Colorful Birthday Cake Baked Donuts are a real treat for any occasion. This easy to make recipe will put a smile on anyone’s face!
Oh, these were super fun to make. Baked donuts are basically muffins but cuter, smaller and easier, and who doesn’t love a good donut?
MY OTHER RECIPES
The trick to any baked goods are the eggs. Don’t believe me? Try an experiment where you use a small, thin shelled, pale yellow yolk egg. Then make the same recipe with a natural cage free grain free egg like these Simple Truth eggs from Kroger. I guarantee you’ll see the difference in taste and texture. Lucky for me Kroger has dramatically lowered prices on many items, but most notably eggs. This is a very good thing for someone who loves to bake and serve eggs for breakfast and/or dinner on a regular basis!
For these donuts, I like to incorporate those long sprinkles right into the batter because they cook up so well. The trick with baked donuts is to squeeze the batter into the donut pan using a plastic bag. The result is so much prettier than if you try to spoon it in.
This recipe made exactly eight and a half donuts. Did I care that I ended up with a half donut? Nope! That was my excuse to be the official taste tester and, boy, were these good!
I prefer to make things interesting and use those little teeny tiny ball sprinkles on the top. They just add the perfect little crunch to the warm glaze.
When I made my birthday cake cookies, I snuck a bit of almond extract into the batter and for whatever reason, that stuff makes the end result taste fabulous!
Have you ever woken up your favorite birthday boy or girl with donuts? Instead of buying maple bars and apple fritters, make up a batch of these fun birthday cake donuts and I promise it will be a birthday breakfast long remembered!
Or, you could always do what I did and make these simply because they’re fun, they taste amazing, and you can basically get your kids to do whatever chore you want because they’ll beg to get paid for their services in the form of one of these donuts. Winning!
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- extra sprinkles to sprinkle on top
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a donut pan with non-stick spray. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and granulated sugar together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a larger bowl, whisk the egg and buttermilk together until smooth. Add the melted butter along with the vanilla and almond extracts, whisking until fully combined. Add the flour mixture to this wet mixture and stir until just combined. Do not overmix. Fold in the sprinkles.
- Transfer the batter to a gallon sized freezer bag. Squeeze out all the air before sealing and snip the bottom corner off so that you can pipe one fat bead of batter into each well of the donut pan.
- Bake for 9–10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and transfer to a cooling rack placed over a large baking sheet to later catch all of the icing drips and allow to fully cool to room temperature.
- Combine the confectioners' sugar, milk, vanilla and almond extracts in a small sauce pan. Heat over low heat while stirring constantly just to warm the glaze and allow the sugar to fully dissolve. Remove from heat.
- Dip the top of each donut in the warm glaze and return to rack. Then, once the glaze in the pot has cooled more and begins to thicken, re-dip each donut in the glaze once again and then top with additional sprinkles before the glaze sets.
- Donuts are best enjoyed fresh but can be stored in an air tight container for a couple days if not eaten right away.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Kroger. The opinions and text are all mine.
Looks good. Does Kroger carry the donut pan
Haven’t seen it there. I think I got it at Michaels or Bed bath & beyond
This is a painfully stupid question, but can you just make these in a muffin pan. I don’t have a donut pan and really don’t need another kitchen item that I don’t use often.
You sure can. They’ll turn out the same but you won’t get the same visual satisfaction because they’ll look like muffins instead of donuts.
I’ve been a bit obsessed with homemade doughnuts lately, so of course these caught my eye. I’ve made your birthday cake sugar cookies, which were so fun and delicious! I’m sure these will be as well. Thank you so much for sharing!
I dont have a donut pan
What else could I use to make these?
Thanks for any tips
You could try piping them on a sheet but they’ll probably go flat. You can use a muffin tin but then they’d be muffins.
Donuts are such an original take on birthday desserts or just for an after-dinner treat. I love the idea of adding almond extract, I’m sure it makes them taste even better! Thanks for sharing.
I am making them into mini muffins I think as a bite size treat they will be delicious. Love donuts but I am not into adding another pan to may baking supply and I have the mini muffin pan that I rarely use these days. Kroger eggs are good and I do buy them, but I have a farm down the road with duck eggs so mine are really going to pop I bet with one of those big duck eggs for the mix?. Can’t make them today but definitely making them this week to celebrate a couple friends and my July bdays. Thanks for the recipe!
Yay for farm fresh eggs!