Baked Vegan Cinnamon Sugar Donuts (Gluten Free and Sugar Free options)

Bursting with the warmth of cinnamon inside and out – and kept extra fluffy thanks to a secret ingredient! – these vegan cinnamon sugar donuts are sure to be your new favorite baked treat!  

A lot of baked goods make their way in and out of my oven, but nothing ever smells as heavenly as anything and everything that is made with CINNAMON.  And what’s the only thing better than baking something that has cinnamon inside of the batter??  Well, that would be covering the final product in MORE cinnamon!  And sugar, of course.

These vegan cinnamon sugar donuts check all the boxes.  They are baked, vegan, and easily made gluten free, so you feel good about what you’re putting into your body as you eat the whole dozen still warm from the pan (true story – I ate two entire donuts just while shooting the photos for this entry.  Not even after I was done as a reward!  Literally during.).  They can be eaten for breakfast, or an afternoon snack, or even for dessert.  Heck they’re so delicious, you should start AND end your day with one.  Oh and as if they weren’t already amazing enough, they will go from just stuff in your pantry to fully baked, ready to eat donuts in about 30 minutes!  Does it get any better?!

How To Make Them:

If this is your first time making baked donuts, let me start by saying – they are SO. EASY.  Maybe the easiest of all the baked goods.  The only thing to make sure of is that you have a donut pan.  I am obsessed with mine and now basically any time I eat anything I think about how to donut-ify it. 

These donuts fall into my favorite category of baking, which is – basically throw all the ingredients in a bowl, mix, put in pan, bake.  Nothing fancy, nothing difficult.  To be more specific, you start by mixing your (optionally gluten free) flour, granulated sugar (see the Ingredients Needed section to learn how to make these sugar free!) , baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Then add in non-dairy milk, neutral oil, soda water*, and vanilla extract. 

*Remember I mentioned a secret ingredient?  I use sparkling water or soda water in my donut recipes, and it keeps them extra light and fluffy!  It just gives them a little bit of extra air while also keeping them moist.  If you don’t have any on hand you can use regular filtered water, it’ll just be slightly less than perfect results, that’s all!  I usually keep a few cans of carbonated water laying around just for donut emergencies.

Bake time!

Anyway.  Once your batter is mixed, you want to get it evenly into the holes in the well-greased donut pan.  I like to pour it into a giant measuring cup and pour it out that way, the spout helps immensely.  Some people spoon it or pipe it but I find that to be messier or just more work than is needed.  Once you’ve gotten it into the pan evenly, stick it in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove and put the pan onto a cooling rack.  Let them stay in the pan for a few minutes before popping them out, which I do by placing a cooling rack over the pan and flipping the whole thing, inverting the donuts onto the cooling rack itself.

Once the donuts have cooled a bit, it’s time to cinnamon sugar them up!  If you have the time, let them cool fully to keep the coating looking as beautiful as it does in these photos, but if you’re on a time crunch or just really NEED one immediately, you can do it while they’re still warm.  Mix cinnamon, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in a small bowl.  Then use a pastry brush to lightly coat each donut with some neutral oil, and then toss it in the bowl until it’s entirely covered with the coating.  And that’s it!  Time for Vegan Cinnamon Sugar Donuts!!

Nutritional info can be found below in the Notes section below the recipe instructions.

Storage:

After the donuts have fully cooled, seal in an air-tight container and keep at room temperature.  They will stay good around 3 days. 

Pro Tips & Tools:

• Make sure you are measuring your flour either by weight or using the spoon and level method.  Do not scoop directly from the container, as you will wind up with too much! This is so important! If you want to buy a pre-made gluten free flour blend, make sure it’s King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour, it is BY FAR the best one for my recipes, NOT Bob’s Red Mills or any others. If you want to make a homemade blend, here is a link to the one I use.
• Make sure you measure your liquid ingredients using liquid measuring cups.  This will ensure accuracy!  I love this set, and the large one will also serve as a tool to help pour the batter into the donut tin holes.
• Speaking of the donut pan – get yourself this set!
• I use this pastry brush to lightly coat each cooked donut in oil before rolling in the cinnamon sugar coating.

Ingredients Needed:

• Flour – Make sure you are measuring your flour either by weight or using the spoon and level method.  Do not scoop directly from the container, as you will wind up with too much! This is so important! If you want to buy a pre-made gluten free flour blend, make sure it’s King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour, it is BY FAR the best one for my recipes, NOT Bob’s Red Mills or any others. If you want to make a homemade blend, here is a link to the one I use.
• Granulated sugar – If you want to make these sugar free, I love using this Monkfruit Sweetener in place of granulated sugar.
• Baking powder – I recommend using baking powder that has no added aluminum. This one is my go-to.
• Cinnamon
• Salt
• Non-dairy milk – any will do, I usually use soy or almond
• Neutral oil – I always use grapeseed
• Soda water – I go into more detail on this earlier, but some sort of carbonated water helps keep these fluffy.  If you don’t have any, you can use regular filtered water.
• Vanilla extract
• Brown sugar – at the end I like to cover the donuts in a mixture of granulated and white sugar, but you can leave this out if you want to stick to just granulated sugar or Monkfruit to stay entirely sugar free.

What To Bake Next:

• Want more use out of your donut pan? Try these Vegan Chocolate Chocolate Donuts, or these Vegan Copycat Entenmann’s Donuts, or these Vegan Coconut Donuts
• Want more cinnamon sugar goodness? Try this Vegan Coffee Cake, or these Carrot Cake Cupcakes.
• Want more fun breakfast baked goods? Try this Vegan Mimosa Cake, or these Fluffy Vegan Banana Pancakes, or these Vegan Lemon Blueberry Scones.