Gluten-free Cinnamon Sugar Baked Donuts
Craving donuts since you’ve gone gluten-free? I was too, so I created this recipe for gluten-free cinnamon sugar donuts. This gluten-free donut recipe is so easy and delicious!
Doughnuts are among the top three things I’ve missed the most since having to give up gluten. Really, I only would buy doughnuts at most 3 times a year during my adult life, but still, the idea that I can no longer grab a doughnut with my kids is such a bummer.
I’ve decided that I just need start making my own homemade gluten-free doughnuts! These gluten-free cinnamon sugar doughnuts are the result of trying and tinkering with several recipes until I got them just right. They taste like the doughnut holes I remember, but honestly, I think these are even better!
I made these mini gluten-free doughnuts in my Norpro Nonstick Mini Donut Pan
. 
You know what I learned? I needed to order a 2nd one! Doing one batch of 12 doughnuts at a time took a little too long for my tastes.
Luckily the pans are affordable, so getting two isn’t a big deal. If you have a full sized doughnut pan, feel free to use that instead. The cooking time would likely be just a couple minutes longer. These would also work well in a Babycakes Nonstick Coated Donut Maker
.
Since this was my first time using my doughnut pan, I wasn’t sure what the best technique was for filling the cavities in the pan. I tried scooping it in, but that covered up the hole in the middle, and also made a mess of the pan.
I consulted with my friend Jeanine, the gluten-free doughnut queen, and she suggested placing the batter in a Ziploc bag, cutting off the corner, and squeezing it into each cavity. That worked perfectly!
I used Gluten Free Mama’s Almond Blend All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour
for the flour in this recipe, with excellent results. Other good all-purpose blends would likely work well in this, such as King Arthur Flour Gluten-free Measure for Measure Flour
or gfJules, but I haven’t tested them in this recipe yet. As always, I recommend avoiding gluten-free flour blends with bean flours.
Last week was teacher appreciation week. I have a teacher friend, Angie, at my son’s school that has celiac, so I like to sign up to provide treats that she can eat. I made these doughnuts to send for her and the other gluten-free folks to enjoy at the teacher appreciation breakfast.
I even packaged them up in a doughnut box. She loved them and asked for this gluten-free donut recipe, so I knew they were a hit with more than just my family.
I think you’ll enjoy them too! Be sure to try my recipe for gluten-free maple donuts too! They’re equally delicious and a favorite treat of mine. My kids love both of these doughnuts and beg me to make them more often!
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour.
I also have an entire Pinterest board full of gluten-free donut recipes you can check out! I’ve pinned so many more gluten-free donut recipes that I’m wanting to try too!
If you make these and love them, please come back and give this recipe a 5 star rating in the recipe card! Feel free to comment with tips or to share any successful substitutions you made.
Gluten-free Cinnamon Sugar Donut recipe:
Gluten-free Cinnamon Sugar Donuts
This cinnamon sugar gluten-free donut recipe is so easy and delicious! Not only are these super easy to make and delicious, but they were just as great on day 2. So feel free to bake them up the day before you need them.
Ingredients
Doughnuts:
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup vegetable, corn or canola oil
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 11 1/4 oz. (about 2 2/3 cups) all-purpose gluten-free flour
- 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum*
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 3/4 tsp. to 1 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. baking soda
- 1 cup milk
Topping:
- 5 Tablespoons salted butter, melted
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons cinnamon
- 1/2 cup sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°. Spray mini doughnut pan with non-stick cooking oil spray.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer, cream together the butter, oil, and sugars until smooth.
- Add the eggs and vanilla, beating until smooth.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, xanthan gum, cinnamon, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda.
- Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix on low just until everything is thoroughly combined.
- Scoop the batter into a gallon-size Ziploc bag and seal tightly. Use scissors to snip off a bottom corner. Squeeze the batter out of the opening into the cavities of the doughnut pan, filling until almost flush with the top of the cavities.
- Bake at 425° for 7 minutes or until they are a pale, golden brown, and a toothpick inserted in a doughnut comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 2-3 minutes. Turn the pan over to turn doughnuts out onto a cooling rack.
- Repeat with remaining batter, spraying pan again with cooking spray between batches. Makes 4 dozen.
- While doughnuts are cooling, make the topping.
Topping:
- Melt the butter in a small bowl.
- In another small bowl, whisk together the cinnamon and sugar.
- Take each cooled doughnut, dunk the top half in the butter, then in the cinnamon-sugar mixture to coat. Place on rack or tray to set. Enjoy!
- These can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 days.
Notes
*If the gluten-free flour blend you use already has xanthan gum or guar gum in it, then omit the xanthan gum called for in this recipe.
*Tip: After you dip a dozen or so of the doughnuts into the cinnamon sugar mixture, the mixture starts to get clumpy. If you care about that, I recommend only putting a small amount of your cinnamon sugar mixture in your dipping bowl, keeping the rest reserved. Once your mixture gets clumpy, dump it out and refill from the reserved mixture. Hope that makes sense! Let me know if you have questions!
*A little note about the nutmeg in this recipe. I put a range that you can choose. The first time I made these, I used a full teaspoon, and it was perfect. However I was using an older nutmeg container. Shortly after, I bought a new container of nutmeg and used that the second time I made these. I felt the nutmeg was a little overpowering in that batch. So feel free to adapt based on how much you like nutmeg and how new your spices are.
I hope you and your family enjoy these gluten-free doughnuts too!
Please come back and rate and review these gluten-free donuts after you try them!
These are so good! Thank you of much for this amazing recipe! I make them all the time! I love that they are small and so simple!
Just made these donuts using my little baby cakes maker… They were delicious.
My college-age daughter is on a FODMAP diet for IBS and has to substitute ingredients often. In the morning we are going to try your recipe in a Baby Cakes doughnut maker. I know we will be making them gluten-free and lactose/dairy free. I’ll let you know what we end up substituting and how they turn out. After reading the comments of others, we are very hopeful…a mother/daughter coffee and doughnuts break would be a nice treat!
These donuts are really yummy. I used a silicon full size donut pan, so I made 9 instead of 12. The mixture was kind of difficult to work with- didn’t want to come off my spoon when I was trying to get it into a piping bag (which turned out to be useless).
They were very cakey and dense, but very yummy. I also didn’t feel like doing a cinnamon & sugar topping, so used Ghirardelli dark melting chocolate instead (pour into bowl, microwave according to directions, stir, dip donuts into chocolate and let cool). Served with a dollop of whip cream and voila! Delicious!
One question I had- we’re trying to do less sugar in the house- what would you recommend as a sugar substitute?
Thanks for a great recipe.
Is there any other way to make these doughnuts if you do not own a doughnut pan? They look very good ????
These were amazing! I did it by hand instead of a mixer and it turned out fine. I also think these would be good pan fried after baking to give it a crunch. That is my goal next time! Thanks so much for sharing your recipe.
These are amazing! I bought a doughnut pan and was having mixed success with a couple different recipes. This was the first GF one I tried, and I love it so much more than any of the other recipes I’ve found. Thank you for the recipe!
Made these this morning using regular size donut tins…AMAZING! Since going gluten free, I so miss the convenience of getting my donut fix on by going to Dunkin Donuts right down the road. To get a gluten free donut now consists of driving 50 minutes into the city. These donuts are even more delicious than the GF bakery AND equal to (if not better) than a gluten-filled cinnamon sugar donut! Thanks for the recipe!
I know this recipe was published a while ago, but can I make them in a muffin tin? Big doughnut holes! 🙂
These are delicious! I made a half batch, for 6 full-size doughnuts (I knew if I made more, I’d eat them all lol). I did as a previous comment suggested…425 for 10 minutes. They were perfect. I have been buying really good, large sized cinnamon sugar donut holes at a local GF bakery…but these are every bit as good. So happy to be able to easily make my own! Thanks so much for sharing!
We devoured these for breakfast for dinner! I didn’t even get a chance to put the topping on and the kids all loved them. I’m going to need to buy a second donut pan:)
I tried another GF donut recipe before this, and was sooo disappointed. So happy to have found this recipe. Just tried it today and these donuts turned out amazing!!!!! Really great recipe!
Thank you for sharing it!
Thank you for posting this recipe. My daughter is gluten free and dairy free. She really loved to bake but after needing to avoid gluten and dairy has become frustrated with baking. We made your recipe but used 1 2/3 cups Arrowhead gluten free baking mix and 1 cup of almond meal which we sifted together along with the rest of the dry ingredients. We live in HongKong) and finding Mama’s almond flour blend was impossible. We also used Earth Balance vegan butter and coconut milk as replacements. The donuts were awesome! I’m very thankful that you take the trouble to post tested recipes that actually work. Many other websites recipes have been disappointing in the past. We are fans!!!
These are yummy! Thank you for sharing! I used a one-for-one gluten-free flour mix and coconut milk, and found that I needed to add a little more flour (just about 3-4 Tbls). For anyone else trying to make these diary-free as well, I also used a DF butter and they turned out great!
My toddler son is allergic to both wheat and diary, and therefore has never had a donut before. I can’t wait for him to wake up from his nap and try one!
Do you think this recipe would work for one giant donut/bunt cake, just cooked longer?
Okay the second set with the leftover batter came out better, filled the cavities less. delicious! So clearly I need to (1) fill cavities 1/2 – 2/3 only, and (2) bake til golden brown and monitor for burning to ensure I can get them out of the pan whole. I used Hodkins gluten free mix so that will probably account for my different experience. Thanks so much for the recipe! I’ve been craving doughnuts
Mine overflowed!! Ran and put a pan below them. Next time I’m filling less, but the recipe said to fill til almost flush. ????. Will post again once they’re out….and I’ve cleaned up.
I’m making these right now, and the batter is super thick like play-doh… did I do something wrong? Popping in the oven now, fingers crossed!
These are fabulous!! Thank you! I made them as regular sized donuts and they cooked perfectly in 9 mins and the recipe yielded a baker’s dozen. I bet you could add cocoa powder and tweak somehow to make different cake donut varieties too.
Did you change the temperature???
I have been craving donuts since I was diagnosed Celiac and stumbled across your recipe on my Facebook feed….They came out awesome and taste like the “real” thing! Thank you so much for making this gal’s tummy very happy!