Banana Bread Donuts - The Best Donut Recipe You'll Ever Taste! (2024)

These fluffy baked banana bread donuts taste just like a thick slice of homemade banana bread. It’s the perfect donut recipe for a healthy breakfast or snack!

Banana Bread Donuts - The Best Donut Recipe You'll Ever Taste! (1)

The best banana bread donuts

Moist, soft, sweet, and irresistibly delicious, the classic donut shop recipe will delight banana lovers of all ages.

The donuts are also very easy to customize.

Stir in a handful of shredded coconut, toasted pecans, or mini chocolate chips, and serve the donuts hot from the oven to your family or overnight guests.

Then watch as every donut on the tray disappears in an instant!

Readers also love this Chocolate Banana Bread

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Banana donut frosting ideas

These soft baked donuts are great on their own or topped with any of the following.

Try coating them in cinnamon sugar. Mix two tablespoons of ground cinnamon into half a cup of white sugar, coconut sugar, or granulated erythritol for sugar free.

For a healthy breakfast option, spread each donut with peanut butter or almond butter.

One of my favorite ways to eat the donuts is with Homemade Nutella.

You can also make a simple two ingredient doughnut glaze by whisking one cup of powdered sugar, two tablespoons milk of choice or water, and an optional tablespoon of melted butter. Add more liquid if a thinner glaze is desired.

Other banana donut topping ideas include browned butter icing, vanilla frosting, chocolate frosting, brown sugar buttercream, or melted coconut butter.

I opted to whip up a quick cream cheese frosting for the donuts in the photos. This frosting recipe is included directly below.

Still craving banana? Make Vegan Banana Pudding

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Cinnamon cream cheese icing

Bring eight ounces of cream cheese and four ounces of butter to room temperature. The recipe works with plant based butter and cream cheese too.

Using hand beaters or a stand mixer, whip up the cream cheese and butter with two cups of powdered sugar or a no sugar sweetener and an optional teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.

I highly recommend whipping in two teaspoons of ground cinnamon, although the icing is still tasty without it.

If the donut frosting is too thick, slowly beat in milk or water, a teaspoon at a time, until it reaches your desired thickness and creamy texture.

Because of the perishable ingredients, it is best to store frosted donuts and any extra cream cheese frosting in the refrigerator.

Use leftover icing on these Baked Apple Cider Donuts

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Ingredients for the recipe

You will need banana, flour, salt, baking powder, sweetener, and oil or water.

Optional ingredients you can add include a half teaspoon of cinnamon or pure vanilla extract, a handful of finely chopped walnuts, or a sprinkle of mini chocolate chips.

The recipe works well with white flour, whole grain spelt flour, oat flour, or loosely packed Bob’s Red Mill gluten free all purpose flour.

We have not tried whole wheat flour, pastry flour, or self rising flour. And we do not recommend coconut flour or almond flour here.

Pure maple syrup, agave, or honey are great choices. If you prefer to use regular sugar or a granulated sugar free substitute, increase the amount of sweetener to a fourth cup. Add three tablespoons milk of choice to make up for the difference in liquid.

Vegan banana bread donuts

This donut recipe is easily vegan as long as you choose pure maple syrup or agave instead of honey.

They are naturally egg free and dairy free, with banana standing in for eggs. And the recipe calls for melted coconut oil or vegetable oil instead of butter.

To make donuts with no oil whatsoever, simply swap in an equal measurement of water or additional mashed banana. Fat free donuts have a bit more of a gummy and dense texture than traditional ones but are still quite tasty.

You can also substitute an equal amount of peanut butter, cashew butter, or almond butter for the oil if you prefer. This will add protein and healthy fats to the recipe.

Banana bread donut recipe video

Watch the step by step recipe video above.

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How to make healthy banana bread donuts

Gather all ingredients, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease a donut pan well. This will ensure the donuts do not stick to the pan after baking. Set this pan aside while you make the batter.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the banana, sweetener, water or oil, and optional vanilla.

After the oven reaches the correct temperature, stir all dry ingredients into the mixing bowl until just evenly mixed.

Divide the dough into the prepared donut pan. Bake on the center rack of the oven for eight minutes or until the banana donuts have risen and are golden in color. A toothpick inserted into a donut’s center should come out mostly clean.

Let the pan cool. Then loosen the baked banana pastries by carefully going around the sides with a knife. Pop out onto a large plate or cooling rack.

Once cooled, frost or glaze the donuts as desired. Or dip in a bowl of cinnamon sugar.

The recipe makes six large donuts. Feel free to use two or three donut pans and double or triple the batch to feed a family or overnight guests.

A few readers mentioned turning the batter into air fryer donuts instead of oven baked goods. If you wish to try this method as well, be sure to report back with your results.

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Baked banana donuts without a donut pan

To make donuts with no donut pan, you have multiple options.

If you own a mini muffin pan, you can bake the donut batter in this pan instead, creating munchkins banana donut holes. The cooking time should be the same.

Or you can also get a newDonut Hole Baking Pan.

I do not own a cake pop machine but believe it should work for the recipe as well.

If you wish to experiment, this Babycakes Cake Pop Machinereceives high reviews.

Gram measurements

For those who would like to measure the recipe with a food scale instead of the cup measurements below, here are the gram amounts to use.

160 grams banana (after peeling), 45 grams pure maple syrup or honey, 30 grams water or oil, 3 grams optional pure vanilla extract, and 120 grams flour.

Also remember to add in the salt and baking powder.

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The recipe was adapted from my Healthy Banana Bread and Banana Muffins.

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Banana Bread Donuts

These soft and fluffy baked banana bread donuts taste like your favorite banana bread recipe!

Banana Bread Donuts - The Best Donut Recipe You'll Ever Taste! (9)

Leave a Review

Print Recipe

Cook Time 8 minutes minutes

Total Time 8 minutes minutes

Yield 6 donuts

5 from 37 votes

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup mashed banana
  • 3 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey
  • 2 tbsp oil or water
  • 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract (optional)
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

  • The recipe works with white, spelt, oat, or Bob's gluten free all purpose flour. I have not tried almond flour or or whole wheat flour so cannot recommend those here.

    To make banana bread donuts, whisk all liquid ingredients in a large bowl. Grease adonut panor mini muffin tin. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet form a donut batter. Smooth into the pan. Bake for eight minutes or until the donuts rise and a toothpick inserted into the middle of a donut comes out mostly clean. Let cool, then pop out of the pan. Icing options, and a recipe for cinnamon cream cheese frosting, are included above.

    View Nutrition Facts

Notes

Also be sure to try this Protein Banana Bread.

Have you made this recipe?

Tag @chocolatecoveredkatie on Instagram

More Banana Recipes

Banana Ice Cream

Almond Flour Banana Bread

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

Healthy Brownies

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Banana Bread Donuts - The Best Donut Recipe You'll Ever Taste! (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to bake or fry doughnuts? ›

Baked doughnuts are smaller, baking powder driven and more compact. A typical fried glazed donut will be around 269 calories, while a baked donut will have much fewer. The difference is the fact that you won't be dealing with any extra fat from the oil from frying when you bake.

What makes a great donut? ›

Flavor and fragrance ought to be distinctive, well-balanced - sweet but not cloying - and appealing enough to demand a second bite. If it's a raised donut, a whiff of yeastiness promises authentic, old-fashioned goodness.

Is a banana healthier than a donut? ›

Why is that difference important? Eat a banana and you'll get a good hit of fiber and potassium, as well as other key vitamins and minerals. A donut contains what we call “empty calories”—there's not much in the way of nutritional value.

What makes an old fashioned donut? ›

'Old-fashioned' donuts are cake donuts, leavened with baking powder. Contemporary donuts (actually, they've been around quite a while, but are just a variant) are called raised or yeast donuts because they use yeast as the leaven. Raised donuts are lighter in texture, but not necessarily any healthier or less caloric.

Do Dunkin donuts bake or fry their donuts? ›

Some Dunkin' locations bake their donuts in house, but not all. There are three ways Dunkin' locations can acquire donuts, according to TikTok user and franchise owner Amir Mohamed.

Are Starbucks donuts baked or fried? ›

Yes, you read that right. These donuts are baked not fried.

Is water or milk better for donuts? ›

Water makes for a lighter dough with a more delicate bite. Milk produces a tender and soft dough with more of a chewy texture. These are super important in donuts as they provide richness as well as making them fluffy. Using egg yolks make the donuts super tender.

What kind of flour is best for donuts? ›

Use real cake flour – not DIY cake flour!

DIY substitutions don't really cut it, and AP flour will not create doughnuts with that same soft texture. Also, bleached cake flour will work best. Unbleached (like King Arthur Baking) won't absorb as much moisture, and you may end up with doughnuts that crumble while frying.

What is the unhealthiest doughnut? ›

Apple fritters are among the unhealthiest doughnuts. Just because a doughnut has fruit it it doesn't mean it is a good choice.

Can diabetics eat donuts? ›

“Patients with reason to be concerned about their blood sugar usually understand that sugary foods like doughnuts are poor choices,” said Dr. Devries. “In an effort to lower their sugar, they may swap a breakfast doughnut for something less sweet, like a bagel.

Are donuts healthier than co*ke? ›

"The bottom line is that though the sugar content might be similar, eating donuts is not technically healthier than drinking a bottle of soda," Dr. Laing said. "A key message from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is that everything we eat and drink over time matters.

What do you call a donut without a hole in the middle? ›

Jelly Doughnut

These classic doughnuts are typically round without a hole in the middle, and generally leavened with yeast.

What were donuts called before they were called donuts? ›

The history of the doughnut itself is generally traced to Dutch immigrants in 17th- and 18th-century New York, then New Netherland, who prepared fried dough balls called olie koeken or olykoeks, which means “oil cakes.” They were similar to modern doughnuts, although they did not yet have the iconic ring shape.

What is the best oil for donuts? ›

What kind of oil is best for cooking donuts? The best oil is the one with the least flavour. Vegetable oil and canola oil are both very good in this respect. The most important thing is to use the same oil for the same kinds of foods, since oil readily absorbs flavours and aromas.

Are Krispy Kreme donuts baked or fried? ›

Like most doughnuts, Krispy Kremes are fried (cooked in oil). Frying cooks the dough rapidly from the outside in to give the doughnuts their distinctive crispy texture. The conveyer belt carries the doughnuts through a vegetable oil bath heated to between 355 and 360 degrees Fahrenheit (about 180 C).

Is oven baking better than frying? ›

While any type of cooking naturally reduces the nutrients in food, frying reduces the most nutrients while absorbing fat from the oil. Baking, however, enhances some nutrients and makes the protein in some foods easier to digest, making it a better and healthier way of cooking food than frying.

Is it better to bake or pan fry? ›

There is another unique benefit to baking over frying. Since frying, both deep-frying and pan-frying alike, use higher temperatures than baking, there is some loss of important nutrients.

Do donuts rise when frying? ›

If you try to fry them before they've risen, you'll end up with fried bread, sure, but there will be nothing light and delightful about it. Allowing the donuts to proof imbues them with thousands of tiny pockets of air that, when heated, expand, giving the donuts loft and lightness.

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