Claire Saffitz's Special Ingredient For Donuts With The Perfect Balance Of Tangy And Sweet

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If you're tired of spending money at the best (and worst) major American donut chains and want to try making better donuts at home, there are countless recipes worth trying. More so, if you're someone who enjoys pillowy confections that have a decent balance of sugar plus an overall tangier flavor, all you need to do is follow a recipe that utilizes one creamy ingredient with just the right amount of bite. 

When it comes to creating a donut glaze that has the ideal amount of sweetness, cookbook author and former Bon Appétit food editor Claire Saffitz relies on sour cream. Referring to herself as a "Dessert Person," which is the title of her first book, Saffitz demonstrates how sour cream not only adds moisture to traditional donut batter but also makes the treat tastier (via YouTube). In particular, she showcases how to use sour cream to give the predictable, sweet flavor of classic donut glaze a jolt of unexpected brightness. 

To enhance your next batch of coconut baked donuts, cider donuts, or crullers, simply prepare Saffitz's luscious sour cream glaze by combining a small assortment of common ingredients, including sour cream, vanilla extract, lemon juice, and powdered sugar. While you can certainly adjust the suggested ratios to your liking, the finished product should be thick and opaque yet loose enough to dip your donuts in directly post-baking or frying. With such a versatile, easy-to-prepare recipe, Saffitz offers even more ways to upgrade this one-of-a-kind glaze with a multitude of extraneous flavors and fun donut toppings.

Apart from making a simple vanilla-kissed sour cream glaze with an added touch of lemon juice, you can also make a few other tasty glaze variations like chocolate or strawberry. For example, to make a chocolate sour cream glaze, simply swap out half of the recipe's powdered sugar for an equivalent amount of cocoa powder.

To make a variety of fruit-infused variations with flavors like mango, strawberry, or blueberry, all you need to do is pulverize a bunch of freeze-dried fruit and mix it into your combined sour cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract mixture. After all, freeze-dried fruit is the ingredient you need to get bright color and rich fruit flavor in your baking.

When it comes to toppings, if you're looking to create more of a contrasting flavor to pair with the tangy bite of sour cream, you have a variety of sweet-tasting options to choose from including mini chocolate chips, cinnamon sugar, and even crushed cereal. Conversely, if you want to further balance the sweetness of your donuts, use a salty addition like fully cooked, chopped bacon.

If you try and love Claire Saffitz's sour cream frosting, keep in mind, you can also use Greek yogurt as a nutrient-dense alternative to sour cream. Not only is Greek yogurt packed with protein, but its slightly sour taste also gives your donuts an ideal balance of sweet and tangy flavor.