We had NEVER tried loukoumades before — but thanks to Theo’s incredible recipe from MasterChef Australia 2025, we’re officially obsessed! 😍🍩
These golden Greek donuts are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and drenched in a honey-orange thyme syrup that had the judges raving. But the real surprise? A mahlepi glaze — a spice we’d never even heard of, and it turned out to be absolutely delicious, especially paired with powdered sugar and pistachios.
Theo’s twist on this classic dessert blew us (and the judges!) away. Watch as we recreate it step-by-step — and taste loukoumades for the very first time!
👇 Full recipe below 👇
Original recipe: https://10play.com.au/masterchef/recipes/loukoumades/r250506ecvim
🧾 Ingredients:
Loukoumades Batter
• 160g flour
• 15g instant yeast
• 210g hot water
• ¼ tsp salt
Mahlepi Glaze
• 10g mahlepi
• 100g icing sugar
• 50g water
Honey Citrus Syrup
• 150g honey
• 2 thyme sprigs (stems removed)
• Zest of 1 orange
• Zest of ½ lemon
• Salt, to taste
Garnish
• 100g shelled pistachios (crushed)
• Powdered sugar
💬 “Our first loukoumades ever — and we finally get the hype. Total 10/10 from us AND the judges.”
If you’ve never had these Greek treats before, this is the version to try!
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We’re making Theo’s locomes. Better late than never. And the reason I wanted to make this is because there was a new spice that I’d never heard of before. Male. I’m pretty sure that’s how you pronounce it. But when I went to the store, there’s about four different ways you can spell it and pronounce it on this package. So So I guess depending on where you come from the world, you got to say it a little bit differently. And it’s actually the seed of a specific species of cherry or prune seed that they grind down. And that’s where you get this male from. When I first open a new spice package like this one that I never had before, I always dip my finger in there and give it a little taste. When I did that, I didn’t actually hold out too much hope for this dish. But then I made this little glaze that he come up with. And this this is really, really tasty. I already had some before. I don’t know why all donuts all over the world aren’t just dowsted with this stuff. This stuff is tasty. We’re going to start off making the dough. I’m going to add some flour to the bowl. We’re also going to crumble in some fresh yeast. Now, the recipe says to use instant yeast, but I’m using fresh. So, I asked Chat JBT and they said, “Rule of thumb, if you’re converting instant yeast into fresh yeast, you times it by three.” So, that’s how much I’m using. We’re going to add some salt. And finally, we’re going to add in some warm water. Now, I think they made a mistake in the recipe cuz they said to use hot water. Now, if you’re going to use hot water and add it to your yeast like this, you’re going to kill it. So, I’ll advise you to use warm water and not hot. All right. Once you got all that in there, you’re just going to give it a little mix up and get everything nice and combined. Okay. Once you got everything all whisked together and it’s nice and lump free like that, you just want to cover it with a towel and set it in a nice warm spot to rest while we get the other stuff ready. Now, we’re going to make up a glaze. So, to a bowl, we’re going to add some powdered sugar. If your powdered sugar is a little bit clumpy like mine, we’ll go ahead and try and break all that up to it so it’s a nice powder before we go on to the next step. Next, we’re going to add some water. And then we’re going to get that nice and mixed in so all the powdered sugar is dissolved. Now, the next ingredient is going to be some male. In the recipe, it says to toast off your male in a frying pan and then grind it up in a spice grinder, but I can only find this one, which is pregrown in the store. So, I’m not going to toast it off. I’m just going to add it straight to the glaze and get it all mixed in. Once you get it all mixed in, your glaze is ready. In a saucepan, I got some honey in there. I’ve just got on a low heat at the moment. And to that, I’m going to add some thyme leaves. I’ve taken them off the stems. You don’t want any of those woody stems in there. Now, we’re going to zest an orange. You want just the orange part and not any of the bit of white pith. Okay, that’s the zest of a whole orange. If you haven’t got one of these handy dandy grater thingies here, micro plans, a pretty popular one. I’d highly advise you to get one. They make things so much easier. Now we’re going to get the zest off half a lemon. So the zest of half a lemon in it goes to join the rest. Over a medium low heat. We’re just going to let this cook for about 15 minutes just to let it get everything nice and infused to the glaze. I also forgot you got to add a pinch of salt. So we’ll stir that in. Now my batter I placed in an oven that I’d used for something previously. So it was still quite warm in there, but I only had it in there for about 10 minutes. And now it looks like this. So very good place to rest your batter. got a piping bag set up and we’re just going to pour the batter straight in. I got a little nozzle on the end. Nothing’s screwed on, but that’s about 1 cm if you’re interested. All right. Now, we’re just going to put the batter straight into the piping bag. So, I probably done something wrong because as soon as I pick my piping bag up, everything just run out to the bottom. So, what I’m going to do instead, I’m just going to pour this straight into the hot oil and see if that works. Okay, so I got a wet pointer finger and thumb here, and my oil’s up to 180°. So, I’m just going to pour one in and see what happens. So, okay. So, we’ll just fry this off as a little tester and we’ll see how that goes. So, my little tester is about ready and I’m going to pull it out onto a paper towel line plate and then we’ll give it a minute and see how it turns out. Since the first one turned out good, we’re going to do the rest exactly the same except we’re going to do more at one time. So, pour and pinch. Well, that one split into two. Pour and pinch. Time to eat these donuts. I’m going in with this one first cuz I’ve tasted this and I think it’s going to be amazing. Also, the pistachios, I already bought them uh pre-roasted and salted, so I just chopped them up and stuck them in there. We’ll get a few of those on there as well. I must say, when we’re watching this episode, me and my wife were thinking, “How can a donut be that damn good?” Like, seriously, it’s a donut. But if you’ve never had this Maleeppa before, like I have, and you dip it in some deep fried batter, it brings it to a whole new freaking level. These things are amazing. Also, I don’t think I did the dough full justice because it was quite runny and they didn’t brown up as much as I thought they would. But besides all that, I fully understand why he won that challenge.