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Home » Breakfast

Glazed Baked Orange Donuts

Published: Feb 10, 2025 by Jenn ·This post may contain affiliate links ·

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These fluffy baked orange donuts with a sweet citrus glaze are perfect morning treats. Tender cake donuts flavored with fresh orange zest, vanilla, almond, and tangy buttermilk. Bake until lightly golden brown, then dip the donuts in a vanilla orange glaze and serve with a hot cup of coffee.

Overhead view of glazed orange donuts on music sheets next to two cups of coffee and a bouquet of pink roses.

Glazed Orange Donuts

This is my favorite homemade baked donuts recipe! The mixture of cake flour, all purpose flour and oil give these donuts a moist yet light cakey texture. Plus the bright citrus pop from the orange zest and orange juice, along with the orange vanilla glaze is so tasty. Quick to make without the fuss of a traditional fried donut in hot oil, you'll be eating donuts for breakfast in less than an hour.

🌿 Ingredients You'll Need

This recipe uses simple ingredients with a mixture of both all purpose flour and cake flour to create a lovely cake-like donut texture. You'll need fresh oranges, vanilla extract or a vanilla bean, almond extract, and buttermilk. Since we're baking and not frying, make sure you have one or two donut baking pans.

  • Fresh Orange Zest and Orange Juice: Double bright citrus taste in the form of both zest and juice in the donut batter and the vanilla orange glaze.
  • Granulated Sugar: Not just for sweetness, the sugar blended with the orange zest creates a magical orange sugar to deliver extra citrus notes.
  • Vanilla Extract: Vanilla enhances almost every baking recipe and will definitely add richness to the donuts and the orange glaze. I recommend using either 100% pure vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste or beans scraped from a whole vanilla bean for the best quality flavor.
  • Almond Extract: A little goes a long way to enhancing the orange notes with a subtle taste of almond.
  • Flour: All purpose flour has a higher protein percentage than cake flour, so instead of using just one, I mixed them for not too soft and not too dense donut structure. If you aren't able to use both, I suggest using just all purpose flour instead.
  • Buttermilk: The acidity in full fat buttermilk acts as a tenderiser to the donut texture making it light and soft with a slightly tangy profile.
  • Unsalted Butter: Melted butter is going to enrich the donut batter.
  • Sunflower Oil: To ensure a moist donut I have split the fat into both butter for flavor and sunflower oil for a tender crumb.
Overhead view of an oval plate stacked full of glazed baked donuts next to two cups of coffee and pink roses.

Tips for Making Glazed Baked Orange Donuts

Don’t be intimidated if you've never made donuts before, baked donuts are just like making muffins and way easier than using yeast doughs. All you need to do is mix the wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately, then combine them into a batter. The hardest part about this recipe is waiting for the donuts to cool so you can dip them in the glaze and eat.

  • Prep your donut pan with non stick baking spray to prevent the donuts from getting stuck. I prefer to use the ones that have added flour in an addition to the nonstick cooking spray.
  • Don't skip working the orange zest into the granulated sugar. The sugar absorbs the oils and really enhances the orange flavor.
  • Use a pastry piping bag is the easiest way to transfer the batter into the donut cavities.
  • Dip cooled donuts into the glaze as warm donuts will cause the glaze to thin and run off the tops.
  • To make thicker glaze, stir in another ¼ cup of powdered sugar. To make thinner glaze add another teaspoon of milk at a time until you like the consistency.
  • Try swapping out the orange zest and juice to make lemon donuts using lemon zest and fresh lemon juice instead.
  • Substitutions that can be used in place of buttermilk are sour cream and greek yogurt for equal tanginess.

How to Store Baked Donuts

  • Store glazed donuts in an airtight container for about 3 days. Line the container with paper towels to absorb any excess moisture.
  • Freeze unglazed donuts– Let them cool completely on a cooling rack, then store in a freezer-safe container or plastic freezer bag for up to 3 months. Thaw to room temperature before glazing the tops of the donuts.

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Overhead view of an oval plate stacked full of glazed baked donuts next to two cups of coffee and pink roses.
Jenn Davis

Glazed Baked Orange Donuts

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These fluffy baked orange donuts with a sweet citrus glaze are perfect morning treats. Tender cake-like donuts flavored with fresh orange zest, vanilla, almond, and tangy buttermilk.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe Ingredient Tips
Prep Time 15 minutes mins
Cook Time 9 minutes mins
0 minutes mins
Total Time 24 minutes mins
Servings: 18 donuts
Course: Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

Orange Donuts
  • 125 grams (1 cup) cake flour
  • 208 grams (1 ⅔ cups) all purpose flour
  • 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoons baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 200 grams (1 cup) granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons fresh orange zest
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 57 grams (¼ cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 56 grams (¼ cup) sunflower oil, *neutral oil
  • ¼ teaspoon almond paste or pure almond extract
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
  • 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
  • 240 grams (1 cup) full fat buttermilk, room temperature
Vanilla Orange Glaze
  • 330 grams (3 cup) powdered confectioners sugar
  • 90 grams (6 tablespoons) whole milk
  • 3 teaspoons fresh orange juice
  • 1.5 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract
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Equipment

  • non-stick donut baking pan
  • large piping bag *optional

Method
 

Orange Donuts
  1. Preheat oven to 425F (220C) Spray two 6-cavity donut pans with non-stick baking spray.
  2. Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, work the orange zest into the granulated sugar by stirring and lightly pressing with a fork. Let sit for a few minutes so the sugar can absorb the oils from the orange zest.
  4. Add the eggs, butter, oil, vanilla extract and almond extract to the orange sugar. Whisk to mix together. Add in the orange juice and mix again.
  5. Spoon half of the dry flour ingredients into the wet mixture and whisk until distributed.
  6. Pour in the buttermilk, whisk slowly to mix in. Then, whisk in the remaining half of the flour mixture until a smooth batter is formed.
  7. Transfer batter to large plastic piping bag. Pipe each donut cavity ⅔ full with the batter. You can also do this with a spoon if needed, but a piping bag makes it so much easier.
  8. Place the donut pans on the oven's middle rack and bake for 7-9 minutes until lightly golden. The donut should bounce back when gently pressed with finger. You can also insert a toothpick into the donut and if it comes out clean they are baked.
  9. Transfer the pans onto a wore cooling rack for about 5 minutes.
  10. Carefully tilt each pan to allow the donuts to slide out onto the wire rack to cool completely before glazing. Repeat with remaining batter.
Vanilla Orange Glaze
  1. While the donuts are cooling, make your glaze. Whisk together all of the ingredients into a medium bowl. (*see notes on how to adjust glaze thickness)
  2. While holding a donut with you thumb and first two fingers, lower it halfway into the glaze and twist back and forth to coat. Lift the donut slowly and place it glaze side up onto parchment paper. The parchment paper will catch any of the glaze drippings.
  3. Let the glaze set for 3-4 minutes or longer before eating. Allow glaze to fully set before storing in airtight container.

Notes

Tips

  • Let the donuts cool completely before glazing.
  • To make thicker glaze, stir in another ¼ cup of powdered sugar. To make thinner glaze add another teaspoon of milk at a time until you like the consistency.

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