Baked Pumpkin Donuts (Soft & Easy Fall Recipe)

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

1. First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a donut pan (or more than one if you are doubling).
2. 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.

3. 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. 
4. 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. 

5. Make the coating by whisking together the cinnamon and sugar, and tossing slightly cooled donuts in the mixture to coat.

6. 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

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.