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.