Best Homemade Vanilla-Glaze Baked Donut Recipe in 10 Minutes

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like baked donuts? Even better, Vanilla-Glaze donuts?..... Introducing..... the quick 10-minute baked donut recipe.

This baked donut recipe is easy to prepare and the end result is delicious and really good looking. While the classic donuts are deep fried, this alternative could be considered a bit healthier because we are not using a lot of oil.

Not at all actually.

And you should know that donuts enter the category of “10 most harmful foods you can eat”. I couldn’t tell right this moment what are the other nine, but I’m pretty sure that only five minutes of thinking will bring up more than nine.

If you search for the nutritional content of a donut, don’t be surprised to know that it contains almost 20 grams of fat per only one piece.

We are not talking about good fat, after all it is not made out of avocado and seeds. 

I agree that every person in the world deserves a treat from time to time. In case you want to increase the times you enjoy this goodies, I strongly advise you to switch to the baked version.

This is because eating so much saturated food can lead to serious weight gain, depression and many other ailments and I believe you don’t want that.

Short History of Donuts

Many countries would like to claim the rights for inventing the old fashioned donuts. The truth is that nobody knows for sure who did this. Along the centuries we may find variations of fried dough all over the globe. However, there are some impactful events in the history of donut that are worth talking about.

Evidence shows that some “olyoeks” (oil cakes) were made by Dutch in the mid 19th century. They were frying ball of dough in pork fat until those became golden brown. Usually, the center of the cake did not cook as fast as the rest and they used to fill them with nuts, fruits or some other stuffing that didn’t require cooking.

When Dutch came to America, they brought the olyoeks with them. By meeting other cultures and cuisines those evolved into the donuts today as we know them. The not-so-secret baked donut recipe can now be found in most bakeries.

The Dutch adopted the solution of filling the uncooked center of the doughnut. Americans, Hansen Gregory (a ship captain) in particular, had another idea. In 1847, he made a hole in the middle right before frying the cake. This resulted in a larger surface to expose to the hot oil, thus eliminating the uncooked center. There are more novelized stories of the captain’s invention. Some say that he pinned a donut on the ship’s steering wheel and that’s how the idea came to him. Other say that angels brought this idea in his dreams. It really doesn’t matter as long as he was credited with inventing the classic shape of donuts.

Just like the origins of these goodies are highly debated, so is their name. The original term is “doughnut”. Some claim that it refers to the nuts stuffed inside the cookies. Others say that the olykoeks had a knot shape, resulting in dough knots and finally into doughnuts.

There are also written records of the word “doughnut”. We can find the first one in a publication from 1809, “A History of New York”. One hundred years later we can also find the shortened version: donut. These days, both words are used. So either you are baking doughnuts or donuts, you are correct in both cases.

And the taste remains delicious.

How to Make Baked Donuts?

My mother used to make old fashioned donuts, using yeast and letting the dough rise.

That increased the prepping time with at least 90 minutes. And as much as I love her homemade donuts and cook them myself every now and then, I usually don’t have so much time for this. So I prefer the shorter version, with baking powder and using a donut pan.

Hail to the one who invented the baked donut recipe!

So, making baked donuts instead of deep fried ones will bring you some healthier treats since you don’t use lot of oil for frying. Plus, this method is less time consuming. And don’t worry, these also taste delicious.

How to Make Baked Donuts Without a Donut Pan?

In case you don’t have a donut pan, do not panic! You can still make these sweet goodies. And there are even two ways of doing that.

1. The first one is to improvise and make your own donut pan. I’m pretty sure you have a muffin pan in your kitchen. You will also need some aluminum foil. 

2. The second way of making baked homemade donuts without a donut pan is to make a yeast-risen dough. After preparing and kneading, form into a ball and let it rise for about 45 minutes or until it doubles the volume. In this case, you will have a smooth and elastic dough to work with.

You will be able to roll it down with a rolling pin and cut circles with a cookie cutter. Use a smaller cutter to also cut holes in the middle of the donuts.

When you place cookies into the tray, make sure you leave enough space between them because they will rise and it’s possible to stick to each other. 

How to Make Baked Donut Holes?

Donut holes are pretty much the same thing as donuts only they don’t have the hole in the middle.

They also can be cooked by deep frying or baking. The best way of serving these small holes is to dip them in cinnamon sugar and drizzle some vanilla glaze. 

How to Decorate a Baked Donut?

Now, after you tried the baked donut recipe, the funnest part remains. That is: decorating them!

Because the possibilities are pretty much endless here. 

You can prepare a vanilla glaze for donuts with color of choice and then play with sprinkles and other fun stuff.

The first step is to bake the donuts and let them cool down. Prepare the basic glaze by mixing powdered sugar with hot milk or water. Add vanilla extract or lemon juice for a better taste.

After that, sky is the limit: use some food coloring to make pink, blue, green or purple glaze. Or mix the colors to get something fancy like magenta, fuchsia or turquoise. Just kidding here… or not.

You may either dip the donuts into the glaze or spoon it over. Let the excess glaze drip down. Decorate with sprinkles of choice. Or you can make two glazes: one white to drizzle and one pink which will be a bit thinner so you can pipe different models on top of the donuts.

Besides from the classic vanilla glaze, there are plenty of other option to decorate and serve your donuts. First of all, you should know that you can enjoy them simple. Just like that, with no glaze, no sprinkles.

Just how you made them.

Some other easy way of serving them is dipping in cinnamon sugar. Other option would be to add some maple syrup the classic glaze to give it a special flavor. One easy alternative is to melt a chocolate and dip the donuts into this sauce. Or you can fill them with jelly. Choose what alternative suits you best.