Name: Vanilla Glazed Donuts (With Simple Icing Sugar)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 7 min
Total time: 47 min
Ingredients: Cooking spray (for greasing pan); 1 cup all-purpose flour (sifted (spoon the flour in your measuring cup and level off with a knife)); 1/2 cup granulated sugar; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/3 cup milk (I used whole or full fat milk); 1 large egg; 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted); 2 teaspoons vanilla extract; 1 cup icing sugar; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or less if you want less vanilla flavour); 5 teaspoons water; pink gel colouring (to desired colour (optional)); Sprinkles (garnish to taste (optional))

Jump to Recipe

These tasty vanilla glazed donuts take only minutes to prepare and less than 10 minutes to bake. Decorate with your favourite sprinkles and you have one fun (pretty) treat!

Pink vanilla glazed donuts with sprinkles on a marble board.

Have you made your own donuts at home? It couldn’t be simpler!

This easy baked donuts have been on rotation in our home for quite some time (sprinkles optional but not really, if you ask me).

My life changed when I purchased a donut pan (okay, tad dramatic, but it was so worth it).

I didn’t realize how easy baked donuts were to make. And because these are baked, they are so much better than their fried counter part.

So, what’s your favourite thing to enjoy with donuts? Coffee? A cold glass of milk? I’d have to say for me it would be coffee and I gotta dunk!

And I ain’t gonna lie. If it’s, like, 9 o’clock on Saturday night I just may enjoy one of these bad boys with a glass of vino.

How To Make This Recipe

Full details are in the recipe card below, but here are the basics:

Preheat your oven and grease your donut pan. Lay to one side.
In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir to combine.
Add milk, egg, melted butter and vanilla extract to flour mixture. Use a hand mixer (or a spatula) to blend everything together.
Spoon the mixture into the pan or place the mixture into a piping bag and pipe it in (do whatever you’re comfortable with). I just spooned in. This is a tutorial on how to make a homemade piping bag (just adjust the tip to be a bit larger for the donut batter).
Bake
Allow donuts to cool completely before icing.

Tip: Tap the pan on a hard surface a couple of times so the batter is even and any air bubbles are released.

Collage of donut batter in a pan before baking and after baking.

Donut Glaze

All you need for a simple donut glaze is:

Icing sugar
Vanilla extra
Water

You basically mix together the ingredients and add some optional food colouring (for fun).

When making any icing sugar glaze, a little liquid goes a long way. It’s best not to add all the water all at once, but rather a teaspoon or so at a time until you’ve reached your desired consistency.

If you happen to add too much liquid and your icing sugar is too runny, no worries! Just add a little more icing sugar to thicken again.

Gel food colouring was used (totally optional) for a pretty pink colour. I opted for gel food colouring over liquid because it’s more potent and didn’t want to further loosen the donut glaze.

I used the tiniest bit of pink gel food colouring. That stuff is potent!!

Dip the tip of a wooden toothpick into the gel pot and swirl it into the glaze until you’ve reached the desired colour that makes you happy.

If you prefer to skip the colouring, that’s okay too!

Tip: If you opt to using regular liquid food colouring, consider adding less water to the glaze.

Two halves of a glazed donut, one half resting on the other, with more donuts behind it.

How Long Do These Vanilla Glazed Donuts Last

Like with most baked goods, these vanilla donuts are best enjoyed when they are made because that’s when they’re at their optimal freshness.

Hand holding a pink glazed donut with sprinkles.

More Baked Donut Recipes

If you make these vanilla glaze donuts, be sure to leave a comment below!

This baked donut recipe was originally published in March 2018 but has been updated.