These Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Donuts are a delicious treat that’s easy to make and much lower in fat than coffee shop donuts! They’re baked, not fried and they’re under 100 calories each!
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Donuts are a huge weakness for me – thankfully I’m about an hour’s drive from the nearest donut shop and about an 8-hour flight away from the nearest Tim Horton’s (if you’re not Canadian, you might not know what that is – it’s almost every Canadian’s favourite coffee and donut joint!). Making donuts at home is a MUCH healthier way to enjoy these sweet treats and my latest favourite homemade donut recipe is these Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Donuts – they’re under 100 calories per donut!!
You will need a donut pan for this Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Donuts recipe, and if you don’t have one already I’d definitely recommend this Wilton Medium Donut Pan (affiliate link). It’s the perfect size for this recipe that yields 24 medium-sized donuts and it’s non-stick and easy to clean. And it works best when you grease it with a little bit of oil or butter. I always use my Misto Oil Sprayer for this job (affiliate link) because it allows you to achieve the same effect as conventional oil sprays while using a healthy oil and without all those harmful propellants found in conventional oil sprays.
How to make Baked Donuts
Baked donuts are the perfect treat, and these Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Donuts are no exception. Here are my best baked donut tips:
- Don’t overmix your batter! Mix gently and just until the flour disappears!
- Use a piping bag! Fill a large piping bag with your batter, snip off the tip of the piping bag and pipe your donuts into the donut pan!
- Don’t overfill your donut pan! Fill the cavities about 1/2 to 2/3 full and no more than this! Don’t overfill, or your donuts won’t have the cute little hole in the middle!
- Spray with vegetable oil spray! If you’re finding the powdered sugar doesn’t want to stick, give each donut a tiny little spritz of vegetable oil spray and that’ll do the trick!
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I hope you love these Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Donuts as much as we do! Let me know in the comments below, what’s your favourite coffee shop treat? I’d love to know!
Kitchen Tools I Recommend:
Looking for more recipes like this one? You’ll LOVE these!
– Old Fashioned Cinnamon Sugar Baked Donuts
– Low Fat Double Chocolate Dip Donuts
– Best Ever Lemon Blueberry Streusel Muffins
– Best Ever Banana Nut Muffins
– Pumpkin Cheesecake Swirl Muffins
– Apple Carrot Ginger Muffins
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Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Donuts
Recipe: Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- cooking spray to grease the donut pan
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar for dipping (use more if desired)
Recipe: Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a medium 12-donut donut pan (or two if you have) with vegetable oil cooking spray or butter and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
- In a glass measuring cup, measure the buttermilk.
- Add the eggs and vegetable oil to the buttermilk and whisk with a fork to combine and break up the eggs.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix together gently with a rubber spatula just until any streaks of flour disappear. Over-mixing can make the donuts tough and rubbery, so mix gently and only as much as you need to.
- Add the batter to a large piping bag and pipe the donuts into the donut pan cavities only about 1/2 to 2/3 full.
- Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 7-9 minutes, or until the donuts are just golden brown on top and lose their shine.
- Cool in the donut pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat the steps for the next 12 donuts (this recipe makes 24 mini donuts).
- Once cooled, dip the donuts in powdered sugar (use a light spritz of vegetable oil spray on the donuts if the powdered sugar needs help sticking!) and enjoy!
Recipe: Notes
Recipe: Nutrition
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
These donuts look so delicious! I have to try this
They really are 😉
Can we skip White sugar in the batter and use non fat milk instead of butter milk?
The buttermilk is what gives the light, airy texture because of its acidity. Regular milk will cause the donuts to be more dense and hockey puck-like. Also, you can take out the sugar, but it lends structure to the batter and creates flavour. I wouldn’t recommend these adjustments to the recipe, as I can’t promise what it will turn out like 🙁
I love you.. ***ahem*** ..r donuts
Mmmm, these look SO good, I can’t wait to try them!
Thanks!Enjoy!
These are my son’s favorite donuts and it’s his birthday next week, so I’m going to surprise him with these. Thanks!!
I hope he enjoyed them! 🙂
What a wonderful way to start my day! These are delicious!
So glad you enjoyed them! Thanks!
When I was little, my mom and I would open a pack of powdered donuts at the beginning of our grocery shopping (in the store). By the time we got to the check out stand, the donuts would be gone, and we would hand the checker the empty wrapper to scan. Powdered donuts will always remind me of my mom. You brought back some wonderful memories this morning – thank you for that!
What a great story! I hope you love these! 🙂
These would disappear in our house!
In ours too! 🙂
Anything with powdered sugar is good in my book. I will have to make these for the kiddos, so I don’t have to buy the bagged one at the store.
Glad you like this recipe! I hope you give it a try!
These look so good that I just ordered 3-8 donut hole pans just to bake them in! I can tell by the ingredients that we’re gonna love these, and the calories? A donut for less than 100 calories??? OH yeah, we’re gonna love these!!! Thanks for another great recipe!
You’re so welcome! ENjoy! 🙂
I liked the sound of this recipe so much that I actually ordered 3 silicon donut pans (8 donuts per pan) just so I could try this recipe! I was not disappointed! OMG, these are delicious, the hubby and I have been racing each other back to the kitchen to snag another one! Thanks so much for yet another great recipe!
So glad you enjoyed them!! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment!
I just finished making these right now and yes they are very good. Delicious flavor, I can taste the nutmeg and its good. But I did put in regular milk also since the buttermilk made the batter to thick. So I used both. Buttermilk is thick, I used cultered buttermilk , only one I saw at HEB but must be same thing.
Glad you liked them!! 🙂
Hi just wondering whether if I can use a baking tray instead of a proper donut mold as I don’t have it. I know that using a baking tray will take the hole out of them but I don’t know if they will turn out right. Hope you can help!
If you don’t have a donut pan I’d suggest using a muffin tin instead and adjusting the baking time. 🙂
Just made these and I can’t figure out what the batter was so thick. I went step by step, didn’t over mix and still, the batter was too thick to easily flow through my piping bag.
The buttermilk you’re using might be too thick. Try using 3/4 cup milk + 1 tablespoon of vinegar instead. 🙂
Hi 🙂 would love to make these tomorrow. What is buttermilk and what can I sub it with? I don’t think we have any here..
thank you so much ❤️
Simply add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to milk and you’ll have homemade buttermilk. The added acid in the recipe helps create the perfect texture.
1 taplespoon lemon juice or vinegar+ 1 scant cup of milk (just enough so the lemon juice or vinegar fills it up to the top)
These donuts were simply delicious. They are easy to make AND low calorie. The taste of the nutmeg was fabulous. Very yummy!!
Thank you Cara! Happy to hear you find them delicious!!☺️
Hi! I’m planning on making these but in a smaller amount than the original one. I then adjust the ingredient and it said that I would need 0.13 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 0.06 teaspoon of ground nutmeg… I’m only planning on making 6 and was wondering would it be fine for me to not use cinnamon and nutmeg in these recipes? or is there something else I could substitute it for?
Thank you!
You can just add two pinches of cinnamon and one pinch of nutmeg. Happy baking!
Can I use a donut maker to make this recipe?
You could try, but as I have never made them this way I can’t comment on how they will turn out!
Hi, thank you for the recipe, as I have been searching for a yummy powdered doughnut recipe and this looks really good, plus the reviews. 🙂 My 13yo son LOVES doughnuts and we try a new recipe each summer (tradition). I had a question, could this recipe be used for a filled doughnut? We want to try making a powdered one with chocolate creme filling this year. Please advise…also any suggestions on what pan to use (we don’t have a donut one, but since we won’t need to make a hole, figure a baking tray will work fine?) We hope to make these before Christmas (it is summer here in SA ;),
Hi Beth, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, these are cake donuts so they can’t be filled. As for the pan, I do not recommend using a baking tray as your donuts will turn into a thin cake. If you want to get a good donut pan, I recommend this one that I use and love https://amzn.to/3oIZkz0 (affiliate link)
These donuts look delicious!
Thanks so much Luciana!🙂
Excellent donuts! We did some in powdered sugar, some in cinnamon date sugar and some dipped into chocolate glaze. Happy kids.
Thanks for your feedback! My kids love them too ☺️
So this recipe makes 12 donuts but the servings say 24? One serving is 1/2 donut? Who eats 1/2 donut? That means they are about 200 calories each, not 100.
The recipe makes 24 mini donuts and one serving is one donut (92 kcal)
I’m really excited to prepare these donuts! It looks delicious. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
You’re welcome Camila! Let us know how they turn out!!🙂
Hello, can I use namaste 1 to 1 gluten free all pourpose flour? Thanks1
Hello,
I have never tried this substitution myself so I couldn’t tell you, if you do try, please let us know! Happy baking ☺️
I made these today! They were freaking delicious! I did the buttermilk substitution since i’m lactose intolerant. I used whole lactaid milk and a tablespoon of lemon juice. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract to it as well. My roommate was super impressed! I used a silicone donut pan and although the donuts were super easy to take out, I worry that they were a little too moist. The sugar kept dissolving/melting into the donuts. They were completely cooled down, so I’m sure it was the moisture. But I didn’t have a rack to let them dry out on, so that could be why. They cooled in the silicon pan. I’m making them again over the weekend to see if I can get them to dry out better. I also bought the suggested metal donut pan you mentioned to see if that will help as well! Thanks so much for this recipe!
I’m so happy you enjoyed them! Let us know how they turn out when you try them again. Cooling them on cooling racks matters a lot for the moisture levels. Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback!
Any tips on how to keep the powdered sugar from being absorbed into the donut?
You can roll them through the powdered sugar twice!
How did you come up with just 92 calories. The calorie count comes up much much higher when I put it into My Fitness Pal.
I would love if these were 92 calories each. I am watching my calories but these are so much higher in the calories count.
These sound delicious.
We didn’t come up with it, we use a licensed nutritional calculator where we add all the ingredients and the amount of servings the recipe makes and it calculates the nutritional facts automatically. My Fitness Pall usually gives you the calories/100g not per serving which is what we offer, so you might want to check that. Hope this helps ☺️
very clear and good article easy to understand. Thank you
We’re so happy you enjoyed it! Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback!
What are the key ingredients used to make Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Baked Donuts?
The key ingredients for these Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Baked Donuts are: all purpose flour, white sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, buttermilk, eggs and vegetable oil.
What makes Old Fashioned Powdered Sugar Baked Donuts different from other donut recipes?
Old-Fashioned Doughnuts are basically cake doughnuts as opposed to regular donuts which are yeast based.
nice informaation
Thank you!
My three kids love making this with me! I make 1 c of buttermilk by letting milk sit with vinegar for five minutes (1 T vinegar + enough milk to make 1 c). For now, I dump the extra down the drain until I do math and figure out how to only make 3/4 c. I don’t have a donut pan, and bake these in my mini muffin pan. Makes 32, if I fill too much, as I always seem to do. We coat with powdered sugar by tossing donuts and the sugar in a large saucepan, holding the lid on and going crazy!
That sounds like fun! We’re happy you and your family are enjoying our recipe. As for the buttermilk you can try mixing 2 teaspoons (or a little less than 1 tablespoon) and enough milk to make 3/4 cup. Thank you for sharing your feedback!
Nice information in this post!
Thanks!
Noone cares that you like the way the donuts look! Yes, they are gorgeous, but more importantly, how do they taste? Has anyone made them yet, and how did they turn out?
Hello Carl. Thank you for taking the time to write your comment. We’re trying to keep this comment section respectful and kind towards the other commenters and we’d appreciate your help with that. We’re sure you can find more than a few of the 15 ratings that give you information about how the recipe turns out. Hope you have a great day!
Can you describe the process of making old-fashioned powdered sugar baked donuts from start to finish?
Telkom University
What ingredients are typically used to make old-fashioned powdered sugar baked donuts?
Telkom University
Can you make these in a cake pop cooker?
I suppose you could but we’ve never tried it ourselves so we couldn’t tell you exactly how to adjust the baking time.
They are so gorgeous! I subbed the buttermilk for lite milk and lemon juice and they still came out great! Basically nowhere in my country sells powdered donuts, I’ve seen them on TV since I was a kid and always wanted to try one! Thank you!🥰
We’re so glad that you got to give them a try. They look wonderful!
How much buttermilk
Hi Cecila – the recipe calls for 3/4 cup of buttermilk. Happy baking!