Christmas Doughnuts

Delicious and quick-to-make Christmas doughnuts coated in melted almond bark, sprinkled with green sanding sugar and lined with melted red candy. A sweet treat with a cup of coffee on a Christmas morning.

Easy to make Christmas donut recipe that will beat any store-bought sweet donuts. If you’re obsessed with delicious recipes you can make this holiday season – I promise you will love these little chewy cakey donuts.

This version of holiday donuts is also much healthier since we don’t fry them but bake them in the oven! Celebrate the holiday season with soft and sweet home-baked donuts decorated with colorful icing without needing to prep or bake for long hours.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Delicious donuts just like Little Debbie’s for your whole family.
• A whole batch is ready in under 15 minutes and you will only need 7 ingredients that you can get at your local grocery store.
• Fresh homemade donuts for Christmas breakfast. Kids will be ecstatic about them!
• Super customizable! Just swap coloring, sprinkles, and frosting, and with one recipe you have so much fun.

Ingredients Notes

Just a handful of simple ingredients are available at any store. The donuts are made with cake mix, eggs, milk, and melted butter, and for decoration, I use white, green, and red colors in the spirit of Christmas and NYE.

For Doughnuts

• Yellow cake mix is my go-to shortcut in baking. The dough-nuts will be cakey, soft, and moist.
• 3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk, and this extra egg yolk makes for the smoothest batter.
• Milk: regular whole milk, or coconut milk for dairy-free option.
• Unsalted butter – melted and slightly cooled. Melt it in the microwave or saucepan.

Decoration

• White almond bark – chocolate-based bars that are way better for melting and easier to find.
• Green sanding sugar 
• Red candy melts 

Kitchen Equipment

• Donut pan helps us make cute even donuts with proper donut holes. If you don’t have a donut pan, use a muffin pan, and make the foil hole-shaped part to insert in the middle (or don’t, if you don’t mind not having holes in the donuts.
• Stand mixer or you can mix the dry and wet ingredients for the cake donuts by hand.
• Microwave-safe bowl for melting chocolate.
• Optional, pastry bag to portion the batter into the donut pans.

How To Make This Christmas Doughnut Recipe

1: Make The Donut Batter

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 1-2 mini doughnut pans with butter, baking spray, or oil. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the cake mix, eggs and egg yolk, milk, and melted butter in a large mixing bowl, until well blended.

2: Bake The Cake Donuts

1. Spoon the batter and portion it into the prepared pan.
2. Bake for 12 minutes or until baked through and the toothpick inserted returns clean.
3. Repeat with the remaining batter if you are working with one pan at a time.
4. Gently remove the baked donuts from the pan and let them cool on a cooling rack.

3: Decorate

1. Melt the almond bark in a medium bowl in the microwave at 50% power. Heat in 30-second intervals, stirring in between each interval until the chocolate is smooth.
2. Dip the top of each doughnut into the melted chocolate, then place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
3. Sprinkle immediately with the green sanding sugar, before the chocolate sets so the sugar will be sure to stick.
4. Repeat the melting process with the red candy melts in a new bowl.
5. Transfer the melted chocolate into a piping bag with a small round tip. Alternatively, you can use a zip-top bag with the corner snipped off if you don’t have a piping bag.
6. Drizzle the melted red chocolate over the doughnuts.
7. Set on a wire rack for about 30 minutes for the chocolate to cool completely and set before serving or storing.

Storage

Store Christmas doughnuts leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 days at room temperature or in the fridge for up to a week. However, by the end of the week, they can become a bit stale and dry.

You can freeze donuts for 3 months, it is better without any frosting or glaze. Thaw for 30 minutes at room temperature and warm up in the microwave for a few seconds or in the oven at 350 degrees F drizzled with some water for 3-4 minutes.

Substitutions & Variations

• You can use any cake mix flavor you like (spiced, chocolate, or lemon!), and you can even make fudgy brownie-like donuts as a base for these Christmas treats, gingerbread donuts, or add eggnog to the boxed cake mix.
• Cream cheese frosting. A classic option for frosting. Use cold brick cream cheese, powdered sugar, and softened butter.
• Chocolate glaze. Chocolate glaze made with cocoa powder or chopped chocolate is a great frosting idea for classic donut recipes. You can also use white chocolate glaze.
• Use food coloring to make Christmas-themed glaze options: red, green, and white. Coloring for your desired glaze can be natural too, for example, red color is easy to achieve with raspberries or cranberries, while instead of green food coloring you can use matcha powder.
• For flavor, you can add some vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste to the batter. Other extracts work amazingly too!

Making Fried Doughnuts Version

To make fluffy donut balls without holes, make the batter from scratch using whole milk, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and beaten eggs with granulated sugar and some vegetable oil. The batter needs to chill overnight covered with plastic wrap.

This dough can be rolled into a rope and cut into pieces to deep fry in hot oil of 360-370°F. Sour cream, buttermilk, or Greek yogurt can make moist donuts.

Christmas Donuts Decoration Ideas

• Christmas sprinkles (or different sprinkles if you’re not making these donuts for the winter holiday season)
• Plaid
• Snowman
• Crushed candy cane, snowflakes festive sprinkles, green mistletoe sprinkles,
• Mini donuts look like gift boxes with ribbon or bow
• Christmas lights (white, red, green, glitter, you can also use M&Ms for lights)
• chocolate glaze and reindeer with red nose and pretzel antlers
• Making Christmas Wreath Donuts with piped green colored frosting and a red bow
• Use lime or lemon zest for green-colored topping etc.

Expert Tips To Make Christmas Donuts

• If making fried donuts, always drain the grease and let them dry on a paper towel.
• If you don’t want to make any complex frosting or sweet glaze, you can simply dust the donuts with brown sugar.
• No time for baking? Buy your fav plain doughnuts and decorate with family! 

If you love this easy donut recipe, you’re going to love these other doughnut recipes too. Please click each link below to find the easy, printable recipe!

More Great Holiday Breakfast Ideas

Gingerbread Granola

Christmas Fruit Salad

Grinch Pancakes

Breakfast Charcuterie Board

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