Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Doughnuts
Tangy sour cream and buttermilk cake doughnuts, chilled, cut and fried until craggy and crisp at the edges, then dipped in a thin vanilla glaze that settles into every crack.
In today's doughnut shops an "old-fashioned" is a cake doughnut with a cracked surface and tapered edges, but Wikipedia says 19th-century recipes called "old-fashioned donuts" were yeast-raised, and that cake doughnuts were once often called "fry cakes". Cake doughnuts needed chemical leavening: Wikipedia says they took off in the United States around 1829 as pearlash became easier to get, with baking soda and baking powder following in the 1830s, about when cake doughnut recipes appear in American cookbooks. Sour cream and buttermilk bring the acid that makes those leaveners work, and their tang.
🇺🇸 This one is American
Tangy sour cream and buttermilk cake doughnuts, chilled, cut and fried until craggy and crisp at the edges, then dipped in a thin vanilla glaze that settles into every crack.
🇳🇱 The original
The ancestor is Dutch: oliebollen, balls of yeast dough studded with currants and raisins, fried in oil and dusted with powdered sugar, which settlers brought to New Amsterdam as olykoeks. See the Dutch Oliebollen (New Year's Eve Doughnuts) recipe.
🗳️ Glazed or old-fashioned? Vote: Glazed vs Old-fashioned →
📖 Myth check: Is the Apple Cider Doughnut an Old New England Tradition? → 📖 Origin story: Why Do Doughnuts Have Holes? The Sea Captain Story, Checked →
Why it works the kitchen science
Acid plus soda
Sour cream and buttermilk react with the baking soda for lift and keep the crumb tender and tangy (Taste of Home).
The chill
Two hours in the refrigerator lets the flour absorb the liquid, so the sticky dough firms up enough to roll and holds a clean edge in the oil (Taste of Home).
Step by step
- Step 1
Beat the sour cream and buttermilk until smooth. Beat in the sugar until smooth, then the eggs and vanilla just until combined.
- Step 2
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and add them gradually to the wet mixture, mixing just until combined. The dough will be sticky.
- Step 3
Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 hours, until firm.
- Step 4
Turn the dough onto a well-floured counter and knead 2 to 3 minutes, until smooth. Roll it 1/2 inch thick and cut with a floured 2 1/2-inch doughnut cutter, rerolling the scraps.
- Step 5
Heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep electric skillet to 375°F. Fry a few doughnuts at a time, about 3 minutes per side, turning once, until golden brown; fry the holes until golden. Drain on paper towels.
- Step 6
Whisk the confectioners' sugar, water and vanilla smooth. Wait 2 to 3 minutes after frying, then dip each slightly warm doughnut and set it on a wire rack so the excess drips off.
Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Doughnuts
Serves 18 (one doughnut and one hole each) · about 18 doughnuts plus the holes · 3 hr 5 min total
Dough
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- About 2 quarts oil, for deep-frying
Glaze
- 1 1/3 cups confectioners' sugar
- 5 to 6 tsp water
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Method
- Beat the sour cream and buttermilk until smooth. Beat in the sugar until smooth, then the eggs and vanilla just until combined.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and add them gradually to the wet mixture, mixing just until combined. The dough will be sticky.
- Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 hours, until firm.
- Turn the dough onto a well-floured counter and knead 2 to 3 minutes, until smooth. Roll it 1/2 inch thick and cut with a floured 2 1/2-inch doughnut cutter, rerolling the scraps.
- Heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep electric skillet to 375°F. Fry a few doughnuts at a time, about 3 minutes per side, turning once, until golden brown; fry the holes until golden. Drain on paper towels.
- Whisk the confectioners' sugar, water and vanilla smooth. Wait 2 to 3 minutes after frying, then dip each slightly warm doughnut and set it on a wire rack so the excess drips off.
Adapted from Taste of Home, "Glazed Old-Fashioned Doughnuts", recipe by Darlene Brenden of Salem, Oregon, tested by the Taste of Home Test Kitchen (updated March 21, 2024), as written for about 1 1/2 dozen. Taste of Home lists 262 calories per doughnut with its hole; our estimate is in Calorie inputs. Taste of Home. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (2)
Tips
- Don't overmix; Taste of Home wants a dense, cakey doughnut, not an airy one.
- Glaze while slightly warm, not hot, so the glaze sets thin instead of running off.
- Taste of Home says they keep 3 days airtight at room temperature and freeze 3 months.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Frying cooler makes the cracks. Disputed: Taste of Home's page says old-fashioned doughnuts get their craggy surface from a lower frying temperature, yet its recipe fries at 375°F; ATK's sour cream old-fashioned donut sticks fry at 325°F to 350°F. Both make ridges; we follow the recipe as written.
- An old-fashioned is a cake doughnut. Disputed by history: true in today's shops, but Wikipedia says 19th-century "old-fashioned donuts" were yeast-raised.
- Cake doughnuts are American. Documented in part: Wikipedia dates their rise in the US to about 1829 and pearlash.
- Fry the top side down first. Folklore: a common shop tip; neither recipe we used specifies it.
Every other doughnut
Dutch Oliebollen (New Year's Eve Doughnuts)
Scoops of soft yeast batter studded with raisins and currants, fried round and golden and buried in powdered sugar, the Dutch New Year's Eve treat and a cousin of the olykoeks the Dutch made in old New York.
German Berliner (Jam-Filled Krapfen)
Soft balls of butter-and-egg yeast dough fried with their pale "collar", rolled in sugar and piped full of jam: the German jelly doughnut, called Berliner, Pfannkuchen, Krapfen or Kreppel depending on where you buy it.
Polish Pączki (Fat Thursday Doughnuts)
Extra-rich jelly doughnuts made with egg yolks, butter and vanilla, fried deep mahogany, tossed in powdered sugar and filled with plum, rose petal or raspberry jam for Fat Thursday.
Israeli Sufganiyot (Hanukkah Jelly Doughnuts)
Small yeast doughnuts scented with cinnamon, fried hot and fast for Hanukkah, filled with a spoonful of berry or plum preserves and rolled in sugar, from Joan Nathan's 1979 holiday cookbook.
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Big, cloud-soft Italian doughnuts made from a folded yeast dough, fried slow and pale gold, filled with lemon-and-vanilla pastry cream and dusted with powdered sugar, the way Tuscan bakeries and beach carts sell them.
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Apple Cider Doughnuts
Tender cake doughnuts flavored with apple, buttermilk, cinnamon and nutmeg, fried in two minutes and tossed in cinnamon sugar, the fall orchard and cider-mill classic made at home.
Baked Weeknight Doughnuts (Cinnamon Sugar)
Tender nutmeg cake doughnuts baked in a doughnut pan in 10 minutes and shaken in cinnamon sugar while warm: no yeast, no frying, about half an hour start to finish.
Hot Glazed Doughnuts, Inspired by Krispy Kreme
Light, fluffy yeast rings made with shortening, fried in shortening and dipped while warm in a thin, warm glaze of powdered sugar, milk and corn syrup, a home take on the famous hot glazed doughnut. Inspired by, not official.
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