An easy, high altitude recipe for baked chocolate cake donuts, flavored with Irish cream liqueur, vanilla Irish cream icing, and colorful sprinkles. These Irish cream donuts are the perfect sweet treat for St. Patrick’s Day!
You might also love these recipes for poppy seed Irish tea cake, Irish soda bread, and shamrock shake cupcakes.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Quick and Easy. You only need 30 minutes and a few simple ingredients to make these Irish cream chocolate donuts.
No Frying. If frying chocolate doughnuts in hot oil intimidates you, then you’ll be happy to know that you don’t need to fry anything for today’s recipe. For these baked chocolate donuts, you’ll be making a thick cake batter, piping it into ring-shaped molds (a donut pan) and then baking the donuts until light and fluffy.
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
- Cocoa Powder. Chocolate is such a good complementary flavor to Irish cream liqueur. I use Dutch processed cocoa powder, not natural cocoa powder. For an extra dark color and flavor, I also used a little black cocoa powder. Simply replace 2 tbsp of the cocoa powder with black cocoa powder.
- Espresso Powder. You don’t have to add the espresso powder, but it enhances the flavor of the chocolate.
- Sour Cream. For a more dense and moist texture, I use sour cream to moisten my chocolate cake doughnuts, rather than milk.
- Irish Cream Liqueur. You can use Baileys, or a less expensive brand. Rather than buy a big bottle of Baileys, I just bought two of the small “shot” bottles, which was more than enough for today’s recipe.
Instructions
Donuts
- Preheat the oven to 375 F, and position a rack in the center of your oven. Spray your doughnut pans thoroughly with non-stick baking spray. Standard-sized donut pans will yield 1 dozen donuts, and mini donut pans will yield 2 dozen donuts.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda, then whisk until evenly distributed.
- Separately, whisk together the eggs, sour cream, oil and liqueur. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir together with a spatula just until moistened.
- Scrape the batter into a piping bag, and snip off the tip. Pipe the batter into the doughnut pans, filling the molds no more than half full.
- Bake the doughnuts for about 8 minutes for mini donuts and 11-12 minutes for standard sized donuts, until risen and the tops spring back when gently touched.
- Cool the doughnuts in the pans for 2 minutes, then turn the pans over onto a cooling rack, letting the doughnuts fall out onto the cooling rack.
- If you still have batter left, re-fill the pans with the rest of your batter, and bake a second batch of doughnuts.
Icing
- In a bowl, stir together the icing ingredients until smooth. For an opaque icing, you need to make it thicker than you think it should be – too much liquid, and the icing will be more drizzly and transparent.
- The icing will likely be too thick to dip the donuts, so just use a spoon to drizzle the icing over the tops of the donuts, letting it drip over the sides. Before the icing sets, finish with sprinkles.
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
Store leftover donuts in an airtight container for up to 3 days. The icing will get a little sticky by the second day, and really looks best within the first few hours. If making the doughnuts in advance, I suggest waiting to add the icing until no more than two hours before serving.
For an extra dark color, replace 2 tbsp of the cocoa powder with black cocoa powder.
You Might Also Like
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High Altitude Baked Irish Cream Donuts
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Disposable Piping Bag
Ingredients
Donuts
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 6 tbsp unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp instant espresso powder, optional
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- ¾ cup full fat sour cream
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp Irish cream liqueur
Icing
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 3 ½ – 4 tbsp Irish cream liqueur
- sprinkles
Instructions
Donuts
- Preheat the oven to 375 F, and position a rack in the center of your oven. Spray your doughnut pans thoroughly with non-stick baking spray.Baker's Note: Standard-sized donut pans will yield 1 dozen donuts, and mini donut pans will yield 2 dozen donuts.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda, then whisk until evenly distributed.
- Separately, whisk together the eggs, sour cream, oil and liqueur. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir together with a spatula just until moistened.
- Scrape the batter into a piping bag, and snip off the tip. Pipe the batter into the doughnut pans, filling the molds no more than half full.
- Bake the doughnuts for about 8 minutes for mini donuts and 11-12 minutes for standard sized donuts, until risen and the tops spring back when gently touched.
- Cool the doughnuts in the pans for 2 minutes, then turn the pans over onto a cooling rack, letting the doughnuts fall out onto the cooling rack.
- If you still have batter left, re-fill the pans with the rest of your batter, and bake a second batch of doughnuts.
Icing
- In a bowl, stir together the icing ingredients until smooth. For an opaque icing, you need to make it thicker than you think it should be – too much liquid, and the icing will be more drizzly and transparent.
- The icing will likely be too thick to dip the donuts, so just use a spoon to drizzle the icing over the tops of the donuts, letting it drip over the sides. Before the icing sets, finish with sprinkles.
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