When I went home to Rhode Island this past weekend, I noticed my dad’s soymilk maker in the corner of the kitchen. It looked unused, which was highly unacceptable to me since he wanted it for Christmas and I got it for him. He should be swimming in soymilk.
“Do you ever use that thing?” I asked.
“Uh huh,” he said.
“Then make me some soymilk!” I demanded. Affectionately, of course.
Dem be soybeans.
After Dad made the soymilk and strained it, there was all this pulp left over. “What are you going to do with that?” “Throw it out,” he said. “NO! I can make something with it.” He rolled his eyes. I informed him that in Japan, some tofu houses make donuts with it. He said the tofu factories in China feed it to the fish. Well, we only have one tiny goldfish with a stubby tail (his body keeps growing but not his tail…) so that was out of the question.
I picked up this heart shaped pan at 1/3 the price of the round donut pan when I went donut pan shopping last year. Thus, all of my donuts are heart shaped, year round.
They baked up moist and fluffy, tasted like roasted soybeans and were much lighter than American donuts. Thank goodness (because I ate three in a row).
On my third donut, my mom looked at me and said, “you really do love carbs…” as if this was news. Puh-leeze, she just ate two bowls of rice AND a big ol’ steamed bun for lunch. The thing is, there aren’t even that many carbs in these donuts. They just TASTE like it. Win win.
adapted from Peek's Baked Okara Donuts
Ingredients
Directions
- Preheat oven to 360 degrees F.
- Whisk or sift the flours and baking powder into a bowl.
- Beat butter with sugar, then the egg, soymilk, and okara. Add in the flour mixture and mix until combined, but don't overmix or beat. Fill a ziplock bag with the batter and snip off one corner.
- Butter and flour a donut pan. Pipe the batter into the donut cavities. Bake for 15 minutes. Flip onto a cooling rack to cool.
9 comments
I really want to make this…but how do you make Okara?
I’ve been using this recipe for over a year and I thought it was finally time to thank you properly. I always felt so bad wasting the leftover pulp and this recipe is absolutely fantastic. Plus, I love all the variations so each bake is slightly different. After draining the bean pulp, I freeze it in 1/2c quantities for future use. So convenient and so tasty. Thanks so much!
Hi Julie, thank you so much for letting me know! I’m so glad to hear that 🙂 I also hate wasting food! Very smart to freeze the pulp in pre-measured quantities too 🙂
When you make soy milk, do you blend, strain, boil, or do you boil, blend, strain? In other words, when you start to make your okara donuts, is the okara cooked or raw?
Do you have to dry out the okara first?
Hi Kevin, you should press out as much of the liquid as possible, but it doesn’t need to be dried. Hope that helps! Enjoy 🙂
Can i substitute whole wheat flour with all purpose flour?
Yes, definitely!
Huh…I had no idea there was a use for (much less a name for) the pulp left over from making soy milk. My parents make soy milk all the time, so I’ll definitely pass this recipe along to them!