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!
This is the worst recipe thanks for wasting my time and stressing me out
Wow. I can’t help you with no details from you about what exactly was wrong with the end result and what (if any) ingredient substitutions you made. But it sounds like you don’t really want help anyway. Good day sir.
These were EXCELLENT. I’ve been dabbling in gluten free backing more recently because my girlfriend has a mild allergy. I found this recipe to be fairly easy to follow, and you’ll probably get great results as long as you truly make sure your butter is room temp (google how important this is in baking) and truly do your best to not over-mix the batter.
These doughnuts are tender and moist, and are actually delicious even without the topping. Highly recommend. Thanks for a great recipe!
My doughnut pan I bought says it is only oven safe up to 400 F… what can I do about that?
this is awesome
I know this recipe was posted ages ago, but I just found it and made it. I followed it to a tee, and the batter came out so thick it was almost dough – I could actually roll it out. Squeezing out of a plastic ziploc was tough, so the donuts came out in different shapes and sizes haha, as I had to manipulate them with my fingers. Oh well. They were still amazing!
I went over the recipe a few times to see if I had missed something, and I noticed that the 11 1/2 ounces of flour does not equate with 2 2/3 cups, as there are 8 ounces in a cup, so its more like a 1 cup and almost a half. Is this where the issue was for me? Next time I’ll try it with the 1 1/2 cups flour and see what happens.
Delicious!! I was a little generous with the butter and oil, and I went a bit light on the nutmeg. These were very tender and not overly moist from the additional fats.
Since I don’t have a mini-donut pan, I used my full-size donut pan and my mini-muffin pan. The big ones took ten minutes, and I gave the little ones about eight minutes (but they might’ve been okay with a little shorter time).
My family was eager to eat them right away, so they got started on them without the cinnamon/sugar on the outside. Everybody seemed to like them both ways. I’ll definitely be making these again!!
Can I used refine coconut oil (the unflavoured one) instead of vegetable oil?
Tried this recipe out after missing out on doughnuts for about 4 years, as I’ve never managed to find any GF doughnut places in the UK. I nearly exploded with joy when I bit into them!! Every bit as good as the doughnuts I remember from the fair and smell absolutely heavenly both in and out of the oven. If I could say thank you a million times over I would!
I don’t have a donut pan. Any recommendations on what other pan I can compensate?
Oh my goodness, were these amazingly good!! If anyone’s interested in some of the specific ingredients I tried, I used Bob’s Red Mill GF 1-to-1 Baking Flour for the flour (already contains xantham gum); 1/8 cup coconut oil and 1/8 cup macadamia nut oil for the 1/4 cup oil; and 1/2 cup whole milk with 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk for the 1 cup of milk. They turned out so well! Thank you for sharing this recipe! 🙂
I’ve been gluten free for 3 years, since being diagnosed with a non functioning thyroid. As with other folks, store bought regular donuts have become tabu and GF donuts too expensive so donuts have been a fond memory!
I found your recipe by accident while “surfing” for GF recipes (like your cornbread…OMG we had it with ham n eggs for breakfast yesterday. FINALLY cornbread worth eating!) Your donut recipe is definitely going to be next; all the positive reviews have convinced me …I’m purchasing a donut pan and then have FUN in my kitchen.
Hi can I put Them in the fridge ?
Yep you can put them in the fridge if you aren’t eating them all today if you’d like.
Hi I made them and they are really cakey and nothing like doughnuts
Yes all baked donuts are also referred to cake donuts. They don’t have yeast and aren’t fried.
Hi there – my wife is in her 2nd trimester and I’m having trouble finding things she wants to eat. This morning as we were doing some shopping she passed some donuts and said “if I weren’t pregnant I’d gluten myself for a donut right now”. Naturally I went looking for a good recipe and found this one. I had donuts made for her afternoon tea. She was grinning from ear to ear!
Thank you!
Well bless you for doing that!! How thoughtful! Wishing you both a healthy pregnancy and childbirth too! So glad she enjoyed these!
Delicious! First donut since diagnosis 33 years ago. What a wonderful treat.
So glad you enjoyed these! Thanks for the 5 star review and comment!
Really good but takes some time but it is definitely worth it.
Like most on the gluten free journey, I have missed donuts. I made a batch of these this morning. Absolutely delicious! The cake was so moist and really good texture. No graininess at all. I used sunflower oil as that was all I had and added in some gf protein powder. Absolutely lovely! They are a big hit with my husband and I will be making these on the regular. Thank you for this recipe!
I substituted 2x the gelatin for the xantham gum and they came out amazing! My kids are so happy (and I am too, because I managed to make 24 doughnuts for the same price as buying 6 at the store)!!
I live in Australia so the flour that I used was a Self Raising Gluten Free flour. *I didn’t have any nutmeg either.
They turned out beautiful. So glad I finally got to eat some donuts! I added some icing with sprinkles too.
I will try to them without cinnamon next time, but with jam!
Wow these are good! Sometimes my homemade gf baked items can have what my husband calls a bubblegum quality but these don’t. I used
Bobs Red Mill 1 for 1 gf flour and substituted Smart Balance for the butter and almond milk. The recipe made a dozen full sized donuts baked for 10 minutes at 425.
These are absolutely wonderful! I used half and half because I didn’t have milk, but it didn’t seem to change much. Don’t get disheartened if they seem hard the next day – they stay nice and moist on the inside. People bring donuts in to work all the time and I’ve been so jealous, but no longer! The only problem is sharing – you’re not going to want to!