it in half to make it easier to work with, roll it out thinly then cut into columns about 2 inches wide and 6 inches long. Make an incision down each column leaving the top connected, then overlap the 2 ‘legs’ you’ve created to crossover the dough into a twist shape. Cut off any excess and re-use it, keep going with all your dough, you should have enough for at least 12, but probably more, the video shows this step best.
Place on a lined tray, cover with a damp tea towel and allow to double in size which may take about 45mins.
Meanwhile mix the water and icing sugar until smooth in a big bowl and get your oil on the hob for frying and some kitchen towel ready to collect the fried yum yums. Heat the oil to around 170c keeping it steady, fry the yum yums in small batches rotating them a couple of times to evenly cook them, they will puff up a bit, try to fry for a good few minutes to cook the middle section, then place on the kitchen towel, then onto a wire rack and drizzle all over with the icing sugar mix! Repeat with all of them and either eat once cooled or keep in an air-tight container. In my opinon best eaten on the same day if you can! Enjoy!