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.
I made the strawberry with applesauce. They were incredible. Do you think you could make them with fresh blueberries, yellow cake mix and applesauce. Have you ever tried blueberry?
Hi, Debbie! I haven’t tried it with blueberries, but I’m sure it would be yummy!
I wanted to try this recipe with the Annie’s organic confetti cake mix but I noticed it’s 21oz vs the 16oz of most cake mixes. Should I weigh it and reduce the amount of cake mix?
Hi Heather! You could do that or you could just increase the amount of the mix-in to 2 and 1/2 cups. Hope this helps. Enjoy!
Can a Swerve Cake Mix be used to make these donuts?
Hi Karen! I haven’t tested the recipe with a Swerve Cake Mix, but I think it should work great. I know several people have had great success with this recipe using a gluten free cake mix. Enjoy!
I made this recipe this morning with a dark chocolate cake mix and 2 cups nonfat Greek yogurt. Absolutely delicious. I baked them 8 minutes and they were perfect. So light and fluffy. I made my own vanilla glaze to drizzle over the top. I will definitely make these again.
Can you make these cake donuts with sour cream instead of applesauce?
Hi Laurie! I haven’t tested it so I couldn’t say for sure, but I think it would work great. Let us know how they turn out if you try it. Enjoy!
It took a couple of tries but I finally got it right! We baked these in a portable convection oven . I love that oven! Anyway, I started with a little lower temperature and then raised it to 425 for the last few minutes. At first, I didn’t fill the donut “pan holes” full enough and then I forgot to spray the pan for the 2nd batch. My honey helped me calm down and we finally got it right! Yummy and easy are understatements!
Our favorite so far is strawberry cake mix and two cups of applesauce.
Cooling until entirely cool, not lukewarm, seems to be the secret. We don’t even glaze these, just put chopped up fresh strawberries over top of the donut and eat it with a fork.
Thanks so very much for this recipe!! We are definitely hooked. We can’t wait to try other flavors. Such fun for two older retirees. We love shortcuts and non fried donuts. We highly recommend these. Did I say thank you!! Well we thank you again for simplifying our lives even more.
I needed a quick treat for a work crew today so I made Pumpkin spice donuts rolled in cinnamon, sugar and a dash of pumpkin pie spice. They are moist and delicious,,,,,…….better than purchased baked goods. I used a silicone donut pan that seemed to take longer to bake so at 425 degrees I left them in the oven for about 12 minutes. I used a Duncan Hines Moist Spice cake mix and a regular 15 oz can of pumpkin. Excellent recipe!!
Hi. I’m making this tonight. I only have unsweetened applesauce. Does this change the texture or flavor? I also have sugar free apple pie filling? Would that work?
Hi Monica! Yummy! Unsweetened applesauce should work great as the cake mix usually has sweetener in it already. I haven’t tested the recipe with apple pie filling so I couldn’t say for sure how they would turn out. Hope this helps! Enjoy!
I’ve made the donuts using pumpkin and they were great, but I just tried to make using apple sauce, and they were too cake like. Too much applesauce. I could tell even before baking. If I try again I will cut the amount of applesauce.
I made these with my Culinary students. I had a variety of cake mixes and add-ins. Spice cake worked the best because it is usually a thicker consistency. Also, my students have a tendency to be impatient. It seemed that for us, the donuts needed to bake at least 9-10 min. The red Velvet and fun-fetti cake donuts were the hardest to get to the right consistency. Once again, I think it was a patience thing. They really need to sit in the pan/silicone molds for that 5 min.
This was a fun activity.