Pumpkin Spice Baked Donuts
Soft, moist baked pumpkin donuts packed with warm fall spices and finished with a thick double-dipped pumpkin spice glaze. These have a moist orange-gold crumb, plenty of pumpkin flavor, and a bakery-style glaze without frying anything.
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Don’t Mess This Up
- Use pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling.
- Do not overmix after adding the wet ingredients to the dry. Fold only until the flour disappears.
- The batter should be thick and pipeable, but it should not be stiff like cookie dough.
- Fill the donut cavities about ¾ full. Overfilling can distort the donut shape.
- Start checking the donuts around 12 minutes. Do not keep baking just because they have not browned heavily.
- Cool the donuts completely before glazing.
- For the double glaze, let the first coating settle for a few minutes before dipping again. If the first coat is still dripping wet, the second coat will mostly slide off instead of building thickness.
What It Should Look Like
- Wet mixture: Smooth and orange after the pumpkin, sour cream, egg, butter, and vanilla are combined.
- Finished batter: Thick enough to hold some shape on a spatula and pipe cleanly, but still soft. It should not resemble cookie dough.
- Before baking: Donut cavities filled approximately ¾ full. They do not need to look perfectly smooth.
- Finished donut: The top should spring back lightly when touched.
- Inside: Moist orange-gold crumb with small, even air pockets. It should look moist and tender rather than dry, crumbly, or bread-like.
- Glaze: Thick enough to coat the donut instead of immediately running off.
Make It Your Way
The version shown in the photos is the double-dipped Pumpkin Spice Glaze version.
Cinnamon Sugar: Let the donuts cool about 10 minutes so they are still slightly warm. Brush lightly with melted butter, then coat in cinnamon sugar.
Save Some for Later
For the best make-ahead result, bake the donuts and store them unglazed in an airtight container, then glaze them the day they are served.
For freezing, freeze completely cooled unglazed donuts in an airtight freezer container or freezer bag for up to about 2 months. Thaw at room temperature, then glaze after thawing.
Glazed donuts can be stored, but the glaze may become tacky as it sits, so unglazed storage is preferred.
Pumpkin Spice Baked Donuts
Course: Donuts10
donuts222
kcal per donut12–15
minutes350
°FSoft, moist baked pumpkin donuts packed with warm fall spices and finished with a thick double-dipped pumpkin spice glaze.
Ingredients
- Donuts
1 cup + 2 tablespoons (140 g) all-purpose flour
½ cup packed (105 g) light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
½ cup (120 g) pumpkin puree
¼ cup (60 g) full-fat sour cream
1 large egg
3 tablespoons (42 g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Double-Dipped Pumpkin Spice Glaze
2 cups (240 g) powdered sugar
4 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Small pinch ground nutmeg
- Optional Cinnamon-Sugar Finish
3 tablespoons (42 g) unsalted butter, melted
½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
Directions
- Make the Donuts
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a donut pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, sour cream, egg, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
- Gently fold just until no dry flour remains. Do not overmix.
- Transfer the batter to a piping bag or large zip-top bag and snip off one corner.
- Pipe into the donut cavities, filling each about ¾ full.
- Bake for 12–15 minutes, checking around 12 minutes. The donuts are done when the tops spring back lightly when pressed and a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
- Cool completely before glazing.
- Make the Double-Dipped Glaze
- Whisk the powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg until smooth.
- Dip each completely cooled donut into the glaze and place it on a cooling rack.
- Let the first coating settle for a few minutes.
- Dip each donut a second time for the thicker bakery-style coating shown in the photos.
- Let the glaze set for about 15–20 minutes before serving.
- Cinnamon-Sugar Alternative
- Let the baked donuts cool for about 10 minutes so they remain slightly warm.
- Brush lightly with melted butter.
- Mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl.
- Dip or roll the donuts until evenly coated.
This glaze recipe is intentionally generous so there is enough depth in the bowl to double-dip all 10 donuts. Approximately ¼ cup of prepared glaze was left over after double-glazing the 10 donuts.
Estimated Nutrition — Double-Glazed Version
Based on the tested yield of 10 donuts and accounting for approximately ¼ cup of the prepared glaze being left unused:
Per donut: approximately 222 calories | 41 g carbohydrates | 3 g protein | 5 g fat | 3 g saturated fat | 32 mg cholesterol | 243 mg sodium | 80 mg potassium | 1 g fiber | 30 g sugar | 35 mg calcium
Nutrition information is an estimate.
The Chaos Test
- Make ahead? Yes — best unglazed
- Freezer friendly? Yes — freeze unglazed
- Mixer needed? No
- Beginner friendly? Yes
- Mess level: 2/5
- Worth making again? Yes — especially with the double-dipped glaze
