Sourdough Discard Donuts Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between sourdough donuts and regular donuts? ›

What is the difference between sourdough donuts and regular donuts? Sourdough donuts are made with wild yeast, a sourdough starter, instead of commercial yeast or baking powder. They have a stronger flavour and a little more texture than regular donuts.

Luckily, these donuts are a long fermented and use less sugar than most! With the addition of honey and sugar, these donuts do not have a sharp sour flavor from the sourdough starter. They are sweet and oh so delicious! I chose to make this recipe a baked version.

Sourdough donuts are best enjoyed fresh and warm. The sour flavor may increase over time, but they will last for 3 to 4 days when stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

How do you store sourdough donuts? If somehow you have a few leftover, you can store them in an airtight container (or bag), or wrap them in a napkin and place in a paper bag – fold over the top. I like to add a napkin to help absorb any extra oil and keep them fresh longer.

What makes Dunkin's Sourdough bread so special? Dunkin's Sourdough Bread is one of the only mass-produced sourdoughs that uses a “true” sourdough starter. Many other companies that make sourdough bread on a large-scale use either a powdered substance as a base or use sourdough flavoring to flavor their bread.

You should make these baked sourdough donuts because they are super simple! They use your sourdough starter to leaven them - not yeast or baking powder! What is this? Baking them is an easier (and healthier) way to cook them than deep frying in fat or oil.

Baked doughnuts are smaller, baking powder driven and more compact. A typical fried glazed donut will be around 269 calories, while a baked donut will have much fewer. The difference is the fact that you won't be dealing with any extra fat from the oil from frying when you bake.

As Josh Gomes (who created Dunkin's starter) explained to Bake Magazine, "Dunkin's Sourdough Bread is one of the only mass-produced sourdoughs that uses a 'true' sourdough starter.

Sourdough uses very few ingredients. In fact, a basic sourdough bread contains just flour, water and salt. If you're not in the 33% of the nation that's considered making sourdough in the last year, you may be wondering where the yeast is… This is one of the reasons sourdough is so great.

The addition of lactic acid or acetic acid can give bread that sour taste without the bother of feeding and maintaining a proper culture, or taking the time for the longer fermentations good sourdough needs to develop flavor.

Why is it called sourdough if it's not sour? ›

I think the American word sourdough may be derived from the German "Sauerteig", which literally means "sour dough". In German "sauer" can be sour, or can can just mean acidic. Most acids are sour to the taste in sufficient quantity.

Naturally leavened bomboloni are essentially sourdough doughnuts (with no sourness). They're also known as berliner, krapfen, ballen, pączki, donut, and many more names all over the world.

The most important thing to know is that you should never store sourdough in your fridge. The inside of a fridge is a very harsh environment that's much too cold and dry to store bread in. Your sourdough will get hard and stale much faster in the fridge than if you leave it out.

Store it for future baking: You can store sourdough discard in an airtight container in the refrigerator for future baking with sourdough discard recipes. When you're ready to use it, let the discard come to room temperature before using it to bake. I will keep sourdough discard in the fridge for about one week.

Any non-reactive container can hold sourdough starter. We have heard of bakers keeping sourdough in ziplock bags and plastic to-go containers. Mason jars and old sauerkraut jars are popular favorites. Crocks are very traditional.

Sourdough relies on a mix of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria, rather than baker's yeast, to leaven the dough. It's richer in nutrients, less likely to spike your blood sugar, contains lower amounts of gluten, and is generally easier to digest than bread made with baker's yeast.

The Obvious Difference

Yeast doughnuts, as the name clearly spells out, are made from dough leavened with yeast (think brioche), whereas cake doughnuts are traditionally made from a kind of cake batter that uses a chemical leavener (i.e. baking powder or baking soda).

Sourdough is a healthier alternative to regular white or whole wheat bread. Although it has comparable nutrients, the lower phytate levels mean it is more digestible and nutritious. The prebiotics also help to keep your gut bacteria happy, and it may be less likely to spike blood sugar levels.

While cake doughnuts and yeast doughnuts are both delicious, they are made with different ingredients and unique methods. It's helpful to understand how to make doughnuts to know just what makes them different.