Part 2 of my old fashioned donut series: funfetti! AKA, sprinkles both inside and outside, vanilla flavor, and a thick and creamy icing. Feel free to dye the icing pink if you’d like, or leave it bright white so the rainbow sprinkles will pop. While you can use whatever sprinkles you’d like to decorate these, be sure to use the brightly-colored strand kind for the dough. Rainbow strands work best for brightly-colored funfetti donuts (or really, funfetti anything).
This series has been so much fun to work on—especially the donut testing/eating part. And I’ve been putting together these posts every morning with a cup of coffee, which sounds nice. But the donuts no longer exist in real life, so it’s actually been torture. So I’m thinking I’m going to need to make a batch of these funfetti donuts again ASAP, just for fun this time.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting about the pink and green donut that’s making a little cameo in the photo below. It’s flavored with rose, cardamom, and lemon, and topped with rose petals and pistachios. You might just be able to guess what it’s gonna be. And don’t miss part 1 of the series: the lemon poppy donuts that I posted yesterday.
funfetti cake donuts
Ingredients
For the donuts:
- Neutral high smoke point oil, for deep frying (e.g., canola)
- 250g all purpose flour (2 cups), plus more for dusting
- 20g (2 tablespoons) sprinkles
- 4g salt (¾ teaspoon)
- 9g baking powder (2 teaspoons)
- 45g melted butter (3 tablespoons), cooled slightly
- 100g sugar (½ cup)
- 50g egg (1 large) at room temperature
- 120g plain unstrained yogurt (½ cup) at room temperature
- 5g (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract
For the icing:
- 220g (1¾ cup) powdered sugar
- 60g (¼ cup) heavy cream
- More sprinkles for decorating
Instructions
For the donuts:
- Set up a safe fry station on your stove or a dedicated deep-fryer. Make sure it cannot be knocked over. Set over medium-low heat so it can heat gradually while you prep the donuts, and set up a deep fry thermometer. Keep a close eye on it, and aim for it to reach 350°F [180°C] by the time you’re ready to fry. If it heats too quickly, reduce the heat to low or turn off for a few moments until you’re ready.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, sprinkles, salt, and baking powder. Whisk or sift together until completely lump free.
- In a separate mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, sugar, egg, yogurt, and vanilla. Whisk together until completely smooth.
- Scrape the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then mix together just until combined (do not overmix).
- Dust a clean counter with more flour, then scrape the dough onto the dusted counter. Sprinkle on a little more flour, then gently pat it into an oval.* Take care to make sure it’s well dusted both underneath and on top. Roll it out to ½-inch thick, redusting above and below to keep it from sticking as you work.
- Stamp out as many donuts as you can using a donut stamp or set of pastry rings. Collect the scraps**, re-roll, and stamp out more donuts.
- Once the oil has heated, fry the donuts. They should take about 2 minutes per side at 350°F [180°C], and should be deeply brown (but not burnt) and cooked through. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate or cooling-rack-lined sheet pan to cool.
For the icing:
- Stir together cream and powdered sugar until it forms a thick icing.
- Spread the icing on each donut, then top immediately with more sprinkles
Notes
* Do not knead the dough or incorporate the flour into it, or it will turn out dry—just pat it into shape.
** To get a really good re-roll out of the scraps, try not to let any flour touch the freshly stamped edges, and compress them together so the bare edges mush together with other bare edges. Try not to introduce a lot of new flour. Feel free to fry the donut holes, or re-roll them with the scraps (if you fry them, they will take about 30 seconds less per side).
