Devil’s Food Cake Baked Donuts: Chocolate Donut Recipe

An easy recipe for Devil’s Food Cake Baked Donuts that you will absolutely fall in love with! Think of these as your own copycat Starbucks Devil’s Food Donuts — except baked instead of fried, so you get all that deep, fudgy chocolate donut flavor without dragging out the deep fryer. Can we talk about how good that is?

Tips For Making Baked Devil’s Food Cake Donuts

These chocolate donuts start with a rich batter loaded with cocoa powder, so you get deep, dreamy devil’s food cake donut flavor in every single bite. Here are a few tips to make sure yours turn out perfect every time:

You can make these in a muffin tin if you want, but seriously, go ahead and grab yourself a donut pan! It’s such a small investment, and it makes this recipe (and all your future donut recipes) so much easier.

Be sure to grease the pan liberally with nonstick cooking spray. This serves two functions: a) it allows an easy release of the donuts, and b) it actually gives the donuts a bit of a fried texture, just like your favorite bakery donuts!

You can add a little more or less milk to the glaze than the recipe calls for to get it to the exact consistency you’re looking for. I like a thinner glaze — it tastes more like a bakery donut and sets up into a gorgeous crackly shell.

How To Make Devil’s Food Cake Baked Donuts

Making these donuts couldn’t be simpler. Grab a large bowl and whisk together your dry ingredients — cocoa powder, wheat flour, baking soda, and a pinch of salt. In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to cream together your wet ingredients until smooth and creamy.

Some devil’s food cake donut recipes call for melted unsweetened chocolate in addition to cocoa powder, which gives the donuts an even deeper, more intense chocolate flavor. I like adding a little bit for extra fudginess — trust me, it’s worth it!

Once your batter is mixed, transfer it to a piping bag (or just a large ziplock bag with the corner snipped off) and pipe it evenly into your greased donut pan. This keeps things neat and makes sure every donut bakes up the same size.

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, then let the donuts cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. This step matters — dunking a warm donut in glaze makes the glaze slide right off instead of setting into that gorgeous crackly shell.

What’s My Favorite Thing About This Recipe?

I love, love the vanilla butter glaze on these donuts. It’s made with real vanilla extract, and it’s amazing! It hardens just a bit and creates this yummy, crackly outer layer with the soft, tender donut underneath. SO GOOD. If you want something even more decadent, swap the vanilla glaze for a chocolate glaze instead — chocolate on chocolate is never a bad idea over here.

How To Store Devil’s Food Cake Donuts

These chocolate donuts are best the day they’re made (that crackly glaze, though!), but they’ll keep just fine in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple of days, or in the fridge for up to a week. Let them come back to room temp before eating so that soft, tender crumb really shines.

You can also freeze them! Just skip the glaze, freeze the plain donuts in an airtight container, and glaze them fresh once they’ve thawed. Easy peasy.

Try It With Chocolate Ganache

Feeling extra fancy? Skip the glaze altogether and dunk these devil’s food cake donuts in a silky chocolate ganache instead. Just warm heavy cream and pour it over chopped chocolate, let it sit for a minute, then stir until smooth and glossy. It’s basically be still my heart in a bowl.

And if you’ve got leftover batter, don’t toss it — scoop it into a mini muffin tin for adorable doughnut holes instead! They’re perfect for popping into your mouth while you wait (impatiently) for the big donuts to cool. If you love little bite-sized treats like this, check out my Donut Holes Recipe too.

If you’re as obsessed with devil’s food cake as I am, you have to make my Devil’s Food Cake Batter Rice Krispie Treats next — and if straight-up chocolate overload is more your vibe, my Death by Chocolate BTS Poke Cake Recipe will not disappoint.

Nutrition Info For Devil’s Food Cake Donuts

I’m not going to pretend these are health food (they’re donuts, you guys!), but if you’re the type who likes to check labels — hi, me too, hello Weight Watchers points app — here’s a quick rundown. Homemade versions like this one skip a lot of what you’d find in a store-bought or fast-food donut, like soybean oil, soy lecithin, sodium propionate, and sodium acid pyrophosphate, which are common preservatives and dough conditioners in packaged baked goods.

Some commercial donut mixes also include things like xanthan gum, guar gum, and folic acid to help with texture and fortification. None of that is scary, but it’s good to know what’s in a serving of food if you’re paying attention to your daily diet.

As always, this post is just for fun and general nutrition advice — for actual daily value perc

Baked Devil's Food Cake Donuts

Yield: 8 donuts

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

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An easy recipe for Devil's Food Cake Donuts that you will fall in love with!

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Ingredients

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil

For the Glaze:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Generously grease a donut pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Whisk together the flour, brown sugar, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.

Add the buttermilk, vanilla, the egg, and the oil and whisk until batter is smooth.

Pour the batter into a zip top bag, snip the corner and pipe the batter into the donut tin.

Bake for 10 minutes. After the donuts have cooled for a few minutes, invert them onto a cooling rack.

Make the glaze: whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and melted butter.

Dip the donut in the glaze. Let the excess drip off the donut and place back on the rack.

Notes

Nutrition: 161 Calories | 5g Fat | 29g Carb | 1g Fiber | 2g Protein