These Baked Lemon Donuts With Lemon Glaze Are Yummy

If you follow my blog at all, you know I love to bake. It’s therapeutic and calms me. I also happen to love sweets and so do my kids. Although I’ve baked a lot of recipes on the blog over the years, I can’t believe I’ve never made baked donuts. Ironically, one of my all-time top-performing stories is about a bunch of baked donut recipes. Since I had some left-over lemons, I decided I should finally try making baked lemon donuts.

I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to make these. Seriously, this is the easiest recipe ever! For some reason, I assumed it would be challenging to make baked donuts, but really, it is one of the easiest recipes I’ve ever made.

Not only is this recipe super easy, but my kids also loved them! I made these baked lemon donuts extra lemony by adding a lot of extra zest and also fresh lemon juice.

Baked Lemon Donuts Recipe

Ingredients:

1 large egg
3/4 cup granulated sugar
6 ounces Greek yogurt (I used a low fat vanilla greek yogurt)
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
a few drops of yellow food coloring, (optional)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2  teaspoon baking powder
1/2  teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

For Glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice, or as necessary for consistency
zest of one lemon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray one 6-count non-stick donut pan with cooking spray and set aside. If you don’t have donut pans, you could use mini muffin or regular muffin tins, but baking times will vary.

To a large bowl, add the egg, sugar, Greek yogurt, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, optional food coloring, and whisk to combine.

Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and fold with spatula or stir gently with a spoon until just combined; don’t overmix.

Place batter in prepared pans, filling each cavity about 3/4 full. I dollop the batter into the donut pan with a spoon and then spread around each donut shape with the spoon.

Bake for about 12 to 14 minutes, or until donuts are cooked through, set, and springy to the touch. Allow donuts to coll in the pan while you make the glaze.

To Make The Glaze: To a small bowl, add the confectioner’s sugar (through a sifter to get rid of clumps) and slowly drizzle in the lemon juice while whisking until smooth and combined. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice at a time until all sugar is dissolved, but the glaze is still fairly thick. It needs to be drizzle-consistency, but not too thin that it won’t stick.

Turn the donuts out of the pan onto a wire rack. Dip the top of each of the donuts in the glaze and place on a wire rack. For an extra lemony flavor, zest fresh lemon zest on top of each donut. Before serving, allow each donut to rest on the wire rack until the glaze hardens. The baked lemon donuts will keep well in an airtight container for 3-5 days.