These old fashioned donuts are tender, cakey, and  smothered in the tastiest vanilla glaze. Plus old fashioned donuts are not a yeasted dough, so you can whip them up in no time!

Old Fashioned Sour Cream Donuts

TRULY there is nothing better than a hot, glazed donut. Like, it’s a universal truth. Nothing compares to that first, sweet, crumbly bite. And while I love a good yeasted donut, old fashioned donuts have my heart. Dense, cakey, and coated in the most sumptuous vanilla glaze, these sour cream donuts are what breakfast dreams are made of.

This old fashioned donut recipe come from the brilliant mind of Vallery Lomas, winner of The Great American Baking Show–so you know she KNOWS her stuff. Her cookbook, Life is What You Bake It is packed with delicious recipes, stories, and inspiration. And Vallery is the reigning donut queen. She has a whole section dedicated to these fried confections, and nothing competes with her old fashioned donuts recipe.

You can buy her gorgeous cookbook here, and watch an informative video on exactly how to make these scrumptious sour cream donuts here!

What are old fashioned donuts?

No yeast, no multiple rises, no fancy ingredients, and no fancy kitchen gadgets–your great great grandma could have made these. Which is probably why they’re called old fashioned! Old fashioned donuts are a cake donut with a crisp, crackly exterior and tender, cakey interior. Unlike a yeasted or risen donut, old fashioned donuts are dense and cakey and don’t require any rise time

So you can whip these bad boys up in no time at all!

What do you need to make old fashioned donuts?

I know that donuts and donut frying  can feel like a lot of work, but it’s one of those high risk high reward situation that you’ll be happy you labored a bit for. The moment you sink your teeth into that warm, cakey donut you’ll forget about all the work that went into them.

And the good new is that old fashioned donuts are made with simple, pantry staples so no need to run to any specialty stores or search through grocery store. Here’s your shopping list:

•  Granulated sugar
• Unsalted butter
• Egg Yolks
• Cake Flour
• Baking Powder
• Salt
• Sour Cream
• Oil
• Powdered Sugar
• Milk

How to make old fashioned donuts

Okay, so now you know what you need to make these old fashioned sour cream donuts..but how exactly do you make them? While it is a multistep process, you won’t need to knead your dough or let it rise! You’ll make a simple donut dough, roll the dough out and cut out donuts, fry them up, and finally dip them in a vanilla glaze.

Plus old fashioned donuts are pretty rustic so they don’t have to be perfect! At the end of the dough fried dough dipped in sugar is going to be downright delicious no matter what it looks like 🙂

Tips for making perfect old fashioned donuts

Vallery has allll the tips and tricks in her cookbook, but these three are ones I learned myself when making these donuts! I make the mistakes so you don’t have to hehe.

• Make sure your frying oil is good: The oil will seep into your donuts as they fry, so make sure you’re using fresh oil. Bad oil can give your donuts a really weird flavor at best and a spoiled flavor at worst.
• Use a thermometer to get your oil to the right temperature: I’ve tried to fry donuts without a thermometer and sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t. Homemade donuts are a fair bit of work, so do yourself a favor and set yourself up for success. Oil that is too cold will lead to a claggy, mushy donut and oil that is too hot will burn the exterior.
• Glaze them hot: If you wait until your donuts are cool to glaze them they won’t get the same crackly sheen and the frosting will not adhere properly to the donuts. It’s best to glaze them while they are still hot! It’s also best to eat them hot 🙂

Happy donut eating my friends!

XXX