Cranberry Orange Cake Doughnuts
You guys are the best! Over the weekend, Lauren’s Latest reached over 2000 Facebook followers! Yippity skippity! I love blogging and creating recipes for you guys! Thank you for coming along in this journey! As a thank you, I’m going to be doing something called the 12 days of Giveaways in December. I’ll be raffling off 12 small and big kitchen items that you are not going to want to miss. Seriously.Awesome.Prizes. Think Kitchenaid, Wilton, Le Creuset, Oxo, Westbend, etc. AMAZING stuff coming your way. Be prepared.
ANYWAYS….
Over the last two weeks, I’ve been doing Thanksgiving recipes. We covered turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, twice baked sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. As promised, here are some fun and festive desserts! No pie or cookies today! I decided to do doughnuts. Why? Because who doesn’t love a good doughnut? and I got a new pan! The Wilton doughnut pan is all the rage you know, so I jumped on the band wagon. Feel free to turn these doughnuts into cupcakes, mini cupcakes, a 9×9 square cake…whatever. It works however you want to make it.
I used my basic cupcake recipe and added in some orange and fresh cranberries and then added a glaze because truth be told, doughnuts are nothing without their glaze! Kids and adults alike will go crazy over these. Uber tasty, light, sweet, refreshing and delicious. AND, super easy!
First you will need the following:
I like to zest my orange first onto a plate. Also, microplanes may quite possibly be my favorite kitchen tool. They are the bomb. Amen.
Chop up some cranberries! I went a little nuts and chopped mine pretty tiny, but you can chop them how you like.
Take some butter {that you softened and forgot about in the microwave that’s half melted…}
and cream it with some sugar. You will notice I’m not using any sort of mixer. I was feeling lazy and not wanting to clean any extra dish I didn’t have to. So, I did this all by hand. Yes, it can be done that way still!
Next, add in the vanilla, eggs and orange zest.
This is what it should look like. You also may pass out from the smell at this point. Orange zest + vanilla = heaven. Just sayin’.
Mix all the dry ingredients together into a bowl and alternate stirring them in with the milk.
Stir in those cranberries too!
And voila! Doughnut batter! Feel free to swipe a few spoonfuls into your mouth. Amazing goodness right here.
Grease your doughnut pans and fill ‘em up!
Bake the doughnuts for about 13 minutes and cool. And, make the glaze too. {Lets pretend I took photos of the glaze ingredients…} Basically, you just mix powdered sugar, orange zest and cream together until it looks like this. Ta-da! Glaze.
Once your doughnuts are nice and cool, dunk them into the pool of orangy goodness and pull them out to dry.
About 2 hours later, that glaze should be all set up and you will have some purdy lookin’ doughnuts! Don’t these look tasty?
So, doughnuts made it to our Thanksgiving feast. What desserts are you making? I have a more traditional dessert recipe coming up on Wednesday, so don’t fret about this very out of the ordinary one! Happy Monday!
Cranberry Orange Cake Doughnuts
yield: 12 doughnuts
Print This Recipe
Ingredients:
½ cups Softened Butter
1 cup Granulated Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 whole Eggs
1 Tablespoon Orange Zest
1-⅔ cup All-purpose Flour
1-¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
¼ teaspoons Salt
½ cups Milk
½ cups Chopped Fresh Cranberries
FOR THE GLAZE:
1 cup Powdered Sugar
½ Tablespoons Orange Zest
3 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease 2 nonstick doughnut pans with cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar together until creamed. Stir in vanilla, eggs and orange zest.
Alternate adding in the dry ingredients with the milk, starting with the dry and ending with the wet. Do not over mix.
Stir in chopped cranberries.
Spoon into prepared pans evenly, about 2 spoonfuls of batter into each cavity. Reduce oven temperature to 325ºF and bake 12-14 minutes or until bottoms are barely starting to turn golden. Remove from oven and cool completely.
For the glaze, add all ingredients into a small bowl and stir until smooth and runny. (You may need to add more cream to get the desired consistency.)
Place a doughnut down into the glaze halfway and remove. Place on a rack and continue to dip until all doughnuts have been glazed. After 2 hours, glaze should be set.
38 Responses to “Cranberry Orange Cake Doughnuts”
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Cranberry and orange is one of my all time favourite flavour combinations so these doughnuts are right up my street.
Congratulations on so many facebook likes
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Ooo, I love this take on donuts. Plus, it’s kinda like portion control, right?
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LOVE! I want one right now!
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I’m off to the store to pick up an orange. Do you think dried cranberries would work nicely? Its all we have on hand right now but since I am going to be heading out to the store soon. umm not to be a pest but did you get my e-mail with my contact info??? Yahoo and I are having an on again, off again relationship! It teases me by letting me see my e-mails but not actually read them or respond.
Congratulations on all the FB likes! And I tried some of your “Thanksgiving” recipes in the past couple of weeks and we LOVE them!!
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Lauren — November 21st, 2011 @ 3:55 pm
Dried cranberries should work fine! And yes, I got your information and am forwarding it onto my Calphalon friends!
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Peggy — November 21st, 2011 @ 6:36 pm
Once again THANK YOU! Can you tell I am beyond excited!?!
Yum to the O!! Love the flavors here Lauren! Funny I just made doughnuts this weekend… looks like I have a recipe for next weekend!
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Lauren — November 22nd, 2011 @ 2:33 am
We’re on the same brainwave!
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These sound so yummy! Love that cake pan. It’s such a great invention!
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Oh my gosh how I love the doughnut pans!! And these? Adorbs and tasty!
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Would 295 of these be okay to eat? AT ONCE?
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I totally love the idea of doing doughnuts for a Thanksgiving dessert! Something different and totally unexpected.
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Could this same recipe be done as muffins?
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Lauren — November 21st, 2011 @ 6:56 pm
Yes! You’ll just have to bake them a few minutes longer!
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May I just say, particularly gorgeous pics today! Hope you had a great weekend.
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Lauren — November 22nd, 2011 @ 2:34 am
Why thank you, miss Tara!
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I know this was in the dessert category, but what a great idea for a holiday breakfast–and since they’re not totally deep-fried in a huge vat of grease, it’s ok to have two right???
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Congratulations on all of your facebook followers! and wow….your picture of these doughnuts is soooo pretty! The cranberry and orange flavors sound so good together…love that these are baked too.
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Yum, yum, yum! I heart cranberries + orange!
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Lauren, how do you manage to come up with ALL this deliciousness?!?
I want these a-sap … so yummy!! Great recipe, as usual
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I love cranberry/orange combo. These photos are beautiful Lauren!
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These are the most beautiful doughnuts I’ve ever seen!
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Lauren these look great!
I have been on a huge donut making kick the past few weeks and love the orange you put in yours.
I don’t own a mixer…gasp, I know. So I do everything by hand, too. It works, it’s easy and less overall dishes to dirty
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Oh I can not wait to make these! They sound and look DIVINE!!
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I love how the cranberries are barely seen, yet, it pops out!
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Oh, I have to try these. First, I will have to find a doughnut pan! These look yummo. I can add the pan to my Christmas wish list. (lightbulb moment!)
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These are gorgeous! I love the cranberry-orange combo…so bright and fresh!
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Random question: since these are cake-type doughnuts, they sort of seem like they might make good cupcakes too (for those of us without a doughnut pan). Do you think they’d work that way? I’d just guess to check 5 min later or so when they are in the oven. Thanks! The look delicious!
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How pretty! They look fab
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i absolutely love the cranberry-orange flavour combination! it must have something to do with my love of citrus desserts
I think i need to put a donut pan on my christmas wish list this year!
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This recipe makes me very glad that I just added a donut pan to my Christmas list
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These treats look great! I’m so happy I have extra cranberries in my fridge right now from last weekend! I think I’ll attempt these very soon:)
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I got a doughnut pan for Christmas that I broke in last night. I made three different kinds (including this one and your red velvet coconut). I have to say that this was my absolute favorite. I think my “glaze” was a little more of an icing consistency. But the flavor of this doughnut is wonderful!
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This a question from a new baker, but are these freezable? If so, how long do you think they would last? Looking for ideas for a dessert table for my wedding. May have to make the desserts myself and I don’t want too much crazy on the days leading up to the big day.
P.S. LOVE your blog!
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Lauren — April 5th, 2012 @ 4:59 am
I don’t see why they wouldn’t freeze well. Of course try this ahead of your wedding just to make sure!! And defrost THEN glaze!
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