Cream and Jam Long John Doughnut Recipe

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You can not go wrong with this Long John Doughnut Recipe if you are looking to make these for dessert, special occasions, or to serve to guests.

Next to jelly slices, long john doughnuts are one of my family’s favourite treats.
Making these at home allows me to make them anytime, and hubby is by far the lover of these doughnut styles in our household.

How to make this Long John Doughnut recipe at home.

This recipe is quite simple to make; however, proving takes a bit of time, but it is well worth the wait.

The ingredients you will need for the Long John doughnut recipe are:

• Milk
• Unsalted butter
• Plain flour
• Salt
• Yeast
• Castor Sugar
• Egg Yolk

And for decorating

• Thickened Cream
• Jam
• Icing Sugar

Method

If you have a stand mixer or even a hand mixer with a dough hook attachment, you can use it to make and knead the dough. But if you do not, you can do it all by hand.

Add the milk and butter to a small saucepan and slowly melt them over low heat. Once the butter is melted, set it aside to cool, as you want the milk and butter to be lukewarm when you add them to the dry ingredients.

In a medium or large mixing bowl, sift the flour and then add the salt and yeast (if you are using the instant yeast)
Mix with a fork or spoon until all is combined.

Whisk the egg yolk with a fork in a small bowl. Then, add it to the dry ingredients.
Using your dough hook attachment, set your mixer on medium-low speed and mix the egg yolk while slowly pouring in the milk and butter.

Once the wet ingredients are just mixed through, turn the speed to medium-high and mix the dough until it comes together. The dough should start slapping the bowl’s side as it gets kneaded.

When this starts to happen, stop your mixer and put the dough onto a dry and lightly floured surface.

The dough will still be quite wet and sticky. Add a little flour to the top of the dough and flour your hands. Then, gently incorporate the extra flour into the dough, adding only small amounts at a time if needed.

The dough must become soft and springy and no longer stick to your hands.

Be careful not to add too much flour or over-knead the dough. Over-kneading releases too much gluten from the flour, which will cause the dough to not prove adequately or rise while frying.

Once the dough is kneaded, add a little olive oil to a medium or large bowl. Use some paper towel or basting brush and spread the oil all over the inside of the bowl. The oil will stop the dough from sticking to the bowl.

Form a ball out of the dough, place it in the bowl, and cover with glad wrap and a tea towel. If your workspace is not warm enough, place the bowl in a warm area, such as a preheated oven, in front of a heater. Then, let the dough prove for 2 hours. The dough needs to grow in size but not quite double.

Once the dough has proved, place it on a lightly floured surface. With a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out into a rectangle. The dough needs to be a centimetre thick.

Trim the edges to form straighter sides and then cut into five equal parts. With the excess dough, blend it all back together and roll it out again to make the sixth long-john doughnut.

Again, trim the edges to make them all straight.

Place the long johns and the offcuts on a tray lined with baking paper. Cover loosely with glad wrap and a tea towel and let them prove for 1 hour. The dough will rise just slightly.

Fill a large, deep-fry pan about halfway with canola or vegetable oil. Heat on medium-low heat until it reaches 180C or 350F. Heating does take a while, so you can start this before the dough has finished proving.

Once the right temperature is reached, put some offcuts in the oil to test it and ensure it is not too hot. If it is too hot, frying the offcuts will help lower the oil temperature.

If you use a deep fryer, set the temp to 175 C and increase it to 180 C if it is too low.

Add one or two longjohns to the oil, turning them twice as they fry. Do not overcrowd the frypan. 

Once golden brown, remove them from the oil and place them on a cooling rack with a paper towel underneath to catch any oil that drips.

Do this with the rest of the dough strips until they are all cooked. You may also find that the oil drops in temperature as you fry on a stovetop. Do not worry; you can turn the heat up a little to bring it back up to temperature if you want to.

However, mine drops to around 160 C and holds and cooks just fine; they take a little longer to golden brown.

Different deep fryers and stovetops may work differently, so find what works best for you. Remember to use the offcuts to test the oil and see if you are okay with how the dough cooks.

You can adjust accordingly.

You can prepare the cream and jam while your long John doughnuts cool.

I use the same stabilized whipped cream recipe as I used for my No-Bake Chocolate Honeycomb Cheesecake, which helps the cream hold its shape when piping. But you can use straight whipped cream instead if you like.

For the jam, I use raspberry, but you can use strawberry, blackberry or even apricot if you like.

Add about four tablespoons of jam to a bowl, and using a fork, mix the jam well until it is a smooth enough consistency to pipe.

Add the jam to a piping or ziplock bag with a small round piping tip, or cut the end off the bag.

Once the Long John doughnuts are cooled, use a bread knife to cut them down the middle. Be careful not to cut all the way through.

Pipe a layer of cream in the middle, then pipe a second layer of cream over the top of the first layer.

You can pipe just a straight line, but I like the top one to be a little more decorative.

Then, pipe some jam down one side of the cream for the more traditional-looking long-john doughnut, or you can get creative and pipe down the centre of the cream, making zig-zag patterns and so on. 

Once all the cream and jam are added, dust with icing sugar and serve.

How long do the long john doughnuts stay fresh?

With this recipe, it is best to eat these doughnuts on the same day. However, you can keep them in the fridge till the next day if you like. They do lose their freshness, though.

Due to the dough and the cream, I wouldn’t advise making these days in advance or keeping them any longer than a day.