STUFFED DOUGHNUTS WITH WHIPPED CREAM AND BERRIES

"This is a very simple and very delicious Second Day Dish. The cream and berries soak into the day-old doughnuts and create a fantastic dessert. I thought of the wonderful French dessert, Paris-Brest, when I created this easy sweet. Traditionally, a Paris-Brest is a baked ring of almond-crusted choux paste that is split and filled with a praline cream. Using yesterday’s doughnuts and fragrant berries and sweet cream, this is a lot simpler to put together."

1 cup cold water
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup blanched sliced almonds
6 day-old Simple Sugar-and-Spice Doughnuts (see recipe) or other plain doughnuts
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar, divided use
1 pint raspberries

Combine the water and granulated sugar in a medium saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Cook for about 2 minutes, or until the sugar has dissolved. Remove the simple syrup from the heat and allow it to cool.

Combine the cream and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Cover and refrigerate the mixture until you are ready to use it.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.

Place the almonds on a clean plate.

Using a bread knife, slice each doughnut in half crosswise. Dip both sides of each half into the cooled simple syrup to just dampen. Place the browned part of the top half into the almonds to coat evenly.

Place the doughnut halves, split side down, on the prepared baking sheet and into the preheated oven, and bake for 12 minutes, or until the almonds are golden and the doughnuts are slightly crisp on the outside but warm and moist on the inside. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.

Remove the chilled cream from the refrigerator and, using an electric mixer, beat for 1 minute. Add the 3 tablespoons of confectioners’ sugar and continue to beat until soft peaks form.

Place the doughnut bottoms, split side up, on a flat surface. Using a spatula, generously coat each bottom with some of the whipped cream. Nestle some raspberries into the cream on each doughnut. Using the spatula, lightly coat the split side of the doughnut tops with whipped cream. Gently place the top half onto the bottom, almond-coated side up. Place each doughnut onto a dessert plate. Sprinkle some raspberries around the edge of the plate.

Place the remaining 1/4 cup of confectioners’ sugar into a fine sieve and, holding the sieve over each plate, tap gently on the edge of the sieve to lightly dust the entire plate. Serve immediately.

Serves 6
Excerpted from David Burke's New American Classics by David Burke and Judith Choate
Copyright © 2006 by David Burke and Judith Choate. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.