Lemon and Sourcream Donuts

This recipe is grabbed from Tartelette, who I encourage you check it if only for Helen's absolutely beautiful food photography. She used Meyer lemons in her recipe, which aren't exactly easy to come across here in Perth, Australia. However, regular lemons are just delicious in this surprisingly easy recipe.

The preparation time is about ten minutes (I know because I was baking brownies at the same time and the timer was running), but the dough needs to sit for about an hour before it is used. Originally I thought that I should have made a double batch, as it looked like there was hardly any batter. Don't be fooled though, as the donuts expand hugely while they are frying.

While Helen says that she uses a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop for spooning the donut batter into the pan, I think that this might be too big. I ended up using a teaspoon, and still ended up with donuts that were two bites large. I found that when I made larger donuts that their outsides would burn while the interior was still goopy. Of course, my candy thermometer decided to go on strike, so I just had to do some guesswork with the temperature of the oil. This may have contributed to my inability to make large donuts.

I used a large, shallow, heavy bottomed pan, which I think was a mistake. Next time I will use a pot, as it will mean that I won't need to use so much oil in order to generate the depth that these donuts need to fry in - I think I ended up using around 5 cups in the end!

One thing that you need to be aware of is that while these donuts have a very short preparation time, they do take a while to cook, simply because you can only fry 4 or 5 at a time. I served these as dessert for a dinner party, and ended up just passing them around in lots of three so that they could be enjoyed while they were still delicious warm and crispy. They were a huge hit - everyone was stuffed from the mains (it was a potluck style dinner and we had way too much food!), yet these all got gobbled up.

I'm quite keen to try out different flavorings with these donuts - other citrus flavors or shredded strawberries or maybe even lavender. I'd also like to experiment with injecting a little bit of lemon curd in the middle of these.

Lemon and Sourcream Donuts
Makes about 20

1 cup (125 gr) all-purpose flour

1 cup (140 gr) cake flour*

2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 cup (100 gr) sugar

4 oz (120 gr) sour cream

2 large eggs

zest and juice from one lemon

1 tablespoon (15 gr) olive oil

Canola oil for frying (about 1 cup or 250 ml)

Powdered sugar

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, sour cream, eggs, zest and lemon juice, and the olive oil until smooth. Add the reserved flour mixture, and stir with a spatula until the mixture is smooth.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the batter for about 1 hour.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large heavy bottomed cast iron pan or Dutch oven until it reaches 325F/162C. Scoop the batter using an ice cream/ cookie scoop, or a teaspoon, and fry 4-5 at a time without overcrowding the pan (reduces the oil temperature and makes the donuts greasy). Fry each batch for 4-6 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Allow to sit on a paper towel for a minute before coating with sifted powdered sugar.

*I didn't have any cake flour so I just substituted normal flour and cream of tarter - Place 2 tablespoons of cream of tarter at the bottom of a 1 cup measuring cup, then fill the rest with flour.