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Freshly baked blueberry cake donuts are the perfect way to start your morning. Made with fresh or frozen blueberries and a sweet glaze on top, they'll satisfy your sweet tooth without being overly indulgent. These glazed homemade donuts are kid-friendly, vegan-friendly and can be adapted to a gluten-free diet!
Vegans and non-vegans alike are going to love this baked blueberry cake donut recipe! If you're obsessed with the Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme blueberry cake donuts, you have to give this recipe a try.
Moist, cake-like donuts with pops of purple color are dipped in a powdered sugar glaze for the ultimate sweet morning treat. But because it's baked in the oven, you end up eating less fat and calories than you would with a fried donut, so there's no guilt here!
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It's way easier than you'd think to make a yummy blueberry donut. Use a donut pan to get the perfect round shape every single time.
Enjoy one with your morning coffee to start your day off right. These vegan blueberry cake donuts make delicious snacks, too. Put them in the kids' lunchboxes or enjoy one as an after school snack.
👩🏽🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Super delicious donut with a moist cakey texture
- Perfect breakfast or snack that you can eat on the go
- Much healthier than Dunkin Donuts blueberry donut
- Kid-friendly and super tasty
- Great recipe that's easy to customize with different berries or fruits
- Makes a great food gift to take to friends, neighbors, and coworkers
- Baking instead of frying these doughnuts reduces fat and calories
- Perfect for the vegan donut lover!
🥘 Ingredients
You only need 12 simple ingredients to make these delicious glazed blueberry cake donuts. You'll find most of the ingredients in your pantry or fridge right now! For full nutrition facts and ingredient measurements, refer to the recipe card below.
All Purpose Flour: All purpose flour makes these donuts fluffy, just as you'd expect a homemade donut to be. However, you can use alternative flours for healthier or diet-specific options (see recipe variations below).
Sugar: Doughnuts have to be sweet! We used granulated sugar, but brown sugar or coconut sugar will work fine in this recipe, too.
Salt: This activates the leavening ingredients. Plus, a little salt in a sweet recipe helps balance out the flavors.
Baking Soda and Baking Powder: Leavening is essential for a perfect donut, and allows you to make these homemade donuts without yeast! Unlike yeast donuts, cake donuts are made with a cake-like batter that requires a leavening agent. These two ingredients will make your donut incredibly fluffy!
Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract works best, but if you have imitation vanilla on hand, that can be substituted.
Mashed Banana: Bananas are often used to replace eggs in plant based recipes.
Almond Milk: Any unsweetened, unflavored plant based milk can be used in this recipe. Oat milk, cashew milk, or soy milk are all good options.
Apple Cider Vinegar: This acid activates the baking powder for a fluffy donut instead of a dense one. White vinegar can work in a pinch, but we prefer apple cider vinegar.
Olive Oil: Always a use a light-tasting oil for baking.
Blueberries: Fresh or frozen blueberries work with these blueberry doughnuts. Frozen ones are great to have on hand during those times blueberries are no longer in season.
Powdered Sugar: This is the key ingredient in the simple glaze that covers the homemade donuts. It kicks the sweetness level up a notch!
📖 Variations
- Make Them Gluten Free: Use gluten free flour instead of all-purpose flour to make delicious gluten free blueberry donuts. Oat flour is a good choice that gives a chewier texture.
- Add Sprinkles: Put some sprinkles on top to make these simple baked blueberry donuts look extra cute and kid-friendly!
- Low Sugar Donut: The doughnuts have 11 grams of sugar each, and the glaze has 11 grams of sugar per donut. For a lower sugar option, cut the amount of sugar in the donut batter by half, and use half the amount of glaze. Then each donut will have only 11 grams of sugar total!
- Sub a Different Fruit: You don't have to use blueberries for these amazing homemade baked donuts. Try cut up strawberries, peaches, raspberries, or cherries. Cranberries would make a tasty option during the holidays. Or lemon zest would add a nice citrusy element!
- Add Chocolate: Go super decadent and make these with plant based chocolate chips in place of the blueberries. Yum!
- Change the Glaze: It's really easy to change our basic glaze recipe into a lemon or vanilla glaze. For a lemon glaze: add a bit of lemon extract to your donut glaze for extra flavor and that delish lemon-blueberry flavor combo. For a vanilla glaze: add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract into the glaze mixture.
🔪 Instructions
These homemade cake donuts made with fresh blueberries (or frozen) are so easy! Follow these simple instructions or the recipe below to make perfect blueberry cake doughnuts every time.
Prep The Pan, Mix The Dry Ingredients: Spray the donut tray with nonstick cooking spray. Set the tray aside. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk the ingredients until they are well combined and set aside.
Mix The Wet Ingredients: In a separate bowl, combine the vanilla, banana, almond milk, vinegar, and olive oil, whisking until smooth.
Combine Wet And Dry Ingredients: Fold the wet ingredients and the blueberries into the flour mixture. Be gentle, and continue to stir until all the ingredients are combined. You don't need a stand mixer with a paddle attachment to make this batter - a regular whisk will work just fine!
Pipe The Batter Into The Pan: Fill a piping bag or zip-top bag with batter and pipe the cake donut batter into the donut pan. If you're using a ziplock bag, cut the corner off to pipe the batter. Don't overfill the tray.
Bake The Donuts: Place the donut tray in the preheated oven and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven, and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then, turn the doughnuts out onto a wire rack to cool completely. You may need to run a butter knife around the edge of the doughnuts to release them from the pan. Repeat these steps with any remaining batter.
Make The Glaze: Prepare the glaze after all of the doughnuts have completely cooled. Slowly whisk the milk into the powdered sugar until its dissolved and the mixture is smooth.
Dip The Doughnuts: Dunk the donuts into the glaze and place on a wire rack to dry.
Serve after the glaze has set, about 10-20 minutes.
❓Recipe FAQs
How to Store Blueberry Cake Donuts?
These homemade blueberry donuts can be kept for up to four days in the fridge in an airtight container.
How to Freeze Blueberry Cake Donuts?
Doughnuts can be frozen without the glaze and kept in the freezer for up to two months. Thaw at room temperature and then dip in the prepared glaze before serving.
Do Cake Donuts Have Yeast In Them?
No, cake doughnuts do not contain yeast. Baking soda and baking powder are the leavening agents used in cake doughnuts.
What is the difference between donuts and cake donuts?
The two main types of donuts are yeast donuts and cake donuts. Yeast doughnuts use yeast as the leavening agent and are light and chewy. Cake doughnuts, however, are made with a cake batter that requires baking powder and/or baking soda for leavening. A cake donut is moist, a bit crumbly, and has a cake-like or muffin-like texture.
💭 Expert Tips
- Storing these doughnuts in the fridge rather than room temperature keeps the glaze from melting in warmer houses.
- Double this recipe to make extra donuts for the freezer so you can enjoy quick breakfasts for months. Remember to leave off the glaze. You'll add it later after they're thawed.
- If a runny glaze forms, add more sugar to thicken it up. It should stick to the donuts nicely.
- For glaze that's too thick, add more almond milk (or your milk of choice).
- Serve with a cold glass of milk or a hot cup of coffee for a scrumptious and energizing breakfast.
- Doughnut pans are a great investment if you plan on making more homemade donuts in the future.
- If you don't have a donut tray, bake the batter in a muffin tin instead. Then, cut out the center to make donut holes!
