Mini Crème Brûlée Doughnuts

Directions

1. Vanilla Pastry Cream
2. Heat up about 2/3 of the milk with the vanilla seed and its scraped pod on medium heat. Place egg yolks, corn starch and sugar in a bowl, add the remaining 1/3 of the milk and whisk until smooth.
3. When the milk is simmering, ladle/pour a little by little of the hot milk to the egg yolk mixture about 1/4 at a time, whisking as you add the milk, when mixture is homogenized. Pour everything back into the pot.
4. Keep whisking until it reaches a boil. Take off heat and strain it into a container. Cover with plastic wrap, the wrap should be touching the surface of the pastry cream. Let cool and chill until ready to use.

1. Doughnuts
2. Heat milk until warm in a microwave oven, until lukewarm. Pour into bowl of a stand mixer fitted with dough hook. Add yeast and stir. Let stand for 10 min.
3. Beat in granulated sugar, butter, egg and salt. Add flour. Beat on medium-high until dough forms a ball and pulls away cleanly from the sides and bottom of the bowl, about 5 min.
4. Start the mixer on low speed with a dough hook to mix the dough until it comes away from the side of the bowl, about 2 - 3 minutes.
5. Brush a medium bowl with oil. Line a large baking sheet with parchment. Lightly brush with oil.
6. Scrape dough out of mixer bowl into oiled bowl. Lightly oil top of dough and cover with a damp tea towel (not terry cloth). Let stand in a warm place until dough doubles in size, about 1 hour. OR cover with plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the dough, cover the bowl with another sheet of plastic, leave in the fridge overnight.
7. Roll out dough on a floured surface to 1/2 to 3/4 in. thick. Using a 2.75-in. round cutter, cut into 20-24 rounds. Transfer to prepared sheet. Cover with same damp tea towel and let stand until doughnuts double in size, about 45 min.
8. Pour oil into a pot until it reaches 1 in. up the sides. Clip a deep-fry thermometer to the side. Heat over medium until temperature reaches 325F. Adjust heat as necessary to keep temperature at 325F during cooking. Fry doughnuts, 4 at a time, flipping halfway through, until golden, 2 to 3 min. Drain on paper towels.
9. When the doughnuts are completely cooled, poke a hole on the side of the doughnuts.
10. Fill a pastry bag with pastry cream fitted with a medium plain tip, or with a bismark tip if you have one.
11. Caramel Glaze Place sugar in a small saucepan, wet it with about a tablespoon of water, let it cook until it reaches a light honey colour, take off heat right away, the caramel with continue to darken more. Let caramel cool for a little, about a minute or so, carefully dip each doughnut top into the caramel, holding the sides of the doughnut. *the caramel is very hot, so use caution! Let the excess caramel drip down, and place it on a rack, caramel side up, continue with the rest the doughnuts. They are ready to serve once the caramel glaze has hardened.