This recipe makes 3 lovely little donuts and uses sourdough discard to give them a great flavor. I haven’t explicitly included a filling recipe here but I’d recommend raspberry jam, flavored whipped cream, or a chocolate ganache!
INGREDIENTS
Donuts
3/4 tsp yeast
1 tbsp warm water
15 g sugar divided
110 g flour
20 g sourdough starter discard
40 g warm milk
1 tbsp butter softened
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp salt
pinch nutmeg
For frying
about 4 cups of frying oil
For the topping and filling
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp of cinnamon or a pinch of cardamom
Jam optional
INSTRUCTIONS
Mix together the yeast, warm water, and 5 g of sugar in a small bowl and set aside until foamy (5 minutes or so).
Combine all of the ingredients and the active yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer. Use the hook attachment to mix the ingredients together a bit before you hook the dough hook up to your standing mixer.
Then knead the dough with a standing mixer set to medium for 5 minutes until you have a smooth dough. At this point, it will be quite soft and tacky but not overly sticky.
Let the dough rest for an hour in a covered bowl.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Gently roll the dough out till it’s 1/2 an inch thick and use a 3 inch round cutter to cut out donuts. I always have to re-roll my dough for every donut… so don’t worry if you have to as well! Place the cut donuts on a floured baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet and let them rest fortwo hours until they’re nicely puffed.Note: If your kitchen is particularly cold you can let them rise in the oven with the oven light switched on.
When you’re ready to fry heat the oil in a large dutch oven to 360 F and combine the cinnamon (or cardamom) and sugar in a bowl.
Gently lower the donuts into the oil using a slotted spoon. Fry for 2.5 minutes on each side. Keep an eye on the oil temperature, you may need to raise the temp if the oil cools too much or lower it if the donuts are browning too quickly.
Remove the donuts from the oil and let them drain for a few minutes on paper towels. Once they’ve drained toss them in the cinnamon sugar (or cardamom sugar). Once they’ve cooled slightly you can fill them with jam if you’d like by poking a hole in the donuts and using a piping bag to fill them. If you don’t want jam donuts you could fill them with chocolate ganache, whipped cream, or really whatever your heart desires!
NOTES
* If you don’t have a sourdough starter you can still make these, just substitute and extra 10 grams of flour and 10 ml of milk in place of the starter.
