Baked pumpkin donuts are soft, warmly spiced, and covered in enough spiced cinnamon sugar to make restraint impossible. They start with yellow cake mix and canned pumpkin, so they're ready in about 20 minutes with no frying, no yeast, and no sacred quests throughout the wilds of the Donut Kingdom.
Make a batch for a cozy fall breakfast, an afternoon coffee situation, or because it's Tuesday and you have pumpkin.
Table of Contents
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🥰 Is this baked pumpkin donuts recipe for you?
These baked pumpkin donuts are for you if:
- It's August and if Starbucks can release the pumpkin spice latte it's time for pumpkin spice everything.
- You want homemade pumpkin donuts without frying anything before you've finished your coffee.
- You appreciate the glorious efficiency of starting with a box of yellow cake mix.
- You prefer your donuts soft, warmly spiced, and thoroughly acquainted with cinnamon sugar.
- You need a quick fall breakfast or snack that's ready in about 20 minutes.
- There is canned pumpkin lurking in the pantry and Thanksgiving is still a few months away.
🎥 Video
🧾 Ingredients
The cake mix handles most of the real work, while pumpkin and warm spices make everything taste considerably more ambitious than the effort involved to create these baked pumpkin donuts.
- Yellow cake mix - The shortcut responsible for making homemade donuts possible before you've had enough coffee to operate heavy machinery.
- Pumpkin puree - Use plain canned pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling. One is pumpkin. The other has lofty ambitions and additional ingredients.
- Sugar - Granulated sugar gives the finished donuts their gloriously sparkly cinnamon-sugar coating.
- Cinnamon - The backbone of basically every respectable fall baking situation.
- Ginger - Adds a little warmth and keeps the pumpkin spice flavor from being all cinnamon, all the time.
- Cloves - Powerful little things. A small amount brings that deep, cozy fall flavor without making your donuts taste like a craft store in October.
- Nutmeg - Adds warm, slightly sweet spice and rounds everything out nicely.
- Chipotle (optional) - Just a pinch adds smoky heat behind all those warm spices. Nobody will scream CHIPOTLE! They may, however, wonder why your pumpkin donuts have more personality than everyone else's.
📖 Recipe
Baked Pumpkin Donuts
Print Pin Recipe Rate RecipeIngredients
- 15.25 ounces yellow cake mix
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree
Cinnamon Sugar Mixture
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon cloves
- pinch chipotle, optional.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425℉. Spray a donut pan with no-stick cooking spray and set aside.
- Stir the cake mix and pumpkin together until there are no more streaks of cake mix.
- Fill a gallon sized ziploc with the pumpkin mixture and cut off about ½ inch at one of the corners.
- Use the ziploc to fill the donut pan cavities almost full.
- Bake for 8 minutes, checking at the 6 minute mark. The donuts will read 200℉ on an instant read thermometer. If you've filled the pans more full they may need up to 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes.
- Gently roll the warm donuts in the cinnamon sugar mixture.
Cinnamon Sugar
- Mix all the ingredients for the cinnamon sugar.
Notes
- If the cinnamon and sugar won't stick brush with a little melted butter and dip them in the sugar mixture again.
- No donut pan? Make them in muffin tins - they're a little different but still good.
- You could also use spice cake mix or white cake mix. Be careful though, spice cake mix tends to overwhelm the pumpkin flavor in my testing.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
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😱 What can go wrong (and how to fix it)
🎃 The donuts are dry.
They probably baked a little too long. Cake-mix donuts move from fluffy to drywall with alarming efficiency, so start checking them a few minutes early. They're done when the tops spring back lightly and the center reaches about 200°F on an instant-read thermometer.
🎃 The donuts stuck to the pan.
Grease the donut pan well, including around that little center post everybody forgets until it's too late. Let them cool for 5-10 minutes before gently removing them.
🎃 The batter is difficult to get into the donut pan.
Skip the spoon-and-pray method. Spoon the batter into a zip-top bag, snip off one corner, and pipe it neatly into the cavities.
🎃 The cinnamon sugar won't stick.
Coat the donuts while they're still slightly warm. If they've cooled completely, brush them very lightly with melted butter first, then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.
🎃 The donuts are tough or dense.
Don't beat the batter into submission. Mix just until everything is combined, then put down the spoon and back away.
🍽 Related recipes
🏡 These baked pumpkin donuts are proof that fall baking does not require yeast, hot oil, or surrendering your entire morning to the kitchen. Grab a box of cake mix and a can of pumpkin, and 20 minutes later you've got soft, cinnamon-sugar-covered donuts and a perfectly reasonable excuse to make another pot of coffee.
If there are leftovers, congratulations on your extraordinary household discipline. They're actually even better after a day or two, when the pumpkin spice has had time to settle in and contemplate its life choices. I hid one for four days in the name of research, and it was still amazing. 🎃
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