Sunday, February 18, 2024

Lemon-Blueberry Sourdough Donuts (Belated Valentine's)

Putting Mardi Gras and Valentine's next to each other just about did me in this year.  First, I volunteered to make a sourdough King Cake and shrimp boil for the office Mardi Gras potluck.  And I had every intention of waking up early on Valentine's Day to make fresh donuts for my two favorite men.  BUT...then I got knocked out by a whopper of a cold. I spent half of Valentines snoozing and the other half sneezing.  


By Saturday I was on the mend, so I finally made discard donuts for breakfast.  Lil' Man wanted chocolate chips rather than blueberry, so I obliged with part of the batch. I also wanted to bring in some pink for Valentine's Day, so I made part of the batch with halved maraschino cherries, and a pink glaze. The below recipe is a variation off Farmhouse on Boone's base recipe. You'll need silicone donut molds to bake these in the oven.

INGREDIENTS: (makes twelve 3-inch donuts, or eight 4-inch donuts

  • 1/2 cup sourdough discard
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk (I keep buttermilk powder in the fridge for when I need it)
  • 1/2 stick (4 Tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice (about half a lemon's worth)
  • zest of half a lemon
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
Fillings:
  • Frozen or fresh blueberries
  • maraschino cherries
  • chocolate chips

For the Glaze:
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1-2 tsp milk (depending on your preferred thickness)
  • red food coloring (to make pink glaze)

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F, and grease your donut molds.
  2. Whisk together the starter & buttermilk until smooth, then add the butter, vanilla, egg, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and stir until combined.
  3. Add the salt, flour, and baking powder and mix until just combined.
  4. Transfer the batter into a gallon-size zip lock or piping bag, and cut a hole in the corner/tip about 1/2 inch wide.
  5. Use the bag to pipe the batter into the donut molds, dividing equally between the molds (I used one 4-inch pan and one 3-inch pan).  
  6. Press the fillings into the donut batter (I put about 6-8 blueberries in each of the 4-inch molds, about 6 cherry halves in the 3-inch donuts). Press the fillings down into the batter to partially or fully submerge them.
  7. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until tops are brown.
  8. Allow to cool in the pans for about 15 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack.
  9. While the donuts cool, make your glaze. I used the plain glaze on my blueberry donuts, and then added a couple drops of food coloring to make pink for the cherry & chocolate chip versions.
  10. You can optionally add some sprinkles--we had some heart shaped ones on-hand.

The lemon flavor in the batter & glaze worked well with all three variations.  It enhances the blueberry well, but is subtle enough to almost be unnoticed with the chocolate chip.  I had hoped it would create a sort of "cherry lemonade" flavor, but the cherries are too sweet and overpowered the other flavors. So if you wanted to do just a batch of the cherry donuts, I would recommend doubling the lemon juice and zest, and cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup.


Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread

 Redemption!!!

After my fail with the cranberry cinnamon bread (that wouldn't rise and is more aptly described as "bagel bread", I decided to try again, but using the swirl to get the cinnamon in there.  This recipe from Clever Carrot sounded pretty fab, and I was very happy with the results.

My kitchen was a bit cold and I was short on time, so I decided to add 8g of active dry yeast to this version to make sure it rose in time.  I also mixed for 10 minutes in the Kitchenaid, rather than doing stretch & folds.
I don't think I've done an egg wash on one of my loaves before, mostly because it feels like a waste of the rest of the egg, but I gotta say, the shine it adds is really gorgeous. 
It also gave me a chance to use the bread slicer that The Hubs gave me for Christmas.  It's a little flimsy but gets the job done. I hadn't previously been pre-slicing my loaves before storing, but cutting bread while it's still fresh & room temp is way easier (and probably safer) than hacking into it later when it's been in the fridge, and it's fantastic when toasted with butter.



Things I've Made Lately

Lest you think I've only been making things with sourdough, I wanted to share a few really good things I've made recently, and share links to the original posts!

1. Chili Crisp Salmon - I was listening to an episode of The Sporkful Podcast and heard a description of chili crisp, and decided it was worth a try. So we bought some, and I've been putting it on just about everything, from eggs, to ramen, leftover spaghetti marinara, and this glazed salmon from LittleSpiceJar.


2. Crispy Shawarma Wings from Peal with Zeal - I was cleaning out the spice rack and remembered I had gotten some shawarma seasoning from our local market (and promptly forgot about it).  The Hubs was craving wings, so we tried this recipe.  This was the first time I'd done a dry rub with baking powder and it made the skin extra crispy.

2. Beef Tallow Roasted Potatoes - The Hubs was smoking a brisket and we had several pounds of fat trimmings, so I decided to attempt to melt it down. I'm pretty sure I didn't do it quite right, but it still made these potatoes taste AMAZING.


4. Alton Brown's Coconut Balls - I have often joked that Alton Brown's recipes all have too many steps, which is a deterrent from trying them.  But then this one...had only 2 steps!  Must be super easy!  Not true.  It seems simple at the surface, but the coconut filling is SUPER sticky and makes these really messy to make, and then they kept trying to fall apart as I was coating them in chocolate.  It was an ordeal, but the final result was very tasty, and made for good gifts to my coworkers.


5. Oven Roasted Marinara - Our neighbors shared this recipe from The Wooden Skillet with us last fall, so I had to bust it out again this fall when we found ourselves with a surplus of end-of-season tomatoes and basil.  So easy, SO GOOD. We served it with Italian sausage & cascatelli.