Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of doughnuts. They’re fine, but I never really crave them – they’re usually too sweet, sit too heavy, and taste a bit too plain. But in an attempt to think of new things to test out my sourdough on, they seemed like a good experiment!
There weren’t that many vegan sourdough doughnut recipes that popped up in my search, but this one from Fare Isle looked promising. As I usually do, I followed the methods to a tee, but took some liberties with ingredients to have it suite my pantry contents and personal taste.
As also, I am doing the same as last week’s bake, where I only make one batch using one of my starters. This is, again, due to not needing a ridiculous amount of sweets in the house, but also having limited amounts of certain ingredients.
Recipe
- 100 g whole-wheat sourdough starter
- 650 g all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup vegan butter
- 1-1/4 cup non-diary milk
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tbsp sugar
- neutral oil for frying
Vanilla Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons non-dairy milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
In a small sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat. Remove from heat and add in milk, water, and sugar. Stir to dissolve.
In a stand mixer set up with the dough hook attachment, mix the melted butter mixture with the starter and salt until combined.
On low speed, had half the flour. Once incorporated, add the other half. Mix for 5 minutes until a smooth dough forms.
Let the dough rest, covered in a bowl, until it’s doubled in volume, about 8-10 hours.
After it has proofed, turn dough onto floured surface and roll to 1/2″ thick. Cut dough into circles and cut out the smaller inner circle if desired. Rework and roll the scraps to make more doughnuts.
Place cut-out dough on a lined baking sheet and let rest, covered, for 1 hour.
After about 50 minutes, begin preparing the frying oil. In a heavy bottomed pot, heat oil to 375F. For my stove, I set the element to medium heat (5) and once it reached the right temperature, reduced it to med-low heat (4) to avoid it getting too hot.
Fry doughnuts, a few at a time, for 45 seconds per side, until golden. Place on cooling rack.
Once doughnuts are cooled, mix together glaze and dunk the tops of the doughnuts it. Place back on rack to drip and set.
Thoughts
I’m pretty confident in the kitchen, but frying (especially deep frying) things is scary for me. Hot oil freaks me out and I always imagine something bad happening, so this was definitely out of my comfort zone. The frying process was not my favourite, but the mixing and cutting of the doughnuts was a lot of fun.
For sourdough flavour, this was probably the most subtle result I’ve had so far. Usually after whatever dough I’m making has proofed, the sour smell is overwhelming, but I really couldn’t smell it much for this one. Luckily that sour taste was there, although still subtle. I was using my whole-wheat starter, so it added a salty, grainy twist to the plain dough, which was a nice touch for something that is usually quite sweet. I do think the all-purpose starter would give it a more fun, sour twist, which would go well with a sweet glaze – but I can always try that out next time.
All-in-all, I’m happy with the results! I would make this recipe again if I was ever itching for a doughnut.
-Megan B.