Sourdough doughnuts recipe

Meenakshi

If you are craving some comforting and scrumptious doughnuts. These sourdough doughnuts will surely satisfy you. These donuts are delicious, chewy, fluffy, and they will melt in the mouth. And yep… these are eggless. This sourdough doughnuts recipe will become your absolute favorite.

5 from 12 votes

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Inactive time 12

Course Bread, Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings medium sized donuts

Calories 164 kcal

Ingredients

175 g Active Sourdough starter (room temperature)
425 g All-purpose flour
220 g Whole milk
100 g Sugar
50 g Unsalted Butter
1 ½ teaspoon Vanilla
¼ teaspoon Salt
A pinch Nutmeg
Vegetable Oil for frying (about 3-4 inch deep)
Sugar-cinnamon for coating (100g sugar+ 2 tablespoon of cinnamon powder)

Instructions

Start by feeding the sourdough starter: Use active sourdough starter. Starter should be ripe. Use a rubber band to mark your starter after feeding, and observe when it reaches its peak. (Once it begins to decline, it starts getting sour, use it before that point)
Preparing the dough: Into the bowl of a stand mixer, add room temperature whole milk. Now add the ripe sourdough starter and mix well in the milk to form a smooth paste. Add the sugar and mix well. Further add in the vanilla extract, salt, and melted butter. Mix everything well. If you are going to add some nutmeg, go ahead and add some. Now add the flour. Combine with the help of a ladle or a fork.
Kneading the dough: Now place the bowl on the stand mixer, and start kneading at low speed for 6-7 minutes. It will look super sticky initially. Now, bump up the speed, and knead for additional 6-7 minutes or until the dough becomes smooth and supple.
It should leave the sides of the bowl completely. If it does not comes together and you feel that the dough is still very sticky, add 1-2 tablespoons of flour and knead again.
Bulk rise: Transfer the dough to a greased bowl with enough room for it to rise. Cover with a cling wrap or kitchen towel and let it bulk rise at 70-85 ⁰ F for 2 hours. Now place the bowl in a refrigerator for cold retarding the dough. Cold proof it for 8- 12 hours. It makes the dough much easier to roll and shape.
Rolling the dough and shaping the Doughnuts: Remove the dough onto a flour-dusted work surface. Gather the sides and make a roundish ball. Now use your hands to flatten it. Switch to a rolling pin and start rolling the dough into a ½ inch thick layer.
Keep dusting some flour under it occasionally, so that it does not stick. Now cut the Doughnuts using a cookie cutter or a donut cutter. Use the smallest cookie cutter to make the central hole.
Carefully lift the Doughnuts and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Also transfer the sourdough donut holes, as we are going to fry them as well to make the hole donuts. A pro tip: dust a little flour on the parchment paper before placing the doughnuts, as it will prevent them from sticking to the parchment paper when proofing.
Gather the leftover dough and repeat the process, cut more Doughnuts and keep repeating until the entire dough is depleted. This recipe will make about 24 medium sized donuts.
Proofing the Doughnuts: Cover these sourdough doughnuts with a kitchen towel, and let them proof till they become puffier. It should take about 1 hour or longer if your kitchen is cooler. (Refer to the process image to see how much rise we need.)
Frying: In a pan heat vegetable oil deep enough to fry the sourdough doughnuts. The oil temperature should be around 320-330 ⁰F. Gently lift the doughnuts and drop them into the oil.
Doughnuts should take about 2-3 minutes to cook from one side. Then, gently flip them and cook on the other side for the same time. Do not let them brown too much as the crust will become hard. Look for the golden brown color.
If the oil is too hot, the donuts will brown from the outside much faster and reman raw from the center. So, do check your oil temperature.
When done, gently remove from oil and transfer to a plate lined with tissue paper, and continue with the rest of the doughnuts.
Donut holes will fry much faster than the bigger donuts.
Topping or dressing: If you are planning to just coat them in cinnamon sugar like me, so drop them into the sugar-cinnamon when they are right out of the oil. Sugar sticks better that way. But if you are planning to glaze them, transfer to a plate lined with tissues and let them cool a bit before glazing them or coating with chocolate, etc. ( Refer to the notes for my fav. glaze recipe)
Eat, share, and store.

Notes

Recipe Notes/ Tips

Use active neutral-flavored sourdough discard instead of an active sourdough starter. Also, bump up the volume of discard by 5 percent.
Use one pack of yeast (¼ oz) of yeast to substitute the sourdough starter.
If kneading with hands, I suggest you let the dough rest after combining all the ingredients. Just mix enough to ensure that no patch of dry flour is left out. Cover and let the dough autolyze for 30 minutes. Then remove it onto a flour-dusted work surface. Knead using forward motion and then collecting it. Keep kneading till the dough becomes smooth.
Keep dusting flour underneath the dough while rolling with the rolling pin, else it will stick and Doughnuts will be very difficult to separate.
Also, dust the parchment paper, so these sourdough doughnuts do not stick to it while proofing.
Sometimes the Doughnuts get stuck to the parchment paper and their shape gets distorted as you lift and transfer them into the oil. In such a situation, take a pair of scissors and cut the parchment paper around the Doughnuts. Now lift the Doughnuts with the papers and gently drop them in the oil. Keep holding an edge of the paper when you drop the Doughnuts into the oil, they will separate themselves from the paper.
If you are using this recipe to make filled sourdough Doughnuts, roll them a bit thicker and while proofing the rounds, let it proof till it becomes fuller (a little dome-shaped) before frying.
For making sourdough doughnuts vegan, use vegan butter and coconut milk to replace milk and butter.

Storage instructions:

Storing the sourdough Doughnuts at room temperature: These sourdough doughnuts will keep well at room temperature for about 3 days unless you are living in tropical parts of the world. If that is true for you, you should not store them at room temperature for more than a day.
You should store them in an airtight container, lined with tissue paper or parchment paper.
Sourdough doughnuts have the best keeping ability. The sugar-cinnamon doughnuts should be stored in a cool dry place in an airtight bag or container. As we all know that sugar is hygroscopic, so the sugar crystals should not come in contact with moist air.
When storing the glazed doughnuts, they do need some aeration, else the glaze tends to crack and break. So for storing glazed Doughnuts a usual container with a lid should suffice.
Store in a refrigerator:
For storing longer, you can Refrigerate the donut for almost 7-8 days. Place them in an airtight container and enjoy them for a week.
The cream-filled doughnuts should be consumed within 3-4 days.
Freezing the sourdough doughnuts:
Plain or unglazed donuts can be easily frozen. I am not sure about the maximum period they stay well, but I have frozen mine for about a month.
You can also freeze the shaped and proofed donuts, and fry them later.

Nutrition Facts

Nutrition

Calories: 164kcal

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