Blueberry Cake Doughnuts with Lemon Glaze

Healthier version of the traditional doughnuts, these baked in oven blueberry cake doughnuts are glazed with lemon icing and perfect as an afternoon treat.

Why make this recipe?

• Easy to make
• Healthier than the traditional doughnuts
• Fun to decorate
• Great for entertaining or gifting

What exactly is cake doughnut?

A cake doughnut is basically a oven-baked version of a traditional doughnut, which is also considered to be healthier. It’s also made with cake (all purpose) flour and baking powder and it’s baked straightaway after the batter is made.

Traditional doughnuts doughs are made with bread flour and yeast and need to prove once or twice before you fry them in deep oil.

Any specialist equipment needed?

You will need a doughnut pan/baking tin. It’s difficult to make this recipe without one, but you can bake the dough in any muffin tin or loaf tin to create a different shapes, if you wanted to.

Pro tip

This batter meant to be a lot thicker than regular muffin or cupcakes batter. This is because you need that firmness when you are taking the doughnuts out from the baking tin.

Always grease or wipe with oil your doughnut baking tins to prevent the dough sticking. I also find that greasing the tins and then covering it with a light layer of flour helps to release the baked doughnuts even better.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter unsalted
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup plain (all purpose) flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Lemon Icing Glaze

• 1 1/2 cups icing (powdered – confectioners) sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice more depending on desired consistency
• pinch fine salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest

The method – Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 350˚F, 180 C
• Spray the doughnut baking tins with cooking spray or wipe with a paper towel dabbed in vegetable oil.
• In a medium sized bowl cream the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla until light and fluffy. You can do this in a mixer or by hand as it’s a small enough amount.
• Add the eggs and buttermilk to the creamed butter and sugar and either whisk or cream by hand until it’s all smooth and light.
• In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
• Add the flour mixture to the buttermilk in stages, making sure that at every stage the flour is incorporated before you add the next bit of the flour.
• Gently fold in the blueberries.
• Using a piping bag (or small spoon) pipe the cake doughnut batter to the tins, making sure you don’t overfil them. This means not going over about two-thirds full.
• Bake for 10-15 depending on what size of doughnut’s baking pan/tin you have. When done, the doughnuts should feel springy when you gently press them down and start to come away from the baking tin. Double check with a wonden skewer – if it comes out clean and dry, your doughnuts are done.
• Leave the doughnuts to cool down a bit in the baking pan and when only warm to touch, gently take them out and leave to cool down on a cooling rack completely.
• To prepare the lemon icing glaze, mix together the icing (confectioners) sugar, lemon juice, tiny pinch of salt and freshly grated lemon zest. Add more lemon juice to achieve a thick pouring consistency.
• Add the glaze by either dipping the doughnuts upside down in a lemon glaze or carefully pour over the glaze. Leave to dry the sugar glaze before packaging or serving.

How else you can make this recipe?

You can easily make this recipe dairy free by swapping the buttermilk for a plant based version of buttermilk or plant based cream or milk. The same goes for butter.

Gluten free version is also possible with this recipe, but you’d need to use a ready-made gluten-free flour blend or add xanthan gum to ensure that your cake doughnuts won’t crumble. This is particularly important as you really don’t want these doughnuts to fall apart when you take them out from the baking tin.

Batch size

This depends on what type of doughnut baking tin you are using. I have a regular size doughnut tin and I usually 12 doughnuts. If you use mini doughnut pan, you might get 24 or more doughnuts.

Can I scale up or down this recipe?

This recipe is easily scalable, just double up the amount and use extra baking tins.

Can I bake doughnuts in advance?

It depends on how far in advance you had in mind. If you are planning a party or an event a day in advance would be perfect as it allows the lemon glaze to properly set.

You can also bake the doughnuts and freeze them and glaze them 12-24 hrs before your even or when you need them.

How to store iced doughnuts

Baked cake doughnuts are best stored in a paper box rather than in an airtight container as this might cause the glaze to melt or run.

Troubleshooting tips