Lemon Curd Filled Doughnut Holes
Weekend morning is the perfect time to make doughnuts! Homemade doughnuts are an even better idea. Who doesn’t love doughnuts in the morning? I know I do, but if I have a chance to avoid the long process that comes along with working with yeast dough, I will take it every time.
If I don’t feel like making my ricotta doughnuts, I go for classic doughnut holes. I don’t love working with yeast, so any way around it, is awesome. I have this basic doughnut holes recipe that I’ve been using for years and I just like to change up the flavors, like fill them with jam or custard. Or like these lemon doughnuts or also, my pumpkin donut holes.
For the ease of making this treat, I used store-bought lemon curd that you can find in a jam/jelly isle of the store. If you would prefer to use homemade lemon curd, go for it!
Storing and Reheating
- At room temperature – Note that it is NOT recommended to leave out lemon curd at room temperature. So if you have leftovers, refrigerate them.
- Store donut holes in anĀ air-tight food storage container, in the refrigerator, forĀ 3-4 days.
- To reheat, you can always simply pop one or two in theĀ microwaveĀ for aĀ few seconds.
DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE? PLEASE leave a š star rating! Let me know how you liked it by leaving the š comment below or share and tag me on social media @willcookforsmiles. DONāT FORGET to subscribe to my newsletter!
Lemon Curd Filled Doughnut Holes
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter melted
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 Tbsp. white granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
- Pinch salt
- 1 lemon – zest
- 10 oz. lemon curd for filling
- 2 tbsp Powdered sugar for topping
- 5-6 cups of vegetable oil for frying
Instructions
- Pour oil into a medium pot, a frying pan with high sides, or a large sauce pot. Heat it over medium heat until oil reaches 350ā degrees. (I find that heat setting that's just a little bit over medium holds the temperature best.)
- Line a large cookie sheet with paper towels to catch oil and place a cooling rack on top of paper towels.
- Add lemon curd into a piping bag fitted with a long, filling attachment. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk milk and egg until smooth.
- Add flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt, mix until all combined.
- Add melted butter and mix well.
- Fold in lemon zest until evenly spread throughout.
- Using a cookie scoop, scoop out dough and drop it into heated oil in batches of 5-6, depending on how big your pot is. (I dip the cookie scoop into some oil and shake it off before doing each batch, this prevents dough from sticking and created smooth dough drops. I also rinse out the scoop between batches, to wash off any stuck on dough. Again, this is to help create smooth doughnut holes.)
- Fry doughnut holes for about 4-5 minutes (until they turn deep golden), turning them over every couple of minutes if they haven’t turned themselves. (Remember to use metal tongs or metal slotted spoon to take doughnuts out and turn them.)
- Take doughnuts out onto the prepared cooling rack. Repeat frying the dough in batches with remaining batter.
- Once the doughnut holes are cooled enough to handle, gently inert the pastry filling tip into the doughnut and squeeze some lemon curd inside. Repeat with all doughnut holes.
- Sprinkle filled doughnut holes with powdered sugar.
Notes
- Storing – note that it is NOT recommended to leave out lemon curd at room temperature. So if you have leftovers, refrigerate them. Store donut holes in an air-tight food storage container, in the refrigerator, forĀ 3-4 days.
- To reheat, you can always simply pop one or two in theĀ microwaveĀ for aĀ few seconds.
Nutrition
Some More Doughnut Recipes:
All images and text Ā©Lyubov Brooke for Ā©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
Can you do recipes in ounces as it doesn,t say what size cup to use
Hi Sally,
The quantity of the ingredients is listed in cups above in the recipe card is it not showing for you?
These look amazing. I am a lemon lover so, want to have a go with this recipe.
Thanks, Sally! I hope you like them! š
Hello!
How many donut holes does one recipe yield aprox?
Thanks š
How well do these hold up if you made them the night before?
Hi Rachel!
They will hold up but won’t taste as good as fresh. It’s much like any other doughnuts, they will start getting stale and start drying out.
I hope this helps š
Hello! These look amazing but i have a question, does the dough have the same consistency as the ricotta doughnut holes? I saw the video and was wondering that, i need something to compare them to so if mine doesn’t turn like your dough I’ll know that something went wrong
These look and sound amazing, lemon is my favorite!
One question, what do you do with the leftover oil?
Is it reusable for anything? Or do we throw it out?
Yep, totally drooling over here. I’d start every day (and fill it, and finish it) with this lemony-goodness if I could! These look incredible!
awe, thanks, girl! I’d totally do it too, I have no self control around these doughnuts š