Loukoumades (Greek Honey Donuts) with Vanilla Ice Cream and Candied Pistachio dust.

A deliciously sticky and sweet treat, with the Pistachio dust creating a interesting, and flavourful surprise!

• 250g plain flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons dried yeast
• 250ml warm water
• vegetable oil for frying

For the syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• Good splash of water

• 1 -2 teaspoons cinnamon mixed in with some sugar.

These things are so incredibly easy to make, it’s not funny.  Like stupid easy.

Sift your flour, salt and yeast into a big bowl.  Make sure your water is lukewarm before you add it to the dry mix.  The water will activate the yeast and get it growing, causing the loukoumades to be nice and fluffy inside.

Add the water to the flour, and using either an electric beater, or if you’re feeling energetic, use a hand whisk and make sure everything is blended in nice and smooth (no lumps ok!)

Now, cover your bowl with a tea towel or cling film, and place it somewhere warm and wait for an hour.  The mix will expand in size due to the yeast activation.  Pat yourself on the back, you’ve done the hardest part of this recipe.  Woo.

Get yourself a big pan for frying, or even a wok if you have one, and add enough oil to fill it 5cm deep.  Heat up the oil for at least ten minutes.  One way to test your oil is at temperature (around 170 degrees if you have a thermometer) is by placing a piece of torn off bread into the hot oil and it should take 30 seconds to turn golden.

After your batter has expanded, it should be quite elastic.  By using wet spoons (or wet hands) form balls of batter and drop them into the oil, and cook (not forgetting to turn your donuts) until golden all over, then remove and set into a bowl lined with kitchen paper. Keep going until all of the batter is used up (you should have a fair pile of deliciousness in your bowl now.)

Roll your loukoumades in a bowl with the cinnamon and sugar to coat lightly.

For the syrup: once again, talk about hard.  Not.  Add all of your syrup ingredients into a bowl, bring to a boil and then immediately drop the temperature to a simmer for five minutes.  Once you are ready to serve your loukoumades, drizzle some of the syrup over them, then prepare yourself for some sweet, sweet awesomeness.  Serving them warm with Vanilla Ice cream is even better…

To earn extra MasterChef points, whip up some Pistachio dust to add a cheffy twist.

You’ll need:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of shelled Pistachios

Add your water and sugar to a pot, stir together and then bring to a boil.  In the mean time, spread out a piece of baking paper and spread out the Pistachios into a single layer.  Once the toffee mix in the pot starts to turn golden, CAREFULLY pour the mix over the top of the nuts, ensuring all of them are covered.  Set them aside and let them cool until totally firm.  Once completely cooled, smash the nutty toffee up.  By using a blender or a spice grinder, put the pieces of toffee in and blend/grind until a fine power is formed.  Taa daa, your dust is formed.  Give it a taste, it should remind you of fairy floss, with a slight, salty after note.  Just a hint, place the dust into a bowl and cover as it will soon warm up and start to clump, but that just adds to the end result.  So give that a go.