Playing with recipes

I've been helping a friend develop some recipes for a small soiree she is holding. The desserts are all I've done so far, the theme is loosely middle eastern and I thought I'd share the recipes here.


Spiced almond milk with turkish delight doughnuts

Milk
1 cup milk
1 tbsp mannanuka honey
1 tsp chai tea ( I used T2 mix)infused into 1 tbsp boiling water
4 tablespoons full fat yoghurt
3 tablespoons almonds, roasted

Doughnuts

7g yeast (I havent tried this recipe with active yeast yet but will let you know if you need more or less when I retest)

200g plain flour

200ml milk

15g unsalted butter
pinch salt
2 tsp natural vanilla extract
4 eggs room temperature

6 squares of turkish delight cut into small cubes, placed in the freezer to harden

vegetable oil for deep frying
vanilla sugar to coat


Spiced almond milk
Combine the milk, honey, chai tea and yoghurt in a bowl. Blitz the almonds in a food processor until finely crushed. Stir this through the milk mix. Place in the fridge until chilled.
Doughnuts
Place the milk, butter, vanilla and salt in a saucepan and bring to a simmer.Remove from heat and add the yeast. Set aside for five minutes or until foaming. Add the flour and stir to combine. Cover and allow to double in size (about an hour).Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth and glossy.Stir in the pieces of turkish delight.
Pour mixture into a doughnut mould then fry the doughnuts in a deep fryer,or a large saucepan 3/4 full of oil. Dust in vanilla sugar to coat.
Pour the chilled almond milk into glasses, top with a doughnut and serve.


Vanilla bean pavlova with saffron poached cumquats

Vanilla bean Pavlova
6 eggwhites, room temperature
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp cornflour


Saffron and sugar poached cumquats
1 cup cumquats, blanched
1 pinch saffron threads
150g sugar
150g water


Preheat oven to 100C.
For the meringue whip the eggwhites with a pinch of salt until soft peak. Add the vanilla bean,vinegar and cornflour. Dollop onto baking paper placed on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 1 hr 15 minutes. Leave in the oven, turned off, until cool. 
For the cumquats, combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and place over medium heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Add the cumquats, and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Once cooled, add the saffron threads and steep for 10 minutes.
To serve, whip a touch of the saffron cumquat poaching liquid through some cream. Serve an individual pavlova with some of the cream and topped with cumquats.