Doughnuts are the most popular dessert – or trade mark – of the merry carnival season in Hungary which bids farewell to winter and stretches from the Epiphany to Ash Wednesday. Ribboned doughnuts, thus named for the white stripe around the golden brown sweet, are the best known.

Before you start making the doughnuts keep all the ingredients on room temperature for an hour. Dissolve the yeast with a pinch of powder sugar in 300 ml lukewarm milk and leave to work. In a bowl mix together the egg yolks with the remaining powder sugar. Add the yeast mixture to the yolks, then the melted butter, the flour, the remaining milk, the rum and the pinch of salt to have a medium soft dough. Knead thoroughly, then cover it with a dish cloth and in a moderately warm place let it rise until it is about one and a half times in volume. Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a floured surface. Roll out to a thickness of half an inch, cut with a large (about 7 cm long in diameter) pastry cutter and leave to prove under the dish cloth again for a further 30 minutes.

Before you start frying them press a small hollow with your thumb on each doughnut. Fry them in plenty of medium hot oil. Cover with a lid a fry one side until golden brown. Turn over and fry the other side without the lid. That’s how you get the “ribbon” running along the sides. Serve with apricot jam (spoon it in the middle of the hollow). Sprinkle them with powder sugar. Yum!