Old Fashioned Chai Spiced Donuts
It’s national donut day and there’s no better way to celebrate than with these chai donuts! Chai and donuts are 2 of my favorite things so why not combine them?! The spicy, cake-y, and soft center pairs so perfectly with the warm chai glaze. I mean really, this glaze could go on anything 😏. Sometimes old fashioned donuts get the bad rep for being dense and dry, but these are so soft and moist! Many donut recipes take hours and by that time it’s lunch, thankfully these little goodies take less than 2 hours from start to end. Get your caffeine and sugar fix in one! Let’s get baking!
Ingredients:
Donuts
- 4 1/2 cups cake flour (Don’t have any, click here for an easy hack)
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp cardamom
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream
- 4 egg yolks
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Oil for frying, vegetable or canola
Chai Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3-4 tbsp steeped chai
Chai Cinnamon Sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp cardamom
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- Start by whisking together your flour, salt, baking powder, and spices. Set aside.

1. In another bowl mix together your butter, sugar, and egg yolks until it becomes fluffier and light. We used a hand mixer for this part.

2. Add in the sour cream and vanilla extract and continue to mix until fully combined. Once this is mixed, we added it to a stand mixer with a dough hook. You can continue to use a hand mixer if you want.

3. Gradually add the dry ingredients fully mixing in between. After it is all added, the dough with form.

4. Add the dough to a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for 1 hour.
5. After chilling, remove from the fridge and roll the dough on a lightly floured surface until it’s 1/2″ thick. Use a donut cutter to cut the circles and holes. If you don’t have one, you can use the top of a large cup and then use the bottom of a large piping tip for the center hole.

6. Place the donuts on a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place back in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
7. While the donuts are chilling, let’s make the sugar and glaze. For the glaze add both ingredients to a medium bowl and whisk until combined and smooth. For the sugar add all the ingredients to a bowl and whisk. Set these both aside for later.

8. While the donuts are still chilling, add 3 inches of oil to a large pot and bring the heat to 350 F. Use a thermometer to measure the temp.
9. Line a large cookie sheet with paper towels and you may want to double up. Set aside.
10. Add a cooling rack on top of another cookie sheet and set aside.
11. Once the donuts are chill and the oil is heated, gently place 1-2 donuts in at a time and fry for about 1 minute on each side. The temperature of the oil may drop and that’s ok. Let it heat up again before adding another donut. Once the donuts are dark golden they are done. Remove them from the oil with tongs or a deep fry strainer and place on the paper towels. Dab the oil off and roll in sugar or glaze while they are still warm. After glazed or sugared, place them on the cooling rack.

12. Continue step #11 until you have fried all your donuts and glazed or sugared.
Ta-da! 😋
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