Sourdough Apple Pie Donuts

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If you love apple pie, then you have to make these Sourdough Apple Pie Donuts. They’re so soft and fluffy, tossed in cinnamon sugar while they’re warm for the perfect coating, then filled with plenty of gooey homemade apple pie filling. These are everything you love about apple pie and donuts wrapped up into one unbeatable treat.

Tools You’ll Need:

1. Stand mixer (optional)- for kneading dough. You can mix the dough by hand but a mixer is easiest.
2. Medium sized pan- for making the tangzhong and the apple pie filling.
3. Veggie or apple peeler- to peel apples.
4. Cutting board and knife- to chop apples.
5. Spatula– to mix the apple pie filling.
6. Kitchen scale or measuring cups and spoons– for measuring ingredients.
7. Rolling pin- for rolling out donuts.
8. Round cookie cutter- for cutting out donuts, you can also use a Mason jar. I used a 4″ cookie cutter linked here.
9. 12 4×4 parchment squares- This make frying the donuts so easy! You can either cut your own squares or buy them, I’ve linked pre-cut squares here.
10. Deep pot or Dutch oven– for frying donuts.
11. Frying thermometer– for keeping oil at 340–350°F. I strongly recommend using this tool to avoid burning I use this one linked here and love it.
12. Slotted spoon or spider- to flip donuts. The spider I use is linked here.
13. Chopsticks (optional)- helpful for flipping donuts. I like these reusable chopsticks linked here. I also used these to poke a hole in my donuts first to create a pocket for my filling.
14. Cooling rack + paper towels– for drying donuts after frying.
15. Tongs- for removing parchment from oil while frying.
16. Digital Thermometer (optional)- helps with assessing when tangzhong is done.
17. Piping bag- for filling the donuts. I used these pastry bags for the apple pie filling.
18. Small bowl- for the cinnamon sugar coating.

Gather Your Ingredients:

1. Whole milk– milk enriches this dough making it soft and tender. You’ll also use milk to make your tangzhong.
2. Egg- adds tenderness and structure to the dough working as a binder.
3. Sourdough starter- If you make this recipe 100% sourdough you’ll use your starter to feed a sweet levain, or you can make the discard option and add yeast. Any discard cold or fresh is fine.
4. Instant dry yeast (optional)- This is the leavening agent for the dough if you do the discard option, and speeds up the process! I love this Scratch Gold Yeast and always have it on hand. Please note instant dry yeast isn’t the same as active dry yeast which you have to bloom to activate. I’ll include an active dry yeast swap under FAQ’s.
5. Unsalted butter- enriches dough and keeps the donuts soft. You’ll also use this in the apple pie filling.
6. White Sugar- sweetens the dough and cuts the tang of the starter with a sweet levain. You’ll also use this in your apple pie filling and cinnamon sugar coating.
7. Sea salt- balances sweet and sour flavors.
8. Vanilla extract- for aromatic warmth and depth of flavor to dough and apple pie filling.
9. All-purpose flour- I recommend AP flour over bread flour to create a more tender crumb. The egg and tangzhong will provide the structure in this recipe making bread flour unnecessary, but you can substitute for bread flour if needed.
10. Brown Sugar- this sweetens the apple pie filling and helps it caramelize.
11. Cinnamon and Nutmeg- Rounds out the apple flavor and brings that classic apple pie warmth. You’ll also use these spices in the sugar coating.
12. Granny Smith Apples– These are my favorite apples for apple pie filling. While you can use other varieties of apples, granny smith offer a distinct tart crisp flavor and don’t get mushy after long periods of baking. If you don’t have Granny Smith, Honeycrisp or Braeburn are fine options.
13. Lemon juice- balances out the apple pie filling and helps to preserve the apples.
14. Cornstarch- thickens the apple pie filling so it stays stable in the donuts.
15. Organic Coconut Oil- for frying donuts and achieving a crisp texture without a strong aftertaste. I highly recommend Carrington Organic coconut oil linked here. This container lasts me several batches when frying, and you just allow the oil to cool after frying and remove any excess bits before transferring left over oil to a glass jar. Coconut oil has a higher smoke point which is ideal for frying, has little to no aftertaste, and is more stable under high heat making it less likely to oxidize and form harmful free radicals.

Instructions

Step 1: Make the Sweet Levain (Night Before)

To start your dough, you’ll want to mix a sweet levain the night before. If this sounds intimidating, it’s not! It’s literally just adding sugar to your starter. This curbs the tang of the sourdough for the perfect donut.

In a clean jar, mix your mother starter with the flour, water, and sugar. Give it a good stir, and allow it to rest at room temperature (optimally 73-75 degrees F). I like to mark the volume in my jar with a rubber band so it’s easy to asses the rise the next morning. When the sweet levain has doubled in size, it’s time to mix your donut dough.

Sourdough Discard Option: If you make this recipe with discard and yeast, skip this step.

Step 2: Make the Tangzhong

Before you get started on mixing your dough, you’ll make your tangzhong. Whisk milk and flour together in a small saucepan.

Cook the tangzhong over medium/low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens into a paste that is similar to pudding (about 2–3 minutes). For precision, use your digital thermometer and heat to 148-155 F. Do not overheat, or your mixture will be too thick.

Scrape into a bowl immediately to prevent further cooking, cover, and let cool to room temperature before adding to your dough.

Prepare your dough while tangzhong cools.

Step 3: Mix the Dough

In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or large mixing bowl, add the whole milk, sweet levain, egg, sugar, vanilla, and all of the tangzhong. Whisk ingredients together quickly, it’s okay if it’s lumpy.

Sourdough Discard Option: If you’re making this recipe with discard and yeast, add the discard and instant yeast instead of the sweet levain to the wet ingredients and whisk in.

Add your flour and salt into your wet ingredients.

Mix on low until a shaggy dough forms, about 2-3 minutes. Scrape down bowl if needed. If using your hands, knead until you work dough together. This is a higher hydration dough, so be aware it will be sticky.

Once the dough has come together add the softened butter, a tablespoon at a time mixing each tablespoon in until adding the next. Use a dough scraper to scrape the edges of the bowl to make sure everything is getting mixed in.

Continue mixing on medium-low (speed 2–3) for 8–10 minutes, until dough is smooth, elastic, and tacky but not sticky. If mixing by hand knead dough until butter has fully incorporated and dough is smooth and tacky.

Mixing Notes: If kneading in a mixer or if dough is very wet when mixing by hand, add an additional 25 grams (3 Tablespoons) of flour and mix into dough. Make sure to work flour in completely and assess if you need more flour.

Do not add more than 50 grams of flour at this stage, or you will lose the high hydration of the dough and end up with a dense donut. If using a stand mixer, dough can become more warm and sticky and I have found kneading dough with my hand (perform a set of stretch and folds) for a minute after mixing in my stand mixer really helps bring the dough together.

Step 4: Bulk Fermentation

Stand mixer directions: perform one set of stretch and folds after 30 minutes to strengthen your dough.

Hand mixing directions: perform 3 sets of stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals at the beginning of bulk fermentation. After stretch and folds are completed, cover dough and allow to continue proofing.

Sourdough Discard Option: After the 20 minute rest, knead the dough by hand for a minute or two to get the dough even softer and to work the gluten. Once you’ve finished this kneading step, cover the bowl again.

Let the dough rise at 75–80°F until doubled in size, this takes about 5–6 hours. If your house is very cold, you can put dough in the oven with the light on for a warmer atmosphere. This proofing time is a general guide, this process may take longer the key is to assess when the dough has nearly doubled that’s when it’s ready.

Sourdough Discard Option: Allow the dough to rest about 1 1/2 hours at room temperature and the dough is ~75–90% risen. You don’t want this dough to proof double fully at this rising point. If the dough proofs sooner than the time I mentioned, shape it. You want to watch the dough to make sure it doesn’t overproof at this stage!

Overnight Fermentation: Once dough has finished rising, you can cover and transfer to the refrigerator overnight for a longer ferment or you can skip this step and go straight to making your donuts.

Step 5: Make the Apple Pie Filling

Wash your apples and dry them. Peel and chop them into very small 1/8 inch cubes (this is key to getting the apples properly cooked and making sure you can pipe them). Transfer the apples to a large mixing bowl.

Add the lemon juice, white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt to the bowl; toss the apple chunks with filling ingredients until they’re coated.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt your butter. When the butter has melted, add the apple filling. Cook the apples for about 8-10 minutes, until the apples are soft.

Remember the apples won’t be cooked again, so it’s important to cook them to softness you desire at this point.

In a small mixing cup, whisk together the cold water (or apple juice) with the cornstarch. Add the cornstarch mixture slowly to the apple pie filling mixing as you go to avoid a grainy texture.

Once the filling has cooled, it should be thick and spoonable. You want the filling cooled off but still slightly warm before you add it to the donuts.

Make Ahead Note: You can make this filling up to 3 days ahead and store in the refrigerator in an airtight container until ready to use.

Step 6: Shape the Donuts

If you refrigerated the dough overnight, remove it from the refrigerator and allow to rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes to take the chill off.

When the dough is ready, flour a surface well and dump the dough onto the work area. Flour the top of the dough and the rolling pin as well, and gently roll out the dough to a circle that is about 1/2 inch thickness (it doesn’t have to be a perfect circle just roll out the dough).

Flour the cookie cutter or the cup, and cut out 12 even circles of dough. I don’t recommend gathering this dough and rolling it to make more donuts, I find that the initial time you roll out and cut the shapes it has the best texture so keep that in mind. The scraps would make excellent donut holes though!

Transfer the donuts to 4×4 pre-cut parchment squares that are lightly floured, and lay them to proof on 2 baking sheets.

Step 7: Final Proof

Cover donuts loosely with plastic sprayed with cooking oil and let rise at room temperature for 1-2 hours, or until puffy and jiggly.

When poked gently with a fingertip, the dough should spring back slowly, not immediately. Because this dough has the tangzhong to provide stability to the dough, you can push your final proof a little longer to get a really airy donut. It’s better to give this step more time than less.

Sourdough Discard Option: The second rise will be faster if you used discard and yeast, allow the donuts to proof about 45 minutes to an hour and then fry them. Avoid over proofing or you’ll end up with air pockets.

Step 8: Fry the Donuts

Line a cooling rack with paper towels. Fit your candy thermometer into your deep pot. Transfer 3–4 cups of organic coconut oil to a deep pot or Dutch oven, and heat to 350-360°F on medium heat.

If the oil gets hotter than this, reduce the heat accordingly. Watch your temperatures very closely and adjust your heat as needed to avoid burning donuts. If the oil is too hot, you’ll end up with surface air bubbles on your donuts.

When the oil is ready, transfer 2 donuts with parchment paper into oil (you can remove the paper with tongs when it separates).

Fry each donut 30 seconds at a time per side, flipping the donuts gently using chopsticks or a slotted spoon. I repeat this step a few times rotating donuts to avoid burning.

Remove after a 2-3 minutes with a slotted spoon or spider spoon and donuts are a golden brown. Remove and transfer to a rack lined with paper towels to cool.

Repeat this step until all donuts have been fried. Allow the donuts to cool while you prepare the filling and cinnamon sugar coating.

Step 9: Fill and Coat the Donuts

In a small bowl, combine the white sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to coat the donuts.

While the donuts are still warm, toss them really well in the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat the outsides. You can repeat this step to coat them a second time if you want a thicker layer of the cinnamon sugar.

Grab the apple pie filling you made earlier, and make sure it’s warm and thick but still can slowly fall off of a spoon. If the filling has gotten too thick as it cooled, warm gently in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minutes and stir.

If the filling is still too thick, add water or apple juice 1 Tablespoon at a time to thin the filling so it’s thick but can still run off of a spoon.

Transfer the apple pie filling to a pastry bag or a Ziplock.

Next, poke a hole in a donut on the side, and create a cavity in the donut for the apple pie filling.

Insert the bag in the hole and pipe the filling into the donut, until the center feels firm and the apple filling pops up out of the top.

Repeat this step with all of the donuts until they’re all generously filled with the apple pie filling. Enjoy these while they’re still warm!

Yields 12 donuts

How to Store:

Room Temperature/Refrigerator: These are best served fresh, but you can store in a single layer in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 days.

FAQ’S

If you loved this recipe, drop a comment and leave a star review and don’t forget to checkout more of my sourdough donut recipes!

Sourdough Donut Recipes:

• Sourdough Maple Bars
• Sourdough Apple Fritters
• Sourdough Apple Cider Donuts