You can whip up these gluten-free vanilla donuts in 30 minutes with one bowl—no mixer required! With a light, tender crumb and delicious vanilla flavor, these donuts are one of our all-time favorite treats.
I especially love making these gluten-free donuts for birthday mornings! They’re delicious anytime! Keep reading for all the tips and tricks you need to make perfect and versatile gluten-free donuts.
Did you know you can bake delicious homemade, gluten-free donuts any day of the week? It’s true!
This GF baked donut recipe is one you’ll turn to again and again. It’s quick, easy, made from simple ingredients, and comes together in one bowl. You don’t need a mixer, and the whole recipe can be made in about 30 minutes.
(PS – you also might like these fried gluten-free donuts, gluten-free pumpkin donuts with brown sugar glaze or these gluten-free apple cider donuts!)
I love making this gluten-free baked donut recipe for my kids’ birthdays, parties, days off of school, and holidays. It’s an ideal gluten-free recipe when you need to accommodate food allergies or kids with Celiac’s disease.
Best of all, you can customize the frosting/icing and toppings any way you’d like. If you want to be a super fun parent, you can even create a “donut bar” and let kids add their own toppings, like a rich chocolate glaze, coconut sugar, etc.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
- Light and tender crumb
- Easy recipe (takes about 30 mins!)
- Can be customized
- Great for birthdays, weekends, or holidays
- Easily made dairy-free!
For more breakfast favorites, you also might like these recipes for gluten-free pancakes, gluten-free waffles and gluten-free scones.
You also might like these recipes for gluten-free banana bread, gluten-free muffins, and gluten-free pound cake.
Want coffee with your donuts? You also might like these articles on is coffee gluten-free and Starbucks gluten-free.
Ingredients You’ll Need
Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make this gluten free donuts recipe:
- Gluten-free flour: I like to use a high quality gluten-free 1:1 baking flour like King Arthur Flour in my baked goods. It’s important to use a high-quality gluten-free flour blend that contains xanthan gum for best results.
- Milk of choice: Any milk will work in this recipe, including whole milk, skim milk, oat milk, or soy milk. I like to use unsweetened almond milk!
- Sugar: Granulated white sugar is essential to any donut batter! I use and recommend Domino sugar.
- Oil: Any kind of oil will work for this recipe. I usually use vegetable oil or coconut oil.
- Apple cider vinegar: Apple cider vinegar helps the donuts to rise and lightens the crumb.
- Baking powder: Baking powder helps the batter rise and produce a light crumb.
- Nutmeg: I love the unique spice a bit of nutmeg adds to this recipe. Everyone will be wondering what makes them extra delicious!
- Powdered sugar: Powdered sugar is mixed with milk and vanilla to make a delicious icing.
- Vanilla: Vanilla adds flavor to the donut icing. You could also use almond extract, coconut extract, etc.
How to Make Gluten-Free Baked Donuts
- Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly grease two 6-cavity donut pans with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until well combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and whisk until evenly combined.
- Pour the thick donut batter into a large Ziplock bag or piping bag. Cut a 1-inch hole in the corner of the bag and pipe the donut batter into the prepared doughnut pan.
- Bake the gluten-free doughnuts for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Let the homemade donuts cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before glazing.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract until smooth. You want the glaze to be thick enough that it coats the donut without running off the top/sides too quickly. Adjust the glaze with more powdered sugar to thicken it or more milk to thin as desired.
- Dip the gluten free doughnuts in the vanilla glaze or sugar coating and top with sprinkles (if using.) Enjoy your homemade gluten free donuts!
Baked Donut Variations
Feel free to get creative with the donut frosting/icing and toppings with this gluten-free baked donut recipe. You could make a variety of vanilla donuts, chocolate donuts, strawberry donuts, etc!
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Almond Joy donuts: Chocolate glaze flavored with almond extract, coconut shreds, and sliced almonds.
- Coconut donuts: Icing flavored with coconut extract and coconut shreds.
- Lemon donuts: Icing flavored with lemon juice and lemon zest.
- Orange donuts: Icing flavored with orange juice and orange zest.
- Strawberry donuts: Glaze flavored with strawberry jam.
- Apple cider donuts: Dip the donuts in apple cider when hot, then roll in cinnamon sugar.
- Cinnamon sugar donuts: Roll donuts in cinnamon sugar mixture when hot.
- Chocolate donuts: Chocolate glaze or frosting.
- Maple donuts: Frosting flavored with maple extract.
- Powdered sugar donuts: Roll donuts in powdered sugar when hot.
- Colored donuts: Add your favorite food coloring to the glaze, then add sprinkles.
- Raspberry donuts: Icing flavored with raspberry jam.
Storage Instructions
These donuts taste best the day they are made. (And they will probably disappear quickly, anyway!) But if you’d like to save the leftovers, be sure to store them in an airtight container.
FAQs
No, Krispy Kreme does not offer gluten-free donuts. All of their donuts are made with wheat flour, so they do not work with a gluten-free diet. However, they do have gluten-free milkshakes, ice cream, and coffee.
Most gluten-free donuts are made with gluten-free flour. This GF baked donut recipe also includes sugar, baking powder, apple cider vinegar, almond milk, and oil.
Yes, gluten-free donuts are made using a gluten-free flour blend. They can be made at home and many stores carry frozen gluten-free donuts.
Expert Tips & Tricks
- I highly recommend these Wilton non-stick donut pans—they work amazingly well!
- I find it easiest to use a large Ziplock bag to pipe the batter into the donut pan.
- Preheating the oven to 425 degrees is key. The hot oven helps the donuts to rise and create an extra-light, fluffy crumb.
More Gluten-Free Recipes
I hope you love this recipe as much as we do! If you try these gluten-free baked donuts, be sure to leave me a comment/rating below. I’d love to hear from you!
Gluten-Free Baked Cake Donuts
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups gluten-free 1:1 baking flour 240 grams
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar 133 grams
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Wet Ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- ¾ cup unsweetened almond milk or milk of choice
- ½ cup oil
For the Glaze:
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar 195 grams
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- sprinkles for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly grease two 6-cavity donut pans with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until well combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and whisk until evenly combined.
- Pour the donut batter into a large ziploc bag. Cut a 1-inch hole in the corner of the bag and pipe the donut batter into the prepared pans.
- Bake the donuts for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Let the donuts cool for 15 minutes before glazing.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract until smooth. You want the glaze to be thick enough that it coats the donut without running off the top/sides too quickly. Adjust the glaze with more powdered sugar to thicken it or more milk to thin as desired.
- Dip the donuts in the glaze and top with sprinkles if using. Enjoy!
Notes
- Gluten-free flour: I like to use a high quality gluten-free 1:1 baking flour like King Arthur Flour in my baked goods. It’s important to use a high-quality gluten-free flour blend that contains xanthan gum for best results.
- Milk of choice: Any milk will work in this recipe, including whole milk, skim milk, oat milk, or soy milk. I like to use unsweetened almond milk!
- Oil: Any kind of oil will work for this recipe. I usually use vegetable oil or coconut oil.
- I highly recommend these Wilton non-stick donut pans—they work amazingly well!
- I find it easiest to use a large Ziplock bag to pipe the batter into the donut pan.
- Preheating the oven to 425 degrees is key. The hot oven helps the donuts to rise and create an extra-light, fluffy crumb.
This was an excellent gf recipe! My whole family loved these!
Hi Katie, thanks so much for sharing! We love hearing that!
Hello Erin, I have been making your vanilla cake donuts for awhile now and my daughter who is celiac and the rest of my family who are not all love them. However, I just started using a scale for measuring instead of measurements. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups gf flour, or 240 grams which is not 1 1/2 cups of flour. So I will check somewhere to see how many grams is equal to 1 1/2 cups.
Thanks for all your delicious recipes
Hi Patricia, sorry for the confusion! When it doubt, go off of the cups rather than grams, since it can vary depending on the gluten-free flour.
These.. are absolutely amazing! But .. one request.. where is the Chocolate Donut recipe?!
Thanks Tricia! So glad you enjoyed them! Noted on the chocolate donuts!
Fantastic! Took a chance and had good luck making these in a medium/regular size, 12-ct. muffin pan, as I don’t currently have a donut pan. Instead of 12 “muffin-donuts”, I made 8. I halved the recipe and just poured the batter straight from the bowl into 8 of the muffin molds, filling them each about halfway. The nutmeg made these! The lemon icing with lemon juice and lemon zest was perfect on top. Thank you for this wonderful recipe!
Love the creativity, Chris! We’re so glad the muffin-donuts worked out well for you and you enjoyed the flavor so much! Thank you for taking the time to share your positive experience.
Oh my goodness! These were delicious! I used King Arthur’s GF flour and reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup. I didn’t frost them. I think I’ll reduce apple cider and use that reduction instead of milk for the fall season. This is a terrific recipe! Great flavor, texture, and super versatile.
We’re so pleased you enjoyed the donuts and that those changes worked well for you, Daniela! Thank you for sharing your positive experience with us!
Sorry, I meant to mention that I made your gluten-free donut recipe with my granddaughter. We put a chocolate glaze on them and she absolutely loves them and we’re making them again this week.
Hi Jean, thank you for your kind feedback. We’re so pleased the donuts were a hit! Happy baking!
If I wanted to make chocolate donuts(my grandson only eats chocolate donuts), would you khow much cocoa I should add and what wet ingredients I may need to increase to balance the addition?
Hi Jean, we haven’t tried to turn these into chocolate donuts before. We usually just add a chocolate glaze for a simpler chocolatey treat! To make the batter chocolate, you’d need to adjust the other dry ingredients, especially flour, to account for the dry/absorbent cocoa powder addition. We’d suggest starting small with 1/4 – 1/2 cup of cocoa powder. From there you would need to decide if the liquids still need to be adjusted too. If you decide to give it a try, we’d love to hear how it goes!
Hello! Great site-stumbled across it and am excited to try your recipes as I’m gluten free for health reasons. Wondering if I can substitute the sugar for coconut sugar in this recipe? Thanks!
Hi Sarah, thank you for your question! Unfortunately, we don’t typically bake with sugar substitutes and haven’t tested coconut sugar. If you decide to give it a try, we’d love to hear how it goes!
Made these for my husband and daughter. My husband loved them. I have made other gluten free desserts from other cookbooks and this one actually tastes like a donut. My daughter always wants to eat the frosting and I eat the bread lol
We’re so pleased to hear the donuts were a hit with the whole family! Thank you for sharing your positive baking experience with us, Sylvia!