Apr 28, 20215 min read

Vegan Soft Donut Recipe

Updated: Oct 9, 2022

A doughnut or donut is a type of leavened fried dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty vendors. Today we are going to prepare the Vegan Donut, I know what you are thinking, isn’t that too much work? Well not really.

Anyone can make donuts at home and you will be surprised how easy it is. The best part is, you need just a few ingredients to prepare perfect donuts and you can even include your family and make a fun day out of it.

Ingredients for the Vegan Donuts

Yeast Water

Warm Water - 120 ml

Vegan Sugar - 1 Tablespoon

Yeast - 1 and half teaspoon

Vegan Buttermilk

Soy Milk - 100 ml

Apple Cider Vinegar - 1 Tablespoon

Dough Preparation

All purpose Flour - 400 Grams

Salt - 1/3rd Teaspoon

Nutmeg - 1/3rd Teaspoon

Vegan Butter - 50 grams

Vegan Buttermilk

Yeast Water

Oil as needed

Oil as required

Ingredients for the Glaze

Icing Sugar - 150 Grams

Soy Milk - 2 Tablespoons

Vanilla Extract - 1 Tablespoon

Melted vegan Butter - 50 Grams

Chocolate Glaze

Cacao Powder - 160 Grams

Icing Sugar - 60 Grams

Salt - 1/3rd teaspoon

Water - As needed

Let’s get started

Step 1 - Activating the Yeast

To a bowl, add warm water approx 120 ml. Then add 1 Tablespoon of vegan sugar and mix it till it dissolves. Then add 1 and half Teaspoon of yeast to the water and let it rest for 15-20 minut

Now let’s make the vegan butter milk, to a bowl take approx 100 ml of soy milk or any other plant based milk of your choice. Add 1 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile let’s go to the second step, dough preparation

Add 400 grams of all purpose flour to a mixing bowl, add 1/3rd teaspoon of salt, 1/3rd teaspoon of nutmeg, melted vegan butter 50 grams, add the vegan buttermilk, followed by the yeast water, give it a slight mix to bring everything altogether. Even though I'm using a stand mixer for this recipe, I like to mix it a little. The dough for donuts is a little sticky and can be a little difficult to work using hands. Stand mixer makes it so much easier. Add the dough hook, and let it run on medium speed for 7-8 minutes, once the dough is well combined, I am gonna take it out, apply some oil to your hands, it will make it easier for you to work on the dough. Add oil on the working area as well and then place the dough on the work area and roll it in a round ball. It will be much easier to work on the dough now. Take the same bowl and drizzle some oil and brush it across the surface, Add the dough ball and rotate it so it’s nicely coated with the oil.

Then cover it with a damp towel or a plastic film and let it rest for 1-2 hours or till it doubles in size.

Step 3 - Let’s prepare the donuts

After 2 hours you will see that the dough has risen and almost doubled in size. This is my fav part - punching the dough. Now add some dry flour on a flatter surface and add the dough, press the dough to get all the air out. Then add some more dry flour on top of the dough and roll it out roughly around half inch thickness. Make sure that the dough is evenly rolled out. For the next part, if you have donut cutter or cookie cutter, use it and if not, you can totally improvise just like me, I am using this bowl to cut the donuts and a smaller shot glass for the inner part of the donut. With the leftover, combine it back again and roll out to cut more donuts, and after a certain point you might not be able to do that without compromising the size and shape, so I am using a small cookie cutter to make stuffed donuts, we will be filling them using chocolate so we won’t cut them from the center.

Once you have sliced all the donuts, cover them and let them rest and rise for another 30 minutes.

Step 4 : Prepare Glaze

We are going to make the standard donut glaze, to a bowl add around 150 grams of icing sugar, 2 tablespoons of soy milk, 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract, 45-50 grams of melted vegan butter, whisk everything till they are well combined.Now depending on how you prefer the thickness of the glaze, you can add or reduce the quantity of icing sugar.

For the next one we are preparing chocolate glaze

To a bowl, add 160 grams of cacao powder, 60 grams of icing sugar, 1/3rd teaspoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of water, mix everything, now add the water gradually till you get the desired thickness.

I am filling some of it in a piping bag which will be used to fill the donut holes.

Step 5 Fry the donuts

Heat oil at medium heat approx 160 C. Then add the donuts to it, we should never make the oil too hot as we dont want the donuts to get crispy, we want them to cook slowly and get soft and golden.

Look at that, looks and smells amazing. Keep it on a wire rack to cool off a little.

Then add the other donuts as well and cook them evenly from all the sides. After frying all the donuts, dip them in the glaze and then place them on a wire rack again so the access icing drips away. I have lined the tray so it can catch the extra icing and easier to clean later. Adding the rest of the donuts in the icing, doing the same with the chocolate donut.

Now to the ones we are going to fill, take a chopstick or a skewer and make a hole, then using the piping bag, fill it in till maximum capacity.

And there we go we have different types of donuts ready to go, as you can probably tell the light again got low so I had to wrap it here. Check this out. It’s so soft, and look at them on the inside, Love it.

See how easy it was, and trust me once you master this at home, you will think twice before buying them from outside.

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