Sourdough Fritters with Cottage Cheese
This is a recipe for sourdough fritters made with cottage cheese. It’s great for when you crave a doughnut but don’t want to spend time shaping them.
The dough is naturally fermented, soft on the inside, and crispy on the outside when fried.
The method is written step by step. This recipe can also be made with commercial yeast; quantities and shorter fermentation times are listed at the end.
Ingredients:
Levain
- 10 g sourdough starter
- 20 g white flour (all-purpose / T-400)
- 20 g water
Dough
- 250 g wheat flour
- 60 g active levain
- 1 egg
- 70 g milk
- 120 g full-fat cottage cheese, well drained
- 35 g sugar
- 30 g soft butter
- 4 g salt
- Lemon zest
- Vanilla paste
Frying
- Neutral oil (sunflower or similar)
Method:
- Prepare the levain. Mix the starter, flour, and water. Leave at 24–26 °C for 4–6 hours, until doubled. Use at peak activity.
- Autolyse– in a bowl, mix flour, milk, and egg. Cover and rest for 45 minutes at room temperature.
- Add the levain, sugar, salt, lemon zest, and vanilla. Knead for at least 10 minutes until a cohesive dough forms.
- Cover and rest the dough for 10 minutes.
- Gently mix in the drained cottage cheese. Mix just until evenly distributed.
- Add butter in 2–3 additions, mixing well after each one. Mix for 5–6 minutes until smooth and soft. At this point, the dough should be quite wet.
- An important step we can’t skip with sourdough is lamination. Stretch the dough into a rectangle. Fold like a letter and shape into a ball. Repeat every 30 minutes, about 4–6 stretch and folds.
- Cover and bulk ferment for 3 hours at 23 °C. The dough should rise about 50–60%, not double.
- Cold ferment in the refrigerator at 4 °C for 6–12 hours. This step improves structure an taste but can be skipped.
- Bring the dough to room temperature for 30 minutes. Do not knead at this point.
Heat oil to 170–175 °C. Scoop dough with a spoon and fry in small batches. Fry for 3–4 minutes, turning until evenly golden.
- Roll in sugar while still warm.
Yeast version (no sourdough)
Replace the levain with:
-10 g fresh yeast or 3 g dry yeast
Dissolve the yeast in warm milk before mixing the dough.
Fermentation with yeast:
Bulk fermentation: 60–75 minutes at 23–26 °C.
The dough should roughly double in size. Cold fermentation is not needed. All other steps stay the same.
