Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Sweet goodness. Since the doughnuts themselves aren’t very sweet, the sugar coating isn’t too cloying, promise! Texture: Perfect crunchy sugar coating and golden brown doughnut crust outside plus the tender and delicate inside is pure texture heaven. Ease: Homemade doughnuts in less than 1 hour?! You will make a bit of a mess but this recipe is otherwise super simple. Appearance: I love anything coated in sugar, it just sparkles and screams “eat me!” Pros: Quick, homemade, and delicious copycat recipe. Will totally satisfy your craving for those Chinese buffet-style doughnuts without actually having to step foot into a buffet. Cons: Very rich and indulgent. Would I make this again? Mmmhmm.This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
My grandpa, my dad’s dad, LOVED Chinese buffets. I could never understand why whenever we tried to organize a family dinner his first choice, and subsequently the place we ended up at, was almost always a Chinese buffet. Even for special occasions! Whether it was the food or the senior citizen discount he received, I will never know. Sadly he lost his battle to leukemia January 1st 2015, which was a rough start to the year for us. Those little things about him, like the fact that he loved Chinese buffets or that he was the only person to still call me “young lady” seem to stand out the most to me still.
Randomly last week I had a strong craving for Chinese doughnuts, the ones that seem to be in the dessert section of every Chinese-American buffet. I have no idea just how traditional or authentic these are to actual Chinese culture, but it was the only reason my brother and I were willing to make so many family trips to Chinese buffets as kids. We LOVED those damn doughnuts. Who wouldn’t? Fried balls of dough coated in sugar? It’s a kid’s dream, and apparently still my dream dessert to this day. So I decided to make them at home.
These doughnuts are ridiculously good. I mean, it’s just pure decadence so how could they not be incredible? Jared and I discovered a way to make them even more indulgent in the best possible fashion – they happen to taste fabulous with ice cream! This recipe basically takes a biscuit dough variation and deep fries them, finishing with a generous sugar coating. All the recipes I found online for homemade Chinese doughnuts used those premade refrigerated tubes of biscuit dough, but I wanted a homemade from scratch version and I’m thrilled with what I was able to come up with! The exterior crunch is marvelous, and the inside is soft, tender, and fluffy like a cross between a biscuit and a doughnut. I will say that the inside isn’t quite as light and fluffy like the buffet-style biscuits I remember, but it absolutely satisfies the craving nonetheless.
A quick recipe note, be sure the doughnuts are cooked all the way through before coating with the sugar. You can use a cake tester or toothpick to check. During my last little batch of frying doughnuts the oil had dropped in temperature without my noticing and those ones ended up a little doughy in the middle.
Homemade Chinese Doughnuts
Ingredients
- 2 cups (255 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 3/4 cup (170 grams) whole milk
- Canola oil for frying
- Granulated sugar for coating
Instructions
- Pour 2 inches of canola oil into a heavy bottomed pot with a deep-fry thermometer attached. Heat to 350°F.
- Meanwhile, in the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add the butter and pulse several times to cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal. You can also do this by hand with a pastry blender. Stir in the milk until combined.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and dust the dough with flour. Gently pat the dough out until it’s a 1/2-inch in thickness. Use a 2-inch round biscuit cutter to cut out circles.
- Fry the doughnuts a few at a time, being careful not to overcrowd the pot. Fry until golden brown and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side, being careful not to let them burn. Let drain on a paper bag (or paper towels) to soak up the excess grease.
- While still hot, generously coat each doughnut in granulated sugar. Serve. Doughnuts are best served the day they are made.
Tessa, can i roll balls of the dough will that work because i dont have a roller or space in my small apartment kitchen to roll out dough…
Lula, I would use a pastry cutter or two forks and just mash it up real good. Make sure the fat is cold, though. On a side note, I noticed that this was pretty much a biscuit dough that gets deep fried so I tried using some of the ‘blue can’ biscuits from the grocery store and it worked pretty well! It wasn’t as good as from scratch but if you’re in a pinch or just feeling lazy it’s a good shortcut!
I don’t own a food processor, can I mix with a wooden spoon or with kitchen aid?
Should Nick the very sympathetic (read pathetic) commenter visit this page again, maybe it is because you cannot properly read or you are just plain dumb or probably both, a word of advice to spare yourself more embarrassment which could be handy in real live situations; before spewing such kind words on other people’s blogs, pause and check, than check again and use those little grey cells…than just keep your comments to yourself.
It says 350 F which means Fahrenheit which converts to about 180 C which means Celsius…duh…
Sorry couldn’t help myself people like Nick just piss me off.
Thanks to you Tessa for your great recipes.
can i use buttermilk instead of real milk?
You have to scroll through oh.. Idk, 15 paragraphs of nonsense to get to the actual recipe which in itself is just a good way to end up with hardened lumps of charred dough. If you fry these at 350 for 2 min you won’t end up with light fluffy sugar donuts. You won’t be able to bite into one without breaking your teeth. Keep the oil at 180, no higher than 195. For 2 min. If any of you had actually made these donuts instead of just stroking her ego pretending you actually made them you would have found out.
You have to scroll through oh.. Idk, 15 paragraphs of nonsense to get to the actual recipe which in itself is just a good way to end up with hardened lumps of charred dough. If you fry these at 350 for 2 min you won’t end up with light fluffy sugar donuts. You won’t be able to bite into one without breaking your teeth. Keep the oil at 180, no higher than 195. For 2 min.
What if I don’t own a food processor? I feel like soooo many recipes have this step, and a lot of people don’t own a food processor. Thanks!
I followed the recipe to the letter and only ended up with a heavy fried dough ball. How disappointing? At the very least, I was hoping for a more doughnutty texture. What’s worse, is they didn’t look anything close to what you’ve pictured.
Great story! I had an aunt like this. They knew her name. if she did not finish her food she would sneak it in her purse. they would try and catch her,ha! Anywho…the Chinese lady said they were Pillsbury biscuit…even easier.
Hi Tessa, fast question, there is any problem if I use salted butter for these ones?
Love you blog with my heart and soul!
Just made one and it fell apart in the pan. Big disappointment. So I rounded out the rest to be smaller balls and they cooked on the outside faster and they’re dark with one half falling apart. I put th dough in the freezer to freeze it. I’m very disappointed because I was trying to make these real quick as something to snack on while making shortcake. It’s like as if I’m better off buying canned biscuits from the store. Hopefully this chilling the dough method works. …….
Hi Danielie, are you gauging your oil temperature with a thermometer? Sounds like the temperature was off.