Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Everything is better with chocolate.
Texture: Cakey yet slightly fluffy but much more dense than any yeast-raised doughnut. Those craggy edges just soak up that luscious thick glaze.
Ease: Easier than yeast doughnuts, these can be in your mouth in under 2 hours start to finish.
Pros: Nothing like a homemade doughnut, especially an old-fashioned sour cream doughnut. There’s just something about that texture!
Cons: Sorry about your diet 😉
Would I make this again? Oh definitely.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
I can’t stop dreaming about these Chocolate Old Fashioned Doughnuts.
The crisp exterior, the soft, cakey interior, and the rich chocolate flavor are heavenly – but then coat it all in a lucious, thick glaze? Who could possibly say no to that!?
These donuts are essentially the chocolate version of my crazy-popular Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Doughnuts, which are (unsurprisingly) one of the most popular recipes on the site!
These delicious homemade treats are the perfect weekend or holiday breakfast, and any kiddos will go crazy for them.
Be sure to check out my tips below for making the best breakfast treats ever.
If you make these Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts, be sure to take a picture and tag it #handletheheat on Instagram. I love seeing your photos!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts
Use a Scale to Weigh Your Ingredients
I highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale to weigh out the ingredients for these Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts. Mis-measuring is super easy to do when measuring by volume (cups) and can create doughnuts that are dry and tough instead of fluffy and light. Learn more about how to measure flour correctly here.
Use REAL Bleached Cake Flour in Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts
- This is a must for these Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts.
- Store-bought cake flour will yield light and delicate doughnuts, just like the ones from a good bakery.
- DIY substitutions simply won’t work as well.
- All-purpose flour will not create doughnuts with that same soft texture.
- Bleached cake flour will work best. Unbleached (like King Arthur Flour) won’t absorb as much moisture and you may end up with doughnuts that crumble while frying.
- Learn more about cake flour (and DIY substitutions) here.
What Type of Cocoa Powder Should I Use for Doughnuts?
You can use either natural/unsweetened cocoa powder or Dutch-processed cocoa powder for this Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnut recipe. Learn more about the differences between Natural & Dutch-processed cocoa powder here.
This Recipe is FRIED
- This recipe was specifically designed to be fried and not baked.
- Be sure to use FRESH OIL.
- Oil goes rancid quickly, often before the date on the bottle.
- If it has *any* unpleasant smell, don’t use it, as that flavor will transfer to your doughnuts.
- Alternatively, check out all my doughnut recipes here for recipes designed to be baked.
Can I Air Fry These Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts?
We haven’t tried that, but based on our testing with other doughnut recipes, air frying doesn’t work the same way as frying doughnuts with oil. If you wish to experiment, let us know how it goes in the comments below!
How to Store Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts
Chocolate Old-Fashioned Doughnuts are best enjoyed the day they’re made, but they will keep for a few days stored in an airtight container.
My Favorite Doughnut Tools:
- Digital Scale – To ensure your ingredients are measured correctly.
- Doughnut Cutter – For perfectly uniform doughnuts.
- Deep Fry Thermometer – To ensure your oil maintains the correct temperature.
- Dutch Oven – Perfect for frying without mess.
More Recipes You’ll Love:
- Krispy Kreme Copycat Glazed Doughnuts
- Baked Strawberry Lemon Doughnuts
- Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Doughnuts
- Pumpkin Old Fashioned Doughnuts
- Classic Cake Doughnuts
Email This Recipe
Enter your email, and we’ll send it to your inbox.
Ingredients
For the doughnuts:
- 2 cups (226 grams) cake flour*
- 1/2 cup (40 grams) cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons (42 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 cup sour cream
- Canola oil, for frying
For the glaze:
- 3 1/2 cups (350 grams) powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 1/2 teaspoons corn syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup hot water
Instructions
Make the donuts:
- In a bowl, sift together the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until sandy. Add the egg yolks and mix until light and thick. Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl in 3 additions, alternating with the sour cream, and ending with the flour. The dough will be sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour, or until slightly firmed.
- On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/2-inch thickness. Use a doughnut cutter (or a larger + a small biscuit cutter) to cut out as many doughnuts as possible, dipping the cutters into flour as necessary to prevent sticking. You should get about 14 doughnuts and holes. Don't worry if they stick a little to the cutter, they'll puff up while frying and imperfections won't matter.
- Pour 2 inches of canola oil into a heavy-bottomed pot with a deep-fry thermometer attached. Heat to 325°F. Fry the doughnuts a few at a time, being careful not to overcrowd the pot. Fry on each side about 2 minutes, being careful not to let them burn. Let drain on a paper bag to soak up the excess grease.
Make the glaze:
- Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a whisk until smooth. Immerse each doughnut into the glaze. Place on a wire rack above a sheet pan to catch any excess glaze. Let sit for 20 minutes or until glaze is set.
- Doughnuts are best served the day they are made but may be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days.
Notes
This post was originally published in 2017 and has been updated with additional baking tips and Science of Baking information.
What brand of cake flour do you recommend?
Hi Kathy, I prefer Swans Down Bleached Cake Flour 🙂
This recipe looks great. However, I would like to bake them. How would I adjust? It would need to be more of a batter than a dough.
My husband and I thought we would spend some time together making these donuts today. Although I’m not in the kitchen much anymore as I have Multiple Sclerosis, my husband is an excellent cook and baker. We raised all 7 of our children with him cooking and a dessert from scratch every week.
We followed your directions, step by step. After taking the dough out of the fridge, it was still so sticky it was difficult to work with. The canola oil was tempted properly and we put in the first three donuts. Using my cell phone to make sure that the timing was correct, I checked them at 1.5 minutes and they were already burned. I couldn’t use the rest of the dough because it was just falling apart.
So our day of spending time together ended in the trash can.
I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO GET THE GLAZES
Made this last night. Turned out meh. Flavor isn’t bad but the dough barely puffed up on most of them so they were flat and crispy. Dough was also really sticky and hard to work with, had to add a ton of extra flour just to make it workable. Waste of time and ingredients for me, will not make again
I wish I would have read the comments before I wasted ingredients on this hot mess. I too wondered why there were so many differences in measurements in this versus the non-chocolate version. I’ll never know if the other is better, because after this sticky, squishy, spicy “chocolate” donut, I’m headed elsewhere for recipes! (And no, my dough was not too warm and I know how to fry dough)
Donuts are great! We used just a tad less sour cream.
BUT because I only looked at the times for prep & cooking given at the top of the recipe I didn’t start as early as I should’ve. My bad, however, chilling time & glaze set time should be included in the prep time portion of the recipe.
This is the best whole made donut recipe I’ve done so far
While the donuts turned out pretty well, I agree with other readers that they weren’t quite chocolatey enough. I’m wondering if adding more cocoa powder in place of a little flour might help. I’m also wondering if adding more sugar would help. I noticed that although this recipe uses twice as much sour cream as the regular old fashioned donut, the sugar content is exactly the same.
I think I figured it out. You are supposed to use Dutch process cocoa.
I also noticed measurements were slightly different with the chocolate vs the original…for the non-chocolate lovers of the family, could you make one of the recipes and just leave the cocoa out or add it to 1/2 of the dough depending on which recipe you use? If so, which recipe would you recommend using?
Is it crucial to add corn syrup to the glaze? Why is it needed? What does it do for the glaze? I never use corn syrup and I don’t want to buy it for such a small amount if it isn’t necessary. Thank you.
I have read that adding gelatin or powdered agar to the glazes can keep it better set/stabilized- any tips or experience with that?
No, I don’t. Fried doughnuts always taste best the day they’re fried no matter what you put in the glaze so I don’t really see the point in going to that extra effort here!