Rolling in Dough - It's time to make the donuts!

Who remembers this guy? He starred in commercials for Dunkin Donuts for fifteen years back in the 80's and 90's.

Although my friend Kathleen and I did not wake at the crack of dawn, we churned out three batches of sourdough donuts before noon today. Not too shabby!

We used a recipe from the website of the Mid-Atlantic Innkeepers Trade Show and Conference. Why that recipe? It's the one that seemed most simple and didn't use a lot of ingredients. Plus, these donuts are baked and not fried. You use a special donut pan for the baking.

I never had an assistant in the kitchen before, but after today, Kathleen has me completely sold on the idea. She measured out all my ingredients AND did the dishes as we went along. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

First up is the rye flour starter.

We spooned the dough into zipper bags to make it easier to fill the donut pan. This dough rested while we made the other two.

Here are the rye starter donuts going into the oven. And you can see what the donut pan looks like, too.

 And here they are all done baking. The bottoms browned nicely, the tops did not. Even after we turned my oven another fifty degrees higher, the donuts didn't brown. It's an old oven and obviously isn't  heating up the way it needs to for baked goods to brown. I had the same problem with the biscuits.

The texture was very similar to what you'd expect from a fried cake donut. They were slightly sweet and had a very delicate sourdough taste.

Next up is the unbleached flour starter. Browned bottoms, pale tops, but not the fault of the recipe.

And finally, the wild yeast donuts.

There wasn't a noticeable difference in taste or texture among the three batches.  All three were moist, cake-like in texture and lightly sweetened. The sourdough flavor was very subtle.

I'm very happy with how these donuts turned out. They are a great way to use your starter! 

The next experiment is sourdough waffles. I'll let you know how they turn out!