Baked Gingerbread Donuts – 🎄🍩 EASY baked donuts that remind me of my favorite gingerbread or molasses cookies, but in soft and fluffy donut form! Loaded with warming spices, molasses, and coated in cinnamon-sugar for the ultimate winning flavor and texture combo! No mixer needed, ready in 30 minutes, and perfect for holiday brunches, entertaining, or Christmas morning!
Easy Baked Gingerbread Donuts Recipe
These gingerbread donuts for me taste like your favorite gingerbread cookie meets a cinnamon-sugar coated churro and that’s a beautiful thing! It’s also a quick and easy no-mixer recipe which I love, especially during the holiday season when we are all busy, busy, busy.
There is a rich yet subtle sweetness from the molasses and a combination of warming spices including cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg lend layers of fabulous flavor.
To keep the donuts moist, soft, and fluffy there’s both sour cream and applesauce. The final touch is a cinnamon-sugar coating and let’s face it, everything is better coated in cinnamon and sugar!
Best of all, these donuts are baked rather than fried so they’re healthier (and your house won’t smell for days like oil).
Because this is a quick whisk-together batter and because doughnuts bake quickly, you can be munching on your donut treat in just 30 minutes from start to finish!
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Ingredients in Gingerbread Doughnuts
- All-purpose flour
- Warming spices: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, cloves
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Melted unsalted butter
- Light brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Molasses – Wondering what kind to use? See the FAQs below
- Applesauce
- Sour cream or Greek yogurt
- Vanilla extract
- Eggs
- Milk – I recommend whole or 2% milk if using cow’s milk or a thicker plant-based milk such as cashew milk
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Gingerbread Baked Donuts
This is an easy recipe of mixing together the dry ingredients, whisking together the wet, combining, and adding the batter into donut molds before baking and coating with cinnamon and sugar.
- To a large mixing bowl, combine and whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- To a separate medium bowl, add the wet ingredients including melted butter, sugars, molasses, applesauce, sour cream, vanilla, eggs, milk, and whisk well to combine.
- Pour the wet into the dry ingredients and stir to incorporate. Tip – For ease, I recommend adding the batter to a large gallon sized ziptop plastic bag and then snipping off the corner to make it easier to get the batter neatly into the donut molds but if you’re neat, you can do it with a spoon.
- Pipe or spoon the batter into the donut tin molds, filling only about 3/4 of the way full, and bake. Allow the donuts to cool in the pan briefly.
- For the cinnamon-sugar coating (optional but recommended) mix together cinnamon, sugar, and dip and dredge the warm donuts through the cinnamon sugar coating. Tip – If you want to add the cinnamon and sugar to a large ziptop plastic bag and place 3 or 4 donuts inside at a time, seal, and shake to coat, it’s an option.
Donut FAQs
I use Grandma’s Molasses which is a medium, unsulphured molasses for baking when molasses is called for because it’s not overly bitter or pungent like blackstrap molasses can be. However, the taste of molasses varies a lot from brand to brand. Use whatever brand you’re comfortable with. Tip – Spray your measuring cup with a quick spritz of nonstick cooking spray and the molasses will slide out effortlessly!
If you don’t keep cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice all on hand (what, you’re not a food blogger…kidding), but you do have cinnamon and allspice, you can get by! Use 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon + 1 1/2 to 2 tsp allspice and just omit all the individual spices.
Since it’s only 1/4 cup, and if it’s not something you regularly keep on hand, add an additional 2 tablespoons of sour cream or Greek yogurt to the batter.
Yes you can, however mini donuts can be a pain to pipe into those tiny little donut molds. The recipe, as written, yields 12 standard sized donuts. I imagine for every 1 full size donut, you can make 3-4 mini donuts, depending on the size of your molds. So if you want to pipe out batter 48 times over into a mini donut pan, be my guest. I do not!
Yes, of course. I am team ziplock bag rather than piping bag, but do whatever you have and prefer. Use a wide, open tip, of course.
For sure. A simple powdered sugar glaze would be lovely!
Good question and I am not sure. I personally fry almost nothing, ever, in my house because I dislike the smell of oil just lingering for days. But this recipe was developed as a baked donuts recipe but if you want to experiment with hot oil and pipe the batter into it and experiment, you can give it a try.
This is truly a case of, the fresher the better. I don’t recommend making these very far in advance if you’re serving them for a holiday brunch or event. While they will keep airtight at room temp for up to 2-3 days, they simply will taste better right after they’re made.
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Donuts – Preheat oven to 375F and spray two 6-count donut pans with cooking spray; set aside. (Wondering if you can make mini donuts using mini donut pans? See the FAQs)
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To a large bowl, add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, ginger, salt, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda, and whisk well to combine. Set aside. Spice Notes and Tips – If you want to make the overall flavor bolder in the finished donuts, you can increase the spices that are listed as 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp. If you don’t have ALL the spices, but you do have cinnamon and allspice, you can keep the cinnamon amount the same at 1 1/2 tsp and then simply use 1 1/2 to 2 tsp allspice rather than using all the individual spices.
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To a separate large bowl, add the melted butter, sugars, molasses, applesauce, sour cream or Greek yogurt (make sure it’s Greek yogurt and not other yogurt which is too thin and runny), vanilla, and whisk well to combine.
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Add the eggs, milk, and whisk again to combine.
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Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir to combine. Mixing Tips – I find it easiest to actually use a soft-tipped spatula and fold-scrape, fold-scrape, the ingredients to combine them and make sure you don’t accidentally miss any dry ingredients on the bottom. In recipes like this, it’s easy to do. But if you’re using a spatula, you can really scrape and see everything so no bits are hiding and stay dry. Make sure not to overmix after everything has been combined.
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At this point, you have one of 3 choices. 1.) If you’re a neat cook and can foresee yourself using a small spoon and spooning the batter into the donut molds, that’s what you will do. 2.) Otherwise, you can transfer the batter into a gallon-sized ziptop bag OR 3.) into a piping bag fitted with a large, wide, open tip. For me, it prefer the ziptop bag method.
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Fill each cavity of the donut mold 3/4 full. Tips – Do not overfill because you’ll create quite a mess in the oven when the donuts rise. Wipe any batter blobs and messes using a paper towel that may have fallen around the edges of the pan or onto the center area.
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Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until donuts are set, soft and springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs. I like to rotate my pans once halfway through baking to ensure even browning. Allow the donuts to cool in the pans for about 10 minutes. While they’re cooling, make the cinnamon-sugar coating.
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Cinnamon-Sugar Coating – You can do this in two ways. 1.) Add the sugar and cinnamon to a shallow bowl, use a small spoon to lightly mix to combine, and add the donuts, one by one, to the bowl. Flip and toss in the cinnamon-sugar until nicely coated, place on a cooling rack, and repeat until all donuts have been coated. You may need to mix up more cinnamon-sugar coating depending on how thick you’re coating your donuts. 2.) Alternatively, add the sugar and cinnamon to a new gallon-sized ziptop bag, drop in 3-4 donuts, seal the bag, and shake it around a bit to evenly coat the donuts. Remove the donuts, set on a cooling rack, and repeat the process until all the donuts have been coated. You may need to mix up more cinnamon-sugar coating depending on how thick you’re coating your donuts. Serve immediately.
Storage: Donuts are always better when served warm and freshly made. They will keep airtight at room temp for up to 2-3 days, but if you’re serving them for an event, the closer you can make them to before you’re serving them, the better. Note that as they’re stored, the cinnamon-sugar coating will tend to “disappear” or seem almost moist, which is really just the sugar liquifying a bit as time passes. You can always re-dredge or re-coat leftover donuts in additional cinnamon-sugar, if desired. I do not recommend storing donuts in the fridge (they’ll dry out) or freezing them.
Serving: 1donut, Calories: 288kcal, Carbohydrates: 45g, Protein: 9g, Fat: 8g, Saturated Fat: 4g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 3g, Trans Fat: 0.1g, Cholesterol: 162mg, Sodium: 245mg, Potassium: 241mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 23g, Vitamin A: 361IU, Vitamin C: 0.1mg, Calcium: 109mg, Iron: 3mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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