Transylvanian cottage cheese doughnuts

by | Nov 17, 2015 | Breads, buns & biscuits

I’m a doughnut enthusiast, they are definitely on my Top 10 list, but I’m only interested in homemade ones. I was so excited when I first met those lovely cottage cheese donuts, and I felt the urge there to prepare them at home. In Hungary the most widely used recipe is the so called ribboned carnival doughnuts, which are traditionally made during the carnival season. The recipe of cottage cheese doughnuts, however, comes from Transylvania, where they are often served as a dessert or a main dish after thick soups.

The dough doesn’t contain yeast, just a small amount of baking soda, so you don’t need to leave it to rest, the doughnuts can be deep-fried right after you have knead the ingredients together and cut out the rings. These golden doughnut rings are soft inside and crispy outside at the same time, their taste is incomparable, and despite deep-frying they are light and don’t swim in fat.

Transylvanian cottage cheese doughnutsphoto: zserbo.com

Ingredients:

  • 250 g (~2 cups) all-purpose flour
  • 250 g (~1 1/4 cups) cottage cheese
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 2 tbsp sour cream
  • 2 tbsp icing sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • oil for deep-frying

Sift the flour in a bowl. Add cottage cheese, egg yolks, sour cream, sugar and baking soda, and knead into a smooth dough. On a floured surface roll out the dough until it is about 1/2-inch thick. Use two different sizes of round cookie cutters to cut out the doughnuts and then cut out the middle. Re-roll scraps and cut out more until you run out of dough.

Pour enough oil into a deep skillet to make a layer approximately 1 inch to 1½ inches deep. Slowly heat the oil over medium-high heat. Once the oil reaches the right temperature, place some doughnuts in the hot oil. Once they have browned on one side (this takes 2 to 3 minutes), turn them over and continue to cook for another minute or just until browned. Transfer the doughnuts to the paper towel-lined bowl and continue to fry the rest of the dough until finished.

Serve immediately, with blueberry jam and/or sour cream.

Support my work

If you're enjoying my recipe collection, please, consider supporting my work by making a one-time payment.

Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

Pin It on Pinterest