Baked Pumpkin Donuts (Soft & Easy Fall Recipe)
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These Baked Pumpkin Donuts are soft, warmly spiced, and easy to make with no frying required. A cozy fall treat perfect for breakfast or dessert.These are cake-style baked donuts.
If you’re looking for classic fried donuts, try my Easy Fried Donut Recipe, or my tested and true Old Fashioned Sour Cream Donuts!
Why This Recipe Works
3 Ingredients — The best part about these baked pumpkin donuts is that they only have 3 ingredients. THREE! I want to shout it from the rooftops, I’m so excited! All you need is a pumpkin spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin puree, and some pumpkin pie spice. That’s IT!
Unbelievable texture — They’re just so fluffy. And soft. And moist. And pretty!
Easy glaze — While you totally can eat these little nuggets of joy straight-up and you should try them that way at least once…may I recommend adding a glaze? While you’re waiting for the donuts to cool you might as well whip up a simple glaze with a little cream cheese, some powdered sugar, maple or vanilla extract and a dash of milk. Makes all the difference, in my opinion.
Cinnamon-sugar sprinkles — Okay so one more thing? The pièce de résistance if you will? If you’ve made the donuts and glazed them, might as well finish off the tops with a little cinnamon/sugar sprinkled over the top. It really does make them absolutely perfect!
Ingredients
Spice Cake Mix — Any spice mix you can find at the store in the baking aisle will do just fine.
Pumpkin Puree — You want to get a can of pumpkin puree, definitely make sure you don’t get pumpkin pie filling. You want to have the spices and flavoring in every bite of these baked cake donuts.
Pumpkin Pie Spice — Add a little extra pumpkin pie spice to the spice cake mix to up the flavor. If you don’t have it you can make your own using ¾ tsp of cinnamon + ¼ tsp of nutmeg, ginger, OR allspice. You could also use apple pie spice.
Sugar & Cinnamon — Use a bit of white sugar and cinnamon to roll the donuts in after baking and to sprinkle over the top of the glaze in this pumpkin donut recipe.
Cream cheese, softened — Just a couple ounces of full-fat cream cheese is all you need to make the glaze in these pumpkin spice donuts really stand out with a nice slightly tart flavor.
Powdered sugar — Powdered sugar will “melt” in the milk as you mix it together with the cream cheese and maple extract to create the glaze.
Maple extract — If you don’t like maple extract you can use vanilla.
Milk — Whatever milk you have in the fridge will work to pull all the glaze together and make it runny enough to pour over the pumpkin spice donuts.
Here’s How You Make Baked Pumpkin Donuts
- First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a donut pan (or more than one if you are doubling).
- Next, in a large bowl mix together the spice cake mix, the pumpkin puree, and the pumpkin pie spice. Pour the mixture into a large zip-lock bag, press the excess air out, and seal.
- Snip one bottom corner of the plastic bag off (about 1/2 inch from the corner) and pipe the batter into your prepared donut pan as though you’re icing a cake.
- Bake this fall donut recipe for 12-14 minutes, then allow the donuts to cool for about 5-10 minutes in the pan before transferring them to a rack to finish cooling.
- Make the coating by whisking together the cinnamon and sugar, and tossing slightly cooled donuts in the mixture to coat.
- Finally you’ll make the glaze by creaming together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, maple or vanilla extract, and milk. (Warm it in the microwave for a few seconds to make it thin and runny.) Dip the cooled easy baked donuts in the glaze, then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar if desired.
FAQs
Baking donuts without a pan is a bit tricky but not impossible. Try using foil inside a muffin tin. The donuts will be smaller but still delicious. Fold aluminum foil into a long strip, then roll the strip into a tube shape and put it in the middle of a muffin cavity. Fill the muffins up around the foil to leave a hole in the donut. Then bake.
Baking donuts in the oven doesn’t take that long. If you’re baking in a donut pan, you’ll only need about 12-14 minutes. Makeshift muffin pans being used as donut pans should bake quicker, more like 10-12 minutes. You’ll know when your baked donuts are done when they spring back into place after being touched lightly, the tops are slightly brown, or you insert a toothpick into the thickest part of the donut and it comes out clean.
How to Store Baked Donuts
You can store these donuts in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Transfer them to the fridge if you want to keep them longer than 2 days as they’ll remain fresh in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Expert Tips + Tricks
- No donut pan? Buy yourself one — like this Wilton 8-cavity Donut Pan, or this larger one so that you don’t have to do quite as many batches to use up the batter.
- If you can’t find spice cake mix, you can substitute gingerbread cake mix.
- If the glaze is too thick to spread on the donuts, try popping it in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time, or till you’ve reached the desired consistency.
- Store these baked pumpkin donuts in airtight container at room temperature.
More Recipes to Try
- Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Sugar Frosting – warm, spiced bites topped with melt in your mouth sweetness.
- Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread – moist, cozy, and packed with warm fall flavor.
- Best Easy Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Icing – soft, sticky spirals of spice with a dreamy maple finish.
When you make this recipe, snap a photo and tag me on social – I love connecting with you and seeing what you’re up to in the kitchen!
Baked Pumpkin Donuts
Ingredients
- 1 box spice cake mix
- 1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree , (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
Cinnamon Spice Coating
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Glaze
- 2 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon maple extract , OR 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 and grease a donut pan (or more than one if you have it).
- In a large bowl mix together cake mix, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin pie spice. Transfer mixture to a large zip-lock bag, press the excess air out, and seal.
- Snip one bottom corner of the bag off (about 1/2 inch from the corner) and pipe the batter into your prepared donut pan. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Allow to cool for about 5-10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a cooling rack.
- For the cinnamon-sugar coating, simply whisk together cinnamon and sugar, and toss slightly cooled donuts in the mixture to coat.
- For the glaze, cream together cream cheese, powdered sugar, extract, and milk. Warm it in the microwave for a few seconds to make it thin and runny. Dip cooled donuts in glaze. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar if desired. Allow to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I made these last night. One guy enjoyed them so far. I bought the larger size cake mix so it wasn’t melding. I eventually added one egg and a bit of oil to loosen it up. They rose nicely. I topped them with Maple flavor Glaze. I will let you know how more coworkers feel. ☺
I made these last night using gingerbread cake mix, the closest thing I could find to spice cake. I was nervous about the flavor but they turned out PERFECT. And that’s without the laze, even. This recipe’s a keeper!
Hi, can use replace filling pumpkin with freshly colded pumpkin not tin?
What cake mix? How can I make some myself?
You can use any standard boxed cake mix. I believe this recipe called for spice cake mix, but I’m sure you could use pumpkin, carrot, gingerbread, butter, or even plain old yellow cake mix. I was just thinking of using something a little more exotic, like pineapple.
I am an excellent cook and baker. One of my sons has even attended Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. We are adventurous in the kitchen, so we tried these donuts. What a sticky, awful mess. It took half another cake mix just to make the dough manageable. I rolled mine out which took the other half the other cake mix. Just out of curiosity I tried to fry some, they turned into a mangled pile that looks like something my husband might have left in the toilet. The cinnamon sugar would not stick to the dry surface of the baked donuts. The cream cheese didn’t beat smoothly so the glaze ended up looking like it had cottage cheese in it. The donuts were chewy instead of cake-like. Time given on the recipe was 24 mintues total; it took me an hour to make them, not to mention having to clean up this sticky paste of dough off every surface it touched. Screw you, Mommy-blogger, with your professional-looking lying pictures and stupid disastrous recipe.
Not sure why you fried them – this is a recipe for BAKED donuts, it says it right in the title of there recipe. Also, not sure why you tried to roll the dough. Did you read the directions? It never mentions rolling the dough. It specifically states that you should transfer the dough to a plastic bag, cut the corner, and pipe the dough into your donut pan. I’m sorry you didn’t follow the recipe!
Classy response!
Well if that is NOT the rudist Lady I have ever seen. And what a NASTY mouth to boot!!!!!!!
I am most sorry you encountered this witch. I have not tried the recipe but just in the process of printing when I saw this and it made me VERY ANGRY !!!!!!!! I think it sounds great and I intend to try this out for my hubby who LOVES doughnuts!!! Thank you for sharing, hugs, and blessings 🙂
Clearly not an excellent reader.
Not nice Nikki, you should not say anything at all. Nothing is perfect, and I’m sure you have made other things that didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to. If something doesn’t turn out just so for me I don’t bash someone that created a recipe.
So, in OTHER words, you are mad at a recipe, that you did FOLLOW at all, and completly changed, did not turn out as shown. Sometimes when you “hacK” at something, you ruin it. I question your skills at following directions.
NikKi, you can’t fix stupid. IDon’t care if Your son went to culinary school. Can either of you read and follow a recipe? This one is simple and delicious. Unfortunately you are so arrogant and rude you will never admit you are the one at fault. Tacky.
You may consider yourself an excellent cook, and after all we only have your word for it, but you clearly cannot or will not follow recipe instructions. Given the troubles you report, I believe it is highly likely you mixed the cake as directed on the box and added the pumpkin puree to that batter. No one else has described these problems and I can’t think of any other explanation. What you’ve done here is the equivalent of making a drop cookie dough and trying to roll it out and make cut-out cookies. If you are such an excellent cook, I fail to understand why you would take so may liberties with the recipe without trying it as written first.
I’ve never met an experienced baker that didn’t understand how to use cream cheese in a glaze. I’ve also never met someone who went to culinary school that couldn’t follow a recipe.
Do we sub the pumpkin purée for the eggs and other ingredients that my spice cake mix calls for (eggs, milk, butter)? Or should I still add those?
Hi Lauren! Don’t pay attention to the ingredients on the box – you’re using the pumpkin puree instead 🙂
You only use the pumpkin purée and the spice cake mix and the pumpkin pie spice….NO oil, eggs, or water. Just made them for the first time…they are YUMMY!!
I turned these into mini muffins and they were delicious! No icing needed and my kids loved them.
You should’ve went with ‘The Tastiest and Easiest Pumpkin Donuts You Will Ever Meet In Your Lifetime,’ because they really look like they are! I love cake donuts, let alone anything pumpkin, and these look just like that! I love the ease of it so that kids could take over making them, and a box mix is welcome in my kitchen from time to time. Pinned!
No eggs! Ok, I’m on it!
oh yummy for my tummy!!