Top 13 Donut Recipes: Glazed, Cake, Baked and Filled

A yeast donut dough is an enriched dough — flour, milk, sugar, eggs and butter — and it should feel soft, smooth and slightly tacky after kneading, not stiff. Knead it well (by hand or mixer) until it passes the windowpane test, stretching thin without tearing; the gluten you develop here is what gives the fried donut its light, shreddy crumb. Add the butter only after the dough has come together, a little at a time, so it works in fully.

Proof in two stages. Let the dough rise covered until doubled — about an hour in a warm kitchen — then roll it out about half an inch thick, cut your rings, and proof the cut donuts a second time until visibly puffy and jiggly, roughly 30 to 45 minutes. This second rise is the one most people cut short; under-proofed donuts fry up dense and heavy with a pale band, while properly proofed ones float and balloon the moment they hit the oil.

Cut on a lightly floured surface with a donut cutter or two rings, and save the centers — those are your donut holes. Let the shaped donuts proof on squares of parchment so you can lower each one into the oil without deflating it, parchment side up, then peel the paper away. Handle proofed dough gently; a deflated donut never fully recovers its rise in the fryer.

Temperature is everything. Use a neutral oil with a high smoke point — canola, vegetable or peanut — and hold it steady at 350 to 360F (175 to 182C) with a thermometer clipped to the pot. Too cool and the donuts sit and soak up grease, frying greasy and pale; too hot and the outside browns before the inside cooks, leaving a raw, doughy center. The dough drops the oil temperature when it goes in, so let it recover between batches and fry only a few at a time.

Yeast donuts fry fast — about a minute per side — and tell you when they are done: they puff up, float, and develop a pale ring around the middle where the dough sat at the oil line. Flip once when the underside is deep golden, fry the second side to match, and lift onto a rack set over a tray so excess oil drains and steam escapes. Cake donuts run a touch cooler and slower; they crack as they cook, which is normal and gives them their craggy charm.

Drain on a wire rack, never directly on paper towels, which traps steam and makes the bottoms soggy. Let yeast donuts cool slightly before glazing so the glaze sets rather than melting clean off, but roll cinnamon-sugar cake donuts while they are still warm so the sugar clings. Filter your oil between sessions, watch for the wisps of smoke that mean it has broken down, and never crowd the pot.

A classic donut glaze is little more than powdered sugar whisked with a liquid — milk, water or cream — plus vanilla and a pinch of salt, thinned to the point where it coats the back of a spoon but still runs off slowly. Glaze the donuts while they are warm but not hot, dunking the top or dipping the whole donut, then set them on a rack so the excess drips and the surface dries to that signature thin, crackly shell. A warmer glaze sets shinier; a cooler one sets matte.

To fill a donut, fit a piping bag with a long, narrow filling tip, poke it into the side of a cooled round (filled donuts are fried as solid balls, not rings), and pipe until the donut feels heavy and the filling just peeks out. Pastry cream, lemon curd, Bavarian custard, jam and chocolate ganache all work — chill jam-style fillings slightly so they hold, and make sure custards are fully set so they do not weep.

Beyond plain glaze, lean into chocolate ganache, maple glaze, brown-butter or coffee glazes, and finish before the surface sets so sprinkles, chopped nuts, toasted coconut or crushed cookies actually stick. For a simpler route, a toss in cinnamon sugar or a dusting of powdered sugar needs no setting time at all. Whatever you choose, finish donuts the same day — glaze does not revive a day-old donut, and they are at their absolute best within hours of frying.

Baked donuts are really a tender cake batter piped into a donut-shaped pan, so the batter should be thick enough to pipe but still pourable. Do not overmix once the flour goes in — overworked batter bakes tough and tunneled. Fill each mold about two-thirds full, bake at around 350 to 375F until a toothpick comes out clean and the tops spring back, then cool a few minutes before turning out. They will never taste exactly like a fried donut, but they are quick, low-mess and genuinely good.

Air-fryer donuts come two ways: a piped cake batter in a silicone donut mold, or — fastest of all — biscuit dough cut into rings and air-fried with a light spritz of oil. Run the air fryer around 350F, watch closely because the circulating heat browns fast, and flip or rotate halfway if your basket cooks unevenly. They go from golden to dry quickly, so check a few minutes early and pull them while the surface is just set and lightly browned.

Donuts are a fresh food — eat them the day they are made if you possibly can. Yeast donuts stale within a day; cake and baked donuts hold a little longer in an airtight container at room temperature, two to three days, but lose their charm. For longer storage, freeze unglazed donuts and reglaze after thawing, or freeze the shaped, unfried yeast dough and proof it from frozen. A few seconds in the microwave revives a day-old donut surprisingly well.