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 Discard Chocolate Donuts!

I've been talking about wanting to make donuts with my sourdough for a while, so the Hubs gave me one of my Christmas gifts early: a 3-inch silicone donut mold!  I was pretty excited to try it out.  The original recipe I used was meant to make 24 donuts, so I cut it in half to make enough batter for 12... but then, when I started pouring, turns out it was just a little more than I needed to make six donuts. So either I was pouring heavy, or the original recipe was meant for a smaller diameter donut mold, or both.  I tinkered with this enough to be able to list it out as an original recipe (also, I did the conversions to grams so, you're welcome).

INGREDIENTS (makes 6-ish three-inch donuts):

• 75g AP flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp instant coffee or espresso powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 70g brown sugar
• 60g sourdough discard
• 120g milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 36g coconut oil, melted
• 50g mini chocolate chips (optional)

Glaze:

• 1 Tbsp powdered sugar
• splash of milk
• splash of vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Whisk together all the dry ingredients, then add in the brown sugar, sourdough discard, milk, oil, and vanilla.  Mix until well combined with no lumps, then add in the chocolate chips (if you like).

Transfer the batter into the donut mold (I opted to put a little cooking spray in mine, even though it's silicone, as a bit of insurance) using a ziploc bag as a piping bag. Put the mold on a cookie sheet for easier handling in and out of the oven.

Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Set the mold on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then flip and remove the donuts from the mold.  Once they've cooled for at least 30 minutes, you can make the glaze (the original poster melted chocolate chips to make a frosting, which would also be good) and add to the donuts.  Then eat!

Pre-glazing.

These had a very light, fluffy texture, less dense than cake donuts you would get from the donut shop or store. We saved back a couple to see if they would get more firm/less dense the next day. The glazed had definitely hardened them up a bit but the interior was still very fluffy.  I'm looking forward to trying out some other recipes with my donut mold! 

Next day donut.