Just the other day I was browsing through Instagram to see a fellow blogger sharing his experience in Jerusalem. He was taking a bakery tour, tasting and preparing famous pastries of the city. One that immediately caught my eye was a paris-brest filled with chocolate tahini cream. It was my first time seeing the flavor combination of chocolate and tahini. Since then, I can't stop seeing it everywhere! To say I was curious is an understatement. I had to remedy this situation and I thought, "what could be better than tasting the flavors through a donut?" These chocolate tahini donuts dusted with pistachio sugar are, DELICIOUS, to say the least. I mean, how can you resist?

Recipe

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

You would think there's no such thing as a bad donut but yes, there are bad donuts. There's also nothing that compares with a fresh homemade donut. This recipe may seem like a lot of work but just think, at the end of the 3 hours, you'll have more than a dozen chocolate tahini donuts! Not a bad way to spend the day, just eating donuts.

Let's get started then yes? First, make the dough. Activate the active dry yeast by combining it with warm water and sugar. The sugar feeds the yeast and helps it become active. Let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes or until it becomes nice and foamy.

Next, use a stand mixer and combine the yeast mixture with flour, salt, sugar, egg yolks, and whole eggs. Once the dough starts to come together, add the softened butter. Make sure the butter is softened or it will be difficult to incorporate into the dough. Knead the dough until smooth and let it proof in a warm spot for 1 hour.

While you're waiting on the dough, make the filling. We're basically making pastry cream and adding chocolate and tahini. Heat the milk just until it starts to simmer. Whisk the egg yolks with sugar and the remaining ingredients and very, very slowly add the milk. If you pour in hot milk with cold eggs, it'll cook the eggs too quickly and you'll end with scrambled eggs. Yuck. By slowly adding the milk, you're bringing the temperature of the eggs up gradually.

Return the cream back to the stove and heat over medium. Once thick, take it off the stove and stir in the chocolate, butter, and tahini. Go ahead and give the chocolate tahini filling a taste. Delicious, right? Place plastic wrap directly on top of the filling and let it cool. Once cooled, fold in the whipped cream to lighten up the filling and set aside. You can also make the filling the day before.

Now let's get back to the dough. At this time, the dough should have doubled in size. Punch down the dough and roll it into a rectangle about ¾ inch thick. Don't roll out the dough too thin or the donuts will be too thin. Use a 3-inch biscuit cutter and cut about 16 donuts. More importantly, save any leftover scraps and fry them later for a little snack!

Place the donuts on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Cover the donuts and let them proof for another hour. During this time, the donuts will rise beautifully, making them oh so light and airy once fried.

Meanwhile, make the pistachio sugar. Use a food processor to get the pistachios as fine as possible without turning them into butter. Mix it with sugar and that's all folks! If you don't have a food processor, you can try using a mortar and pestle or grinder.

Next, fry the beauties at 350 degrees, flipping the donuts until golden brown on both sides. I like to flip it several times to avoid having one side darker than the other.

Dust the donuts in the pistachio sugar and fill them with chocolate tahini. I found the easiest way to fill the donuts is to cut a small slit in the donut and pipe the filling in. You don't need a pastry bag, just a zip lock bag with one end snipped off will do just fine.

Now get ready. Take one giant bite out of that chocolate tahini donut and let all your hard work sink in. I've tried several different doughs and have loved this one the most. As for the filling? Amazing. Chocolate tahini reminds me of hazelnut, a flavor I can definitely get on board with. In this instance, I guess I have to say, "Thanks for the connection Instagram!".

For more donut inspiration check out these meyer lemon fritters!