High Altitude Baked Vanilla Cake Doughnuts

These soft and buttery high altitude baked vanilla cake doughnuts are scented with real vanilla bean and frosted with fluffy brown butter frosting. The doughnuts have a tender but dense crumb, similar to pound cake, and they’re fantastic dunked in hot chocolate or coffee. And if you prefer a traditional icing or glaze for your baked doughnuts instead of the buttercream frosting, then be sure to see the recipe variation section below for other types of icing you can use on today’s cake doughnut recipe.

Looking for more high altitude doughnut recipes? You’ll love these old-fashioned sour cream cake doughnuts, baked chocolate doughnuts, and baked apple cider doughnuts.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Quick and Easy. The doughnut batter is quick to mix up with just a bowl and spoon, and the doughnuts bake in about 10-12 minutes. So you can enjoy warm, fresh doughnuts in no time. And since they’re baked instead of fried, there’s no need to mess around with a pot of boiling hot oil.

Stays Soft for Days. Unlike yeasted doughnuts which go stale quickly, cake doughnuts will stay soft and fresh for several days. And even if they’re a little dry after a few days, they’re still so good dunked into coffee.

Versatile. You could use absolutely any type of icing, frosting or glaze that you like for these baked doughnuts. See the recipe variation section below for ideas!

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Doughnuts

• Flour. For a lighter texture, try using cake flour, but all-purpose flour can also be used. The flour is what gives the doughnuts structure and strength.
• Sugar. Granulated sugar adds sweetness and moisture.
• Baking Powder. Leavening agent, to help the doughnuts rise.
• Salt. Balances the sweetness.
• Egg. Strengthens the dough and adds richness and moisture.
• Sour Cream + Milk. For the best flavor, use full-fat sour cream and whole milk. These add moisture and richness, while the acidity in the sour cream tenderizes the cake.
• Butter. The butter is key to a rich flavor, and moist dense texture.
• Vanilla. I used both vanilla extract as well as ground vanilla (which is just ground vanilla beans). It adds so much flavor and pretty speckles of vanilla throughout the cake.

TIP: If you make the brown butter frosting, be sure to make the brown butter several hours in advance (or the day before). The butter needs to cool down and solidify before you can whip the frosting.

Frosting

• Butter. You’ll be browning the butter first, which gives the frosting an incredibly rich, nutty, buttery flavor.
• Powdered Sugar. Sweetens and thickens the frosting.
• Meringue Powder. Adds stability and improves texture.
• Salt. Balances the sweetness.
• Vanilla Extract. Flavor.
• Milk. Since the process of browning the butter evaporates some of its water content, browned butter makes a drier frosting than butter that hasn’t been browned. So for brown butter frosting, I’ll add more milk than I normally would to my buttercream, making it fluffy and creamy.

Instructions

Doughnuts

• Preheat the oven to 375 F, and grease your doughnut pans with non-stick baking spray.
• In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Separately, whisk together the egg and sour cream until smooth, then whisk in the milk, melted butter and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and use a spatula to fold everything together just until combined. The batter will be thick.
• Scrape the batter into a piping bag and cut off an inch from the pointed end. Pipe the batter into the doughnut pans, filling them no more than 1/2 – 2/3 full.

• Bake the doughnuts on the center oven rack for about 10-12 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the doughnuts for several minutes in the pan, then gently remove the doughnuts and let them cool completely on a cooling rack before adding the frosting.

Frosting

• To make the browned butter, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan occasionally, until the butter starts to foam and nutty brown solids form at the bottom of the pan.
• Scrape the butter and all the browned bits into a bowl, and set aside to cool to a room temperature solid. This could take several hours, but to speed things up, put the bowl in the refrigerator, and stir the butter every 10 minutes, until it’s cooled down and started to solidify. You can make the butter a day in advance, if you like, and just let it sit at room temperature until needed.

• In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cooled brown butter with the powdered sugar, meringue powder, salt, vanilla and milk for about 4-5 minutes on medium speed, until very light and fluffy.
• Pipe the frosting onto the cooled doughnuts and serve.

TIP: To feed a crowd, make a double batch of the doughnuts, and try 3-4 different variations with the icing, so there’s a variety to choose from.

Recipe Variations

• Powdered Sugar. For a simple but delicious finish, just coat the doughnuts in powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar. For even more flavor, rub some ground vanilla into the powdered sugar first. The powdered sugar coated cake doughnuts are fantastic for dunking in coffee or hot chocolate. For powdered sugar that doesn’t soak into the doughnuts and dissolve, consider trying non-melting powdered sugar.
• Cinnamon Sugar. For a crunchy coating, lightly brush the baked doughnuts with melted butter, then coat all over with cinnamon sugar or just plain granulated sugar, like on these baked apple cider doughnuts. The sugar will dissolve as the doughnuts sit, so the next day, just freshen them up again with a new coat of cinnamon sugar.
• Vanilla Glaze or Icing. The vanilla glaze I dipped these old-fashioned sour cream cake doughnuts in would be perfect on today’s baked vanilla cake doughnuts. Be sure to coat the doughnuts in the glaze while they’re still warm, letting the glaze coat the doughnuts completely. For a thicker, more opaque icing to just dip the tops of the doughnuts in, simply add more powdered sugar to the icing. Before the icing sets, you can add some rainbow sprinkles.
• Chocolate Ganache. The chocolate ganache on these baked chocolate doughnuts would be fantastic on today’s baked cake doughnuts.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make baked doughnuts without a doughnut pan?

No, you need a doughnut pan to make baked vanilla cake doughnuts. The pan helps keep the batter in a round doughnut shape. If you just piped the batter onto a baking sheet, it would spread out and wouldn’t look like a doughnut. I own two of these 6-cavity doughnut pans, but you can also get a larger pan with 12 cavities. For today’s recipe, you need to use standard-sized doughnut pans that make 3-inch doughnuts. You could use a mini doughnut pan, too, and make twice as many doughnuts (they will need a shorter bake time). I also love the design of these doughnut molds.

Can I just spoon the batter into the pan?

You can try, but the batter is very thick, and you won’t have much success trying to spoon it in. Use a disposable pastry or piping bag, or just snip the corner off a zip top bag to pipe the batter.

Are cake doughnuts basically the same thing as cupcakes?

While I based today’s doughnut recipe on my favorite high altitude vanilla cake, I made the doughnut batter with a little more flour and less liquid, so they have a more dense, but still moist texture. These baked vanilla cake doughnuts are very similar in texture to a rich, dense and buttery pound cake.

Can I use yogurt or buttermilk instead of the sour cream?

You can use full-fat unsweetened Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream, although I prefer the flavor of sour cream over yogurt for baking. You can also use buttermilk, but you won’t need as much of it since buttermilk is thinner than sour cream. Try using about 2/3 as much buttermilk as you would sour cream.

How long do these doughnuts stay fresh?

Store the leftover doughnuts in an airtight container at room temperature. They’re best eaten within 2-3 days. If they start to get dry after a day or two, just warm them up for 30 seconds in the microwave, or dunk them in coffee.

What piping tip did you use for the frosting?

I used tip 6B to pipe the brown butter frosting.

Where can I get ground vanilla?

Ground vanilla is simply dried and ground vanilla beans. I’ve made my own, after scraping the seeds from vanilla beans, and it’s a wonderful addition to baked goods. You can buy ground vanilla here, or just use vanilla bean paste instead. Just don’t confuse ground vanilla with vanilla powder, which is white and is nothing more than vanilla flavored sugar.

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