The best vegan donuts! Light and fluffy and SO easy to make. Serve them covered in chocolate and sprinkles or topped with cinnamon sugar!
I always thought donuts would be difficult to make but they’re crazy easy! They’re so easy you’re going to be wanting a permanent supply of these on hand.
They bake in 15 minutes and taste just as good as a bakery.
When they’re baked, you can decide how you want to top them. We have instructions for cinnamon sugar donuts and chocolate topped donuts.
And if you love donuts, check out our vegan chocolate donuts too.
How To Make Vegan Donuts
This is just a summary of the process, full instructions and measurements are in the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
- Sift all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together.
- Add soy milk, vanilla extract, applesauce and vegan butter (or coconut oil) and mix into a batter.
- Divide the batter evenly between the donut partitions on your donut trays (sprayed with non-stick spray).
- Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes.
- Let them cool for a few minutes and then transfer them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before adding your toppings.
- Top with melted vegan chocolate and sprinkles OR brush with melted vegan butter and then dip in cinnamon sugar.
Baker’s Tips
- Use a piping bag. The only tricky thing making these donuts is getting the batter into the donut partitions neatly. Using a spoon can be a little messy. The best way is actually to put the batter into a piping bag and pipe it. That way you can be quite neat. But a spoon also works!
- You definitely want a donut tray for this one. You can get donut trays on Amazon and it’s ideal if you get two of them because it’s perfect to make 12 in one go. Since the donuts are quite small, doing only 6 at a time is a very small batch.
Baked vs Fried
While fried donuts are great of course, what’s nice about these baked donuts is that they’re much lighter.
They’re also super easy and I suspect (I haven’t tried a homemade fried donuts version yet) that they’re much easier to make than the fried variety.
Vegan Donuts FAQ
They should be lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the donuts should come out clean.
If you want to make these donuts gluten-free then switch the all purpose flour for a gluten free all purpose flour blend and that should work great.
Storing and Freezing
These donuts are best when served fresh. But they can also be stored covered at room temperature for a couple of days or in the fridge for up to a week.
If you make them with chocolate on top and the weather is warm then the fridge will be the best place to store them so the chocolate doesn’t melt.
They are also freezer friendly for a couple of months. Let them thaw overnight in the fridge and warm for a few seconds in the microwave before enjoying.
More Vegan Breakfast/Desserts
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Baked Vegan Donuts
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups All Purpose Flour (188g)
- ¾ cup White Granulated Sugar (150g)
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg
- ¾ cup Soy Milk (180ml) or other non-dairy milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 Tablespoons Applesauce
- 5 Tablespoons Vegan Butter Melted
For Chocolate Topping:
- 1 cup Vegan Chocolate Chips (175g)
- Sprinkles
For Cinnamon Sugar Topping:
- 2 Tablespoons Vegan Butter Melted
- ½ cup White Granulated Sugar (50g)
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Prepare two donut trays by spraying with non-stick spray. Set aside.
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together.
- Add the soy milk, vanilla, applesauce and melted vegan butter and whisk in, removing any large lumps.
- Place the donut batter into a piping bag and pipe it into the donut partitions evenly or use a spoon (but it can get messy).
- Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned on top.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before transferring the donuts to a wire cooling rack.
- Allow to cool completely before doing the topping.
- For the chocolate topping, melt the chocolate by placing it in a microwave safe bowl and heating in 30 second intervals, bringing it out to stir every 30 seconds until completely melted. Dip the donuts into the melted chocolate and then place onto a parchment lined baking tray and use a teaspoon to add the sprinkles. When all the donuts are done, move the tray into the fridge briefly for the chocolate topping to set.
- For the cinnamon sugar topping, add the sugar and cinnamon to a bowl and mix together. Melt the vegan butter and use a brush to brush the butter onto the top of a donut and then immediately dip it into the bowl of cinnamon sugar. Place the donut onto a parchment lined tray and use a teaspoon to add more cinnamon sugar to the top of the donut. Repeat for all the donuts.
Video
Notes
- Weigh your flour for the most accurate results or use the spoon and level method: spoon the flour into your measuring jug and then level off the top with a knife.
- The melted vegan butter for the donut batter can be replaced with melted coconut oil.
- Each topping (Chocolate or Cinnamon Sugar) is enough for a full batch of 12 donuts. If you want to do half/half then reduce the quantities for the toppings.
- Nutritional information is for a full batch of 12 with chocolate topping.
- This recipe was first published in 2016 and updated in 2019 with new photos and clearer instructions.
Can olive oil be used instead of vegan butter and rice milk instead of soya milk ?
It should be okay, though melted coconut oil is better. Rice milk will be fine!
I have made this every weekend for the last month for my kids, 2 and 7, and they are such a hit. The first time we did it with chocolate on top, but the second time we were out of chocolate so we ate them plain and they are delicious as is so we’ve been doing them “naked donuts, momma!” ever since- i love that the kids like them even without the added chocolate bonus. Thank you so much, this is if the first time I have a go-to breakfast recipe!
Wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing Kelly!
what can I use instead of apple sauce?
Extra vegan butter.
Thank you for this amazing recipe! I tried two other recipes and they were not good. Flavor and texture were on point. THANK YOU! 🙂
So happy to hear that Natalia, thanks a million!
These donuts are so tasty!! My daughter made them for me with the chocolate topping…very yummy!!
We did sub in all-purpose gluten-free flour and they seemed a bit dense. Is that normal? Is there a way to combat that?
Hi Sybil, sometimes results can be a bit variable with gluten-free flours. But as long as they were tasty that’s awesome!
This is our favorite donut recipe! We have made these donuts so many times with a variety of different icings/toppings and they all taste fantastic. We’ve even substituted vanilla for other extracts (like cotton candy and maple bacon) and they still come out great. We’ve also added fruit to make raspberry/lemon donuts. The options are limitless! Thanks for this great recipe!
~Catherine
Fantastic! Thank you so much!
Hi! Just wanted to ask if I can use coconut oil instead of melted butter?
Yes sure! Just melt it first and that will work great. 🙂
Hi! Thanks for this recipe. What can I use instead of applesauce? I don’t want to use eggs.
You can use 2 Tbsp extra of melted vegan butter.
Super fast and easy! We made a half quantity and put it in cake pop molds as we didn’t have a donut tin. Perfect little mouthfuls.
The recipe rendered 20 but only 14 appear to have survived decorating. Perhaps the chocolatey mouths on my mini pastry chefs may have something to do with it…
Hahaha yes I think that might’ve had something to do with it. 🙂 So glad you enjoyed it, thanks so much for posting!
These are excellent! I’ve tried a couple of doughnut recipes and have settled on these. For the cinnamon sugar ones, I just spray them down with a little bit of neutral-favored cooking spray and they hold the cinnamon sugar really easily. The chocolate ones were fantastic though. Really perfect. These are a Saturday morning family staple now. 🙂
So happy to hear that Jose! Thanks for the wonderful review!
Hi! I was wondering if I could make half of this recipe, then add cocoa powder to the remaining batter so the other half of the donuts are chocolate donuts, would that work? Or would I be better off making these, then just making your chocolate donuts a different time? Thanks!
Hi Tay, you could try it, but the issue is that adding more dry ingredients to the one half of the batch, could end up making them dry, unless you add in a little extra soy milk or applesauce to compensate. So you could experiment with it, like if you add 2 Tbsp of cocoa powder to the half batch of batter, then add an extra Tbsp or so of liquid or applesauce and see how it turns out! Alternatively of course you could make our chocolate donut recipe which would then be less risky as it’s already all factored in. 🙂
Hello, can I use this recipe to make a loaf cake? Thank you for all your tasty and easy recipes! 🙂 Karen.
Hi Karen, I’m really not sure how it would adapt to a loaf cake. It might be better to adapt one of our other cake recipes instead.
These are so yummy! I got a donut pan and immediately wanted a vegan donut recipe and found this one. Easy to make. I didn’t have nutmeg and they turned out so yummy anyways. I made a vegan frosting of my own to put on top. Honestly though, I would eat them plain. So good! I will say, some more guidance on filling the rings would be handy (for us first timers). I put way too much batter as it turns out, so I have muffin tops on one end, and donuts on the other. Lol.
Thanks so much Lynn!
This was the perfect donuts to have with coffee. Comes together very easily. I followed your advice and used weighing scale – it yielded exactly enough batter to fill the 6 cavity donut pan (I only made half of original recipe) only changes I made was to reduce sugar and used 1/4 cup but given the glaze, I can cut it down even further. Other than that, perfect!! Thanks!!!
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
I’ve just made these and they are absolutely delicious! I couldn’t find applesauce, so used extra melted butter, as suggested. They are quite cake-like but so darn tasty!
Awesome! Thanks so much for the great review Ian! 🙂
Hi Alison. Thank you for this recipe. I will definitely make it this weekend. How much butter do I need to use to replace the applesauce? Also 2tbsp? And does it need to be melted as well? Thank you 😉
Hi Shirley, yes 2 Tbsp extra melted butter will replace the applesauce. All the best!