Baked Cinnamon & Sugar Pumpkin Donuts – An easy recipe for baked pumpkin donuts coated in cinnamon sugar.
I love fall, it is my favorite time of year for a few reasons. The colors, weather, pumpkin patch visits, PSL and pumpkin everything. I love pumpkin bread, donuts, muffins and cookies. While you can make these things all year long and I do, I simply go crazy over pumpkin once mid-August hits.
My Favorite Kitchen Tools To Make This Recipe
From trusty pots and pans to handy gadgets, I’ve curated a list of products I use and love.
Friday I would consider to be my “donut day”; whether from the bakery or homemade, it’s a nice way to end the week. I have two homemade favorites which include this Baked Cinnamon & Sugar Pumpkin Donut recipe and my Double Chocolate Pumpkin Cake Donuts. My kids & hubby love my Copycat Starbucks Devil’s Food Cake Donuts. But it never fails that my son Madden request my Baked Blueberry Cake Donuts. We all love donuts.
Baking donuts might sound tricky especially without a donut pan but here’s the secret: you can use a mini muffin pan and turn them into donut holes! We’ve done it a few times just to switch things up, and they always turn out amazing.
Baking donuts is easy, less messy than frying, and just as delicious; you’ll love making them at home! That’s not to say you won’t still crave your local donut shop—bakery donuts are the best! But as much as we’d love to eat them daily (and let’s be honest, we would), we probably shouldn’t, lol.
homemade donut Tips
The best part of homemade donuts is sharing them with family. We have this tradition where every Black Friday, we decorate the Christmas tree with donuts in hand, and this year we’re making 2–3 dozen fresh from the oven instead of grabbing a box!
After the tree is decorated, we gather with our kids, grandparents, and sometimes friends to sing songs, eat donuts, and share our holiday wishes. It’s one of my favorite traditions.
Pair this With…
pin to pinterest.
Baked Cinnamon & Sugar Pumpkin Donuts
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 14 ounce can pumpkin puree
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2/3 cup canola oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Topping
- 4 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 donut pans using cooking spray. Recipe makes 18 donuts.
- In a large bowl combine all of your dry ingredient flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, salt, and baking powder, stir together and set aside.
- In a small bowl or 4 cup measuring glass combine milk, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla extract, mix until well combined.
- Mix together the wet with the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined.
- If you don’t have a piping bag, cut the corner of a Ziplock bag, add batter and pipe the dough evenly into the prepared pans.
- Bake for 12 minutes, remove from oven and cool for 2 minutes before you turn them over on to a cooling rack. Let the donuts cool on rack.
- Once donuts have completely cooled, melt butter in a small mixing bowl. Then in large mixing bowl combine sugar and cinnamon, stir together.
- Dip the entire donut in the melted butter, make sure both sides get dunked. Then gently shake off the excess butter, and place in sugar and toss or cover until completely coated, place back on cooling rack. Repeat with the rest of the donuts, until all donuts are covered.
- Store on cooling rack until ready to eat, I like to let them sit for a bit I think they taste better this way, but my kids would disagree. I liked them 2-3 hours later, I felt the flavors stood out more and oh my they are oh, so good!
Notes
Awesome indeed. I will have to make these they look so delicious. Thanks for sharing. I have never made donuts before.
It was amazing, would it work for your cinnamon sugar – pumpkin donut recipe? I noticed it was published 2 months before you wrote this entry about your daughter needing to eat gluten free. If you could make a recipe like this in just 2 months after eating regular flour recipes so recently then OMG you are a GENIUS or ROCKSTAR or the most amazing person EVER!!! So I just wanted to say Thank You!!!! You are very talented and must know a lot about both nutrition and gourmet cooking! And today I made it for the fourth time and used an Erythritol Sweetener for a friend that has Diabetes and realized the internet is an amazing place these days and people are learning the most amazing skills QUICKLY! And it’s STILL DELICIOUS and didn’t taste any different! Thank you to the Keto Diet people so that Diabetics can still enjoy as well. I sure never thought I’d see the day when I could accommodate my Gluten Free need, on a keto diet, and make it sugar-free TOO! These new products are also GENIUS!!!
If you are able to figure this out so easily for your family and now it just so happens that it’s also due to trend toward eating Keto not being just another fad, but actually being the answer to reversing Diabetes and avoiding Alzheimer’s, we can make a cake that a person on a Keto diet, and having Diabetes and Celiac Disease could eat that and it taste the exact same as my first version that was only gluten free. Women should be ruling the world by now. We need to get these chumps out of the office at the top and set everything straight for once and for all.
Girl Power!!!! This was amazing.
You seriously made my day, thank you! A little Starbucks treat coming to your inbox. xo San
OMG Thank you AGAIN!!!
What size canned pumpkin do we use? The 8ounce or the 14 ounce?
14 ounce 🙂 San
Thanks for posts on Baked Cinnamon & Sugar Donuts, I’ll enjoy these, going to try both kinds of donuts…
Being from the U.K. we don’t have ‘Canola Oil’, can I use either melted butter in it’s place in recipe or rapeseed oil (not too keen on it though) or what would you suggest please?
As I don’t have a donut pan, can I cook these in muffin tins? If I can, what would be the suggested cooking time approx?
Thank you, Odelle Smith ( U.K )
I used coconut oil. I never use. canola oil – very unhealthy. They came out great with the coconut oil
Congrats! you have been featured on Wake Up Wednesdays for this post.
Check it out here- http://tanyaanurag.blogspot.com/2014/11/wake-up-wednesday-linky-43.html
Cheers,
Tanya
Just looking at these is making me hungry! Love the idea for pumpkin in donuts. Thanks for sharing. Visiting via “‘wakeupwednesday’ linkup
Can u substitute oil for applesauce?
I have not tried that in this recipe. But when I do in other recipes, I don’t substitute the whole amount. xo San
So if you make these as donut holes how long would you cook them?
9-12 minutes xo San
I have some doughnut pans to try out and am waiting for some cooler weather to do some baking (I’m in AL and it was 90 yesterday! UGH) Your recipe looks like the perfect opportunity. THX
Yay – so excited you are going to try this. Yes, wait for cooler weather 😉
I’ve never tried donuts before because I didn’t want the whole deep frying mess, I had no idea you could bake them! Can’t wait to try this…but will have to invite friends over so I don’t eat them all!
They are just as good baked and it definitely is so much easier and less messy. Let us know how they turn out, enjoy!
These have been pinned and will be getting made a ton this fall. I love everything about these doughnuts and can’t wait untl pumpkin season.
Isn’t pumpkin season the best?! Enjoy!
These donuts are so mouthwatering! I would like to wake up with these!
Thank you, enjoy!
This is everything a gourmet treat should be, and then some! Can’t wait to enjoy these later this week!
Thank you! Let us know how they turn out!
Oh my goodness! These donuts sound AMAZING!! YUMMY!!
Thank you!!
Yum! These were amazing!! Great flavor and the perfect texture!
I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
Have you made these gluten-free yet and if so what flour did you use? I’m thinking of trying them with King Arthur’s 1 for 1.
I haven’t made these gluten-free yet, but King Arthur’s Measure for Measure is my favorite gluten-free flour for other donut recipes so that would be what I recommend! Let us know if you do give it a try!
These look so good, can they be made in a pan like the powdered sugar donuts?
I’m not sure what the question is, these are cooked in a donut pan like my other baked donut recipes.
I made these twice last year and loooove them!! Can I use almond milk for this recipe?
I think you will be just fine using almond milk, the only thing it might change is the density. But otherwise just fine.