Simple Homemade Sugar Donuts

Sugar Donuts – This simple homemade donut dough is made with flour, milk, egg yolks, yeast, and sugar, then the donuts are fried and dredged in sugar. This recipe is easy to make and produces a very indulgent little treat! Make it once and you’ll never use a different recipe for donuts. It’s soo good!

If you love these sugar donuts, you’ll also enjoy these 15-minute Ricotta Donuts, this Quick Fried Donut Recipe, and these Super Soft Donuts with Sugar Glaze.

Homemade Donuts

These homemade donuts are a classic recipe that I’ve been making since I was a little girl. It always makes me feel extra nostalgic when I make these.

As I saw my daughter waiting for me to fry the doughnuts, I remembered myself sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table, resting my head on the palms of my hands, watching her every move as the homemade donuts bubbled away in the hot oil.

Grandma would make a ton of them, making sure that everyone in her big family got to have as many doughnuts as they wanted.

Ripping a doughnut with my fingers today, and allowing my nose to inhale the aroma of a freshly fried homemade donut, I can’t help but miss her as I am reminded that in a month it will be 5 years since she left us for a better place.

Easy Donut Recipe

Making donuts from scratch sounds like an intimidating thing to do, but I assure you this is a very easy donut recipe. If this is your first venture into homemade donuts, this is a good beginner’s recipe to try.

Make sure to follow the recipe as outlined below. I’ve made this one more than a dozen times and never had an issue.

Honestly, the hardest part about making this easy donut recipe is waiting until they are cool enough to eat after being fried. They smell incredible and the wait is almost torture!

Yeast Donut Recipe

A quick note about yeast – I know a lot of people get nervous when working with yeast, but it’s really much more simple than it sounds. Without it, the donut would be much less airy.

In fact, whether or not you use a yeast donut recipe determines if you end up with a cake donut or an airy one. I much prefer the yeast donut to the dense cake donut personally—especially with the sweet, sugary coating!

Because this donut uses yeast, you’ll want to plan ahead a bit. The yeast donut recipe calls for about 2-3 hours of rising time total for the dough, so this is a good recipe to whip up first thing in the morning before everyone is up and ready for the day. If your family is anything like mine, it takes about that long for everyone to be up, showered, dressed and ready to eat anyways!

How to Make Sugar Donuts

For detailed recipe instructions, see the recipe card at the bottom of the post. 

• Stir together warm water, sugar, and yeast and let rise for about 5 minutes.
• Mix together the rest of the sugar donut ingredients, including the proofed yeast. It’s best if you use a dough hook attachment to do this.
• Form the dough into a large ball and butter it to prevent skin from forming. Then put it in a covered bowl and keep it in a warm place until doubled in size.

• Roll out the sugar donut dough and use a 3-inch cookie cutter to cut out donuts.
• Let rise again for about an hour, until doubled or tripled in volume.
• Heat your oil and fry the donuts. Once they are cool enough, roll them in sugar.

• Eat and enjoy!

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Simple Homemade Sugar Donuts

4.86 from 401 votes

Simple Sugar Donut - this easy dough is made with flour, milk, yeast, and sugar, then the donuts are fried and dredged in sugar. Very simple, but creates an indulgent little treat!

Author: Marina | Let the Baking Begin

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: doughnuts, sugar donuts

Calories: 234 kcal

Prep Time: 2 hours

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Servings: 18

Ingredients

Combine together

• 2½ tsp active dry yeast
• 2 Tbsp warm water
• 1/2 tsp granulated sugar

Mix with a mixer

• 3¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk warm
• 2 oz unsalted butter room temperature
• 3 large egg yolks
• 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt

For coating

• 1 cup granulated sugar

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

How to make Simple Sugar Donuts

1. Proof yeast: Stir 2 tbsp warm water, 1/2 tsp sugar & 2 1/2tsp active dry yeast in a tall glass. Leave to rise for 5-10 minutes or until doubled in volume and foamy. If it does not rise and foam up, discard the yeast and buy a fresh batch of yeast before you proceed with the recipe.

2. Make donut dough: Mix together 3 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup warm milk, 2 oz room temperature butter, 3 yolks, 2 tbsp sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and the proofed yeast mixture in mixer on low speed, with the dough hook attachment until the dough comes together, about 2 minutes. Slightly increase the speed and knead for another 15-20 minutes or until the dough is tacky to touch. If you continue kneading past the point of smooth and stretchy dough, the dough will overknead and make doughy donuts, so keep a close eye on the dough.

3. Shape donut dough: Pick up the dough, form it into a ball. Butter a large bowl (for proofing), place the dough ball back in the greased bowl, then grease the dough ball itself to prevent it from forming a crust.

4. Proof: Cover with a clean kitchen towel, place in a warm draft-free place and allow to rise for 1-2 hours (depending on how warm it is) until at least doubled in volume.

5. Cut out 5"x5" squares of parchment or wax paper.

6. Punch down the dough, turn it out onto the greased surface (can use nonstick spray) and roll it to ½ inches thickness. Cut out as many rounds as possible with a 3 inch round cookie cutter and place 1 dough disk on 1 piece of prepared parchment paper. Keep re-rolling and cutting out as many donut disks as you can until all donut dough is used up.

7. Cover cut out doughnuts with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rise for 45 min to 1 hour or until doubled in size.

8. Heat 1½ inches oil in a heavy pot (cast iron) to 350F. To fry donuts, drop several of them at a time and allow to become golden before turning to the other side, about 1-2 minutes per side.

9. Transfer to paper towels or wire rack to drain. Let cool.

10. Once the doughnuts are cool enough to handle, roll them in granulated sugar or powdered sugar.

Nutrition Facts

Simple Homemade Sugar Donuts

Amount Per Serving

Calories 234 Calories from Fat 63

% Daily Value*

Fat 7g11%

Saturated Fat 3g19%

Cholesterol 73mg24%

Sodium 15mg1%

Potassium 91mg3%

Carbohydrates 35g12%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 3g3%

Protein 6g12%

Vitamin A 260IU5%

Calcium 42mg4%

Iron 2.1mg12%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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