This easy and quick sourdough donut recipe is the perfect way to use sourdough discard. Delicious donuts with a slight sourdough tang, these will become the favorite weekend breakfast for the sourdough lover!
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sourdough discard, milk, egg, and vegetable oil.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
Sprinkle some flour on your counter and dump the dough out of the bowl.
Knead 3 or 4 times, just until the dough comes together nicely. You aren’t trying to develop any gluten here, just make a nice dough.
Sprinkle the top of the dough with a tiny bit of flour and gently roll the dough out until it is about 1 to 1.5” thick.
Using a 3” circle biscuit cutter, cut out as many circles as you can. Make sure you use the cutter straight up and straight down, do not twist the cutter into the dough. You can gently reform the dough back together and roll out until you get 1 dozen donuts.
Use a small 1” biscuit cutter to cut a small hole in the center of each donut. Continue cutting small circles out of any remaining donut dough to get as many donut holes as you can!
Frying the donuts
Fill the cast iron skillet with about 2” of vegetable oil. You want to make sure that there is enough oil to go up about half way your donuts plus a little extra so they can float on top. Don’t skimp on the oil. You need enough so that the donuts can float and cook properly.
Heat the pan and the oil to about 360 F. This way the oil is hot enough to fry your doughnuts without them becoming overly greasy.
While the oil is heating, you will need to prepare a place for the cooked donuts to cool and drain. My favorite way to do this is to place a cooling rack inside of a rimmed baking sheet (affiliate link), and then place paper towels on top of the cooling rack.
When the oil is hot, place a few donuts into the oil. Do not crowd the pan – you want to make sure there is plenty of space between each donut so they cook right.
Fry for just a minute or two, until the underside is golden brown. With a pair of tongs, carefully turn the donut over and allow to cook for a minute or two on the other side.
Remove the donuts to the cooling pan and repeat until all the donuts and donut holes are cooked.
While the donuts are still warm, coat them as you wish. See below for ideas on how to coat them.
Notes
These donuts are great because there are so many ways to coat them. Your imagination is the only limit, but here are a few of my favorite ways:
Roll them in powdered sugar
Roll them in cinnamon sugar
Dunk them in a glaze made from powdered sugar and a little milk or water
Frost them with chocolate ganache or vanilla icing and add your favorite sprinkles