These 2-Ingredient Baked Cake Donuts are too good to be true! Just two ingredients for the donuts, a container of frosting for the glaze and in less than 30 minutes you’ll have great cake donuts ready to enjoy!
Do or Donut, There is No Try
Today’s the day, my friends! It’s National Donut Day!!! Yes, a day to celebrate our love for donuts & devour as many as we want without being judged. Wait, who would ever judge someone for eating donuts?! 😉 It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with donuts. I mean I wear donut shoes, donut shirts, a donut necklace and all the donut shops in town know me by name. Absolutely no shame in my donut loving game!
In honor of my love for donuts, I’m not just sharing one yummy donut recipe today, but two! Woo-hoo!
Watch Me Make Baked Cake Donuts
Join me in the kitchen as I make a batch of these amazing 2-Ingredient Baked Cake Donuts!
Two Ingredients, One Delicious Donut
First up are these incredibly easy and delicious 2-Ingredient Baked Cake Donuts with a 1-Ingredient Glaze. They’re too good to be true! This recipe is for my semi-homemade, fear of frying, need something quick & easy but still want them to taste amazing, donut lovers out there. You’re gonna love these donuts!
Okay, back to these 2-Ingredient baked cake donuts! “How can that be??” you might be asking. What about the flour! The yeast! The powdered sugar! The salt! Surely there are egg! Well, they’re actually made with a cake mix and one other ingredient mixed in. I don’t use cake mixes often because I love baking from scratch, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using a cake mix every once in a while to make life easier & to mix things up.
So when I got this idea in my head to bake donuts with a cake mix and just one other ingredient mixed in, I ran with it and I love how they turned out! The options are plentiful when it comes to picking a flavor for these cake donuts. Just take your favorite cake mix and stir in either 2 cups mashed banana, 2 cups cinnamon applesauce or a 15 ounce can of pure pumpkin to the dough.
And you’ll never believe it, but the glaze is just store-bought frosting that’s been microwaved for about 10 seconds. It works so perfectly as a donut glaze. I was literally doing the happy dance when this little idea of mine worked so well.
The donuts are soft and cakey and the sweet glaze coats and compliments them perfectly. Oh my yum!
How to Make 2-Ingredient Donuts
To make cake mix donuts, take 1 cake mix, 1 mix-in and 1 container of frosting. Sprinkles are technically optional, but come on! Sprinkles are given when it comes to donuts, am I right?! 😉
Here we go…
You like chocolate cake donuts? For chocolate cake donuts: Use a chocolate cake mix and stir in any of the 3 mix-ins and use any frosting glaze you so desire!
For vanilla cake donuts: Use vanilla cake mix and any of the 3 mix-ins would work great and the same goes for the frosting glaze!
For Strawberry cake donuts: Use mashed bananas or applesauce for the mix-in and a strawberry frosting glaze! You like spice cake mix, go with applesauce or pumpkin and a cream cheese or plain vanilla frosting glaze!
So many yummy options! The process for making these donuts is so quick and easy it’s ridiculous. You’ll be baking these bad boys (I mean that in a good way) every chance you get.
Donuts Three Ways
I made them three different ways to show you how: Strawberry banana with a strawberry frosting glaze and sprinkles, of course! Oh la la!!
Apple Spice with a vanilla frosting glaze…sweet & simply delicious! Might be my fave!
Chocolate pumpkin with a chocolate frosting glaze and chocolate sprinkles! Party!
So what are you waiting for? Grab a cake mix, a mix-in, and a container of frosting and you’re less than 30 minutes away from baked cake donut deliciousness!
Even More Donut Deliciousness
Stay tuned for some scratch-made, home-fried Blueberry Donuts that are still super easy and can be ready to enjoy in just 30 minutes. Once again, too good to be true!
Oh, and don’t forget about the Easy Old-Fashioned Donuts, Whole Wheat Baked Banana Donuts with a Peanut Butter Glaze, and Baked Banana Donuts with a Maple Glaze recipes that I’ve posted in the past. They might be oldies on the blog, but they’re still goody good good!
I’m so excited about these donuts! They’re so easy to make, they taste great, the flavor options are endless and everyone will go crazy over them. If you make these 2-Ingredient Donuts, be sure to snap a picture and share it with me or tag me on Instagram @thebakermama so I can see. 
I love seeing how inspired and creative y’all get with the recipes I share. Enjoy!
xoxo,
2-Ingredient Baked Cake Donuts
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 7 mins
- Total Time: 22 mins
- Yield: 12
- Category: Breakfast
Description
These 2-Ingredient Baked Cake Donuts are too good to be true! Just two ingredients for the donuts and a container of frosting for the glaze and in less than 30 minutes you’ll have great cake donuts ready to enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 cake mix, any flavor (just the dry mix)
- 1 mix-in (2 cups mashed banana OR 2 cups cinnamon applesauce OR 1 (15 ounce) can pure pumpkin)
- 1 container frosting, any flavor
- Sprinkles, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray one (or two) 6 cavity donut pans with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together the cake mix (just the dry mix, no other ingredients listed on the box) with one of the mix-in options until well combined. Transfer the batter to a gallon-size resealable baggie and seal shut. Cut a small piece off one corner off the bottom of the baggie and fill each donut ring almost completely full with batter. You can also use a piping bag, if you have one. (Should make 12 donuts)
- Bake for 7-8 minutes or until donuts are set and spring back up when touched. Let donuts cool in pan for at least 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack set over a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to collect glaze drippings. Repeat process with remaining batter if you don’t have two donut pans.
- Heat frosting in a microwave safe bowl for 10-15 seconds until of drizzling consistency. Dip one donut at a time into the frosting glaze and place upright back on the wire rack. If sprinkling with sprinkles, do so immediately after glazing each donut. Repeat with remaining donuts. Allow glaze to set for 5-10 minutes. Enjoy!
Notes
If using a mini donut pan, bake for about 5 minutes before testing doneness.
So easy. I used applesauce and pineapple cake with 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Vanilla frosting.
Really good!
I substituted apple butter for the apple sauce in the spice cake. Failed. Stayed gooey inside even after double the time. Used it in our oatmeal this morning so it wasn’t a total waste. I was inspired by the baker that substituted canned cherries. Oh well. Now I know.
Hi ML! Yeah, I could see where apple butter would be too dense to allow the donuts to bake up. It was certainly worth a try though and I’m happy to hear you were able to use it in your oatmeal. Applesauce is much lighter which is why I suggest using it for the these donuts. Hope you’re able to try them again!
I have a silicone mini bundt mold (4 wells) – do you think these will work in something like that?
Hi Lisa! Absolutely, you will just need to adjust the baking time accordingly. The mini bundts will take longer to bake. Enjoy!
Hi! I tried these today with chocolate and pumpkin, and my kids LOVED them! Do you think they would work with peanut butter and chocolate cake mix? Wondering if peanut butter would be too thick, but maybe I could melt/soften it a bit? Just curious if you had a clue before I make a mess trying it out! Thank you!!
Hi Ashley! Happy to hear your kiddos love the chocolate and pumpkin combo. I do think using just peanut butter is too thick for this recipe. You could combine the peanut butter with banana or you could add an egg and some water with the peanut butter to thin the batter out. Love the idea of a peanut butter and chocolate combo version of these donuts though. You’ll have to let me know if you try them. Fingers crossed. Enjoy!
I tried making these donuts, and they are amazing except my icing wouldn’t firm up. I used store bought icing and heated it for 10 seconds in the microwave so I could glaze the donuts, but the icing wouldn’t firm back up afterwards, I even put the donuts in the fridge. Any tips for how to stop this?
Hi Anna! Oh goodness, I’ve never had that happen. Mine always firm up pretty quickly. I wonder if it’s the brand of icing you used? Or were your donuts still warm?
I made the spice flavor cake mix and used applesauce as my second ingredient. The doughnuts came out too soft and cake like for my taste. They were like mini spice cakes. I baked them for 12 minutes, so longer than the suggested time. The next morning, I was thinking of throwing them away but decided to experiment, so I put them in a 300 degree oven for an additional 12 minutes. When they cooled, I tried one and they were excellent! They now had the consistency of a doughnut shop cake doughnut. I’m going to try my own baking method with a different flavor and second ingredient and see what happens.
I have a donut hole pan, if I scoop the cake mix into the pan with cookie scoop how long would you suggest cooking it for?
Hi Robin! I haven’t tried this recipe with a donut hole pan, but I’m guessing they’d take about 6 minutes to bake. Hope they turned out great for you. Enjoy!
Does anyone know the calories for these delicious donuts? I made chocolate with bananas and spice cake with pumpkin purée.
Hi Jess! Great to hear you love them! I don’t provide nutritional information at this time because everyone uses different brands of ingredients which often have differing nutritional values. I would recommend plugging the ingredients you used into a free online nutrition calculator like: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator Hope this helps. Enjoy!
Has anyone used a silicone mold?? Difference in baketime?
So don’t hate me but I wanted to try these so badly even though I don’t own a donut pan…I made them into muffins/cupcakes! Heaven! They are amazing this way! Fluffy, moist and a crowd pleaser! I just powdered them with powdered sugar. They are beautiful and the taste and texture is amazing! I wish I could post a picture!
I was thinking of doing the same, as I don’t have a donut pan…I am just trying to understand if you use the regular size muffin pan how long to bake them for or if you use the mini muffin pan how long to bake them for…wondered if it is still the 8 minutes or considerably longer/shorter?
Hi Jennifer! They should take about 15 minutes to bake in a standard muffin pan and about 10 minutes in a mini muffin pan. Hope this helps. Enjoy!
I made chocolate cake mix with 1 cup bananas and 1 cup chocolate yogurt. Used silicon donut molds. Baked for 18 minutes, cooled for 10 minutes, removed from molds, and cooled another 10. Perfect! Got 15 donuts, probably could have got more, they came out big.
The 1st time I made these, I used red velvet cake mix with bananas and cream cheese icing…the ladies at church couldn’t believe how “healthy” these were! They gobbled them up! Today (Christmas 2018) I tried a yellow (gluten free) cake mix and added cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg for a spice cake with applesauce – it’s so hard waiting for the cooling off! So easy and yummy!