Cranberry Orange Donuts

This post may contain affiliate sales links. Please read my disclosure policy.

You guys are the best! Over the weekend, Lauren’s Latest reached over 2000 Facebook followers! Yippity skippity! I love blogging and creating recipes for you guys! Thank you for coming along in this journey!

ANYWAYS….

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been doing Thanksgiving recipes. We covered turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, twice baked sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. As promised, here are some fun and festive desserts! No pie or cookies today! I decided to do doughnuts. Why? Because who doesn’t love a good doughnut? and I got a new pan! The Wilton doughnut pan is all the rage you know, so I jumped on the band wagon. Feel free to turn these doughnuts into cupcakes, mini cupcakes, a 9×9 square cake…whatever. It works however you want to make it.

I used my basic cupcake recipe and added in some orange and fresh cranberries and then added a glaze because truth be told, doughnuts are nothing without their glaze! Kids and adults alike will go crazy over these. Uber tasty, light, sweet, refreshing and delicious. AND, super easy!

First you will need the following:

I like to zest my orange first onto a plate. Also, microplanes may quite possibly be my favorite kitchen tool. They are the bomb. Amen.

Chop up some cranberries! I went a little nuts and chopped mine pretty tiny, but you can chop them how you like.

 Take some butter {that you softened and forgot about in the microwave that’s half melted…}

 and cream it with some sugar. You will notice I’m not using any sort of mixer. I was feeling lazy and not wanting to clean any extra dish I didn’t have to. So, I did this all by hand. Yes, it can be done that way still!

Next, add in the vanilla, eggs and orange zest.

This is what it should look like. You also may pass out from the smell at this point. Orange zest + vanilla = heaven. Just sayin’.

Mix all the dry ingredients together into a bowl and alternate stirring them in with the milk.

Stir in those cranberries too!

And voila! Doughnut batter! Feel free to swipe a few spoonfuls into your mouth. Amazing goodness right here.

Grease your doughnut pans and fill ’em up!

Bake the doughnuts for about 13 minutes and cool. And, make the glaze too. {Lets pretend I took photos of the glaze ingredients…} Basically, you just mix powdered sugar, orange zest and cream together until it looks like this. Ta-da! Glaze.

Once your doughnuts are nice and cool, dunk them into the pool of orangy goodness and pull them out to dry.

About 2 hours later, that glaze should be all set up and you will have some purdy lookin’ doughnuts! Don’t these look tasty?

So, doughnuts made it to our Thanksgiving feast. What desserts are you making? I have a more traditional dessert recipe coming up on Wednesday, so don’t fret about this very out of the ordinary one! Happy Monday!

More Donut Recipes to Try!

• Carrot Cake Donuts
• Red Velvet Donuts
• Donut Holes
• Homemade French Cruller Donut
• The Puddin Donut {Gourdough’s Copycat}
• S’mores Donut
• 3-Ingredient Nutella Donuts
• Pancake Mix Donuts
• Old Fashioned Pumpkin Donuts

PrintPrint Pin ItPin It

Cranberry Orange Cake Doughnuts

Cranberries and orange zest turn a basic cupcake recipe into these fun and festive Cranberry Orange Donuts.

servings 12 doughnuts

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 12 minutes mins

Total Time 27 minutes mins

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Ingredients

• ▢ ½ cups Softened Butter
• ▢ 1 cup Granulated Sugar
• ▢ 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• ▢ 2 whole Eggs
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon Orange Zest
• ▢ 1 2/3 cup All-purpose Flour
• ▢ 1 1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoons Salt
• ▢ 1/2 cup Milk
• ▢ 1/2 cup Chopped Fresh Cranberries

FOR THE GLAZE:

• ▢ 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• ▢ 1/2 Tablespoon Orange Zest
• ▢ 3 Tablespoons Heavy Cream

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease 2 nonstick doughnut pans with cooking spray and set aside.
• In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar together until creamed. Stir in vanilla, eggs and orange zest. Alternate adding in the dry ingredients with the milk, starting with the dry and ending with the wet. Do not over mix. Stir in chopped cranberries.
• Spoon into prepared pans evenly, about 2 spoonfuls of batter into each cavity. Reduce oven temperature to 325ºF and bake 12-14 minutes or until bottoms are barely starting to turn golden. Remove from oven and cool completely. For the glaze, add all ingredients into a small bowl and stir until smooth and runny. (You may need to add more cream to get the desired consistency.)
• Place a doughnut down into the glaze halfway and remove. Place on a rack and continue to dip until all doughnuts have been glazed. After 2 hours, glaze should be set.

Nutrition

Calories: 268kcal | Carbohydrates: 41g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 54mg | Sodium: 133mg | Potassium: 88mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 27g | Vitamin A: 348IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 41mg | Iron: 1mg

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: orange donuts