Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Donut
These are the sour cream donuts I've fried on cold Sunday mornings for close to forty years now — craggy and crisp on the outside, soft as cake in the middle, with a plain sweet glaze that cracks when you bite in. Don't hurry them, dear; a good donut can tell when you're impatient.
- Total time
- 45 min
- Servings
- 10
- Calories
- 300
- Protein
- 4g
Ingredients
- 2.25 cups flour
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 whole egg
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups vegetable oil
- 2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- 1
First, melt your 2 tablespoons of butter in a little pan over low heat, then set it aside to cool for a few minutes. You don't want it hot, or it'll scramble the eggs when they meet — warm bathwater is what we're after.
- 2
In a big bowl, beat the 2 eggs with the 0.5 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until the mix turns pale and a touch foamy, about a minute. When the color lightens from deep yellow to soft buttery cream, you've whipped enough air in.
- 3
Now stir in the 0.5 cup sour cream and that cooled melted butter until it's all smooth and glossy. The sour cream is my little secret — it's what keeps these tender for days and gives that gentle tang under the sweetness.
- 4
In a separate bowl, whisk together the 2.25 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 0.5 teaspoon salt so they're evenly mingled. Tip the dry into the wet in two goes, stirring just until you see no more dry streaks. Stop the moment it comes together, sweetheart — stir it to death and the donuts turn tough and chewy instead of tender.
- 5
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest in the fridge for 20 minutes. It'll firm up from sticky and shaggy into something you can actually handle, and that little rest is the difference between wrestling it and rolling it.
- 6
Scatter a good dusting of flour on your counter and turn the chilled dough out onto it. Pat or roll it to about half an inch thick — no thinner, or they won't puff. Cut your rounds with the rim of a drinking glass, and if you like the classic look, poke a hole in each middle with a bottle cap or a small glass.
- 7
Pour the 4 cups vegetable oil into a deep, heavy pot and heat it to 350 degrees. No thermometer? Drop in a little scrap of dough — it should sizzle up and float within a few seconds, lively but not browning instantly. Too fast means the oil's too hot; too slow and greasy means it's too cool.
- 8
Gently lower in just two or three donuts at a time — crowding drops the temperature and makes them soggy. Fry about 60 to 90 seconds a side, turning once, until they're deep golden and cracked all over like an old riverbed. That rough, craggy surface is exactly what you want; it grabs the glaze.
- 9
Lift them out with a slotted spoon and rest them on a paper towel to drain, then let them cool for a few minutes. Warm is fine, but piping hot will just melt your glaze clean off.
- 10
For the glaze, whisk the 2 cups powdered sugar with a few spoonfuls of warm water, adding the water a little at a time, until it ribbons off the whisk in a smooth, slow stream. Dip the top of each donut in, give it a little twist, and set them on a rack so the glaze can set into a thin sweet shell. Now pour some coffee and enjoy one while they're fresh — that's the cook's reward.
Tools you’ll need
- large mixing bowl
- medium mixing bowl
- whisk
- wooden spoon
- small saucepan
- rolling pin
- drinking glass
- deep heavy pot
- slotted spoon
- candy thermometer
- paper towels
- wire cooling rack
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