Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

These healthy baked pumpkin spice donuts are packed with pumpkin and cinnamon, dipped in a sweet milk and sugar glaze, and sprinkled with walnuts, making them the ultimate fall breakfast or dessert! This easy baked pumpkin donut recipe makes moist and fluffy cake donuts.

5 from 8 votes

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 12

Glazing & setting time 30

Total Time 52

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Servings donuts

Calories 213 kcal

Equipment

Ingredients

For the donuts

2¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cups white sugar
⅓ cups brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cups pumpkin purée NOT pumpkin pie filling which is already pre-spiced
2 large eggs
¼ cups olive oil
½ cups milk dairy or non-dairy

For the glaze & topping

2 cups powdered sugar also called icing sugar or confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons milk dairy or non-dairy
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or equal amount of vanilla extract, see note below
½ cups walnuts toasted

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375º F.
Grease donut pan with butter or shortening and dust it lightly with flour. Turn the pan upside down over the sink or trash can and gently tap out any excess flour.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt, and both sugars. Set aside.
In a second medium mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, olive oil, and pumpkin.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined (don’t over mix).
Fill a piping bag with batter and use that to pipe batter into the donut pan.
Bake 10-12 minutes, then allow to cool 10 minutes before turning out onto cooling rack. If you don't allow the donuts to cool slightly before turning them out, they may break.
Cool donuts completely to room temperature before adding glaze.
Prepare glaze by whisking together all glaze ingredients in a medium bowl, adding extra milk until desired consistency is reached.
Dip each donut in glaze and then immediately sprinkle with nuts. Allow glaze to set for 20-30 minutes before serving.

Notes

Pumpkin purée - Make sure you get 100% pure pumpkin purée and NOT pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin pie filling already contains spices, and I don't care for the blend of spices they use. Maybe you do, and then you could use it and skip the other spices, but I prefer to add my own spices.

Pumpkin pie spice - If you have a pumpkin pie spice that you really like, you can use 1¾ teaspoons of prepared pumpkin pie spice in place of the spices in this recipe.

Vanilla bean paste - I have switched over from using vanilla extract to using vanilla paste almost exclusively.
Vanilla extract is an alcohol-based liquid with the consistency of water. To make it, vanilla beans are soaked in alcohol for a long time (many months). There are no actual vanilla beans in extract.
Vanilla paste on the other hand is a combination of highly concentrated vanilla extract, vanilla bean powder, and a binder (which can be either xanthum gum or corn syrup, read the label). It is the consistency of Elmer's glue.
The reason I prefer vanilla paste is that, aside from having actual vanilla beans inside, the paste has a richer, more bold flavor, and it has no alcohol taste when it is not cooked. I hate the bitter flavor that traditional vanilla extract gives foods that are not cooked. That bitterness cooks off when heated, but in recipes like popsicles, buttercream, overnight oats, and the glaze in this recipe, the alcohol stays in and can taint the flavor if you are heavy handed with it (as I often am).

Nutrition

Keyword donuts, pumpkin

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