Orange-Olive Oil Cake Donuts Recipe

Whether you enjoy your donuts for breakfast, as a delicious daytime snack, or even a decadent dessert option, these orange-olive oil cake donuts will be right up your alley. There's nothing quite like a glazed donut to kickstart feelings of nostalgia along with sugar cravings, however, homemade donuts can often be tricky, especially if you don't want to handle a pan full of hot oil. That's why baked cake donuts are the perfect solution; light, fluffy, and delectably sweet, these cake donuts take out the dangerous side of donut-making, giving you a whole batch of the delicious ring-shaped treats in under one hour. They also make a great donut option for those following gluten-free diets; just swap out the flour for a gluten-free version, and you've got yourself a celiac-safe treat. 

Recipe developer Jennine Rye has used orange and olive oil to flavor these cake donuts. The classic sweet citrus flavor of orange is enhanced through the addition of cardamom and the rich, complex fruity flavor of the olive oil, which also has the added bonus of creating deliciously moist donuts. Finished off with a glaze made using vanilla seeds straight from the pod, these sweet treats truly are sophistication in donut form. Read on to find out how easy it is to make these orange-olive oil cake donuts at home.

To begin these orange-olive oil cake donuts, first you will need to gather the ingredients. The dry ingredients you will require are flour, baking powder, salt, ground cardamom, and granulated sugar. You will also want an egg, buttermilk, milk, olive oil, and two oranges to complete the cake donuts. Additionally, you will need confectioner's sugar and a vanilla pod for the glaze.

To finish off these donuts you may want to use store-bought sprinkles or jellied orange segments for decoration. Or, if you are feeling extra crafty you may want to have a go at making your own homemade cake sprinkles.

To make these cake donuts, you will want to start by preheating the oven to 350 F and lightly greasing a silicone donut mold with a small amount of olive oil. To mix the batter, begin by whisking the flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom, and sugar in a bowl until they are thoroughly mixed. In a seperate bowl, add the egg, the buttermilk, the olive oil, the orange zest, and the orange juice, and whisk until combined. 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and then mix them together until your cake donut batter has formed. Mixing the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients separately before combining them helps to evenly disperse the baking powder, and also helps to prevent over-mixing the batter. This results in the most light and fluffy donut cakes.

When your batter is ready, you can choose to fill your mold one of two ways. The easiest and tidiest way to do this is by transferring the batter to a piping bag with a large round nozzle and then piping the batter into the pre-greased molds. However, if you don't have any piping bags or a large enough nozzle, it is also perfectly acceptable to spoon the cake mixture into the silicone mold. It might be a little messier, but the donuts will still bake beautifully and taste delicious. Either way, it's important to not overfill the mold: fill each space in the mold two-thirds full to achieve that perfectly round donut shape.

When ready, place the donut mold into the oven and allow the cake donuts to bake for 15 minutes until they have risen and spring back to the touch.

While the cake donuts cool, it's time to mix the vanilla glaze. Combine the confectioner's sugar with water, along with the seeds from the vanilla pod, to make a delicious vanilla-flavored donut glaze. Then, one at a time dip the cooled orange-olive oil cake donuts into the glaze and set them onto a wire rack to harden. As they will likely drip during this step, it's worthwhile placing a sheet of baking paper under the wire rack for easier cleanup. At this stage, you can choose to decorate your cake donuts if you wish, or you can enjoy them plain. 

Allow your donuts to rest to let the glaze set. Once it has hardened, they're ready to enjoy! Store the cake donuts in an airtight container at room temperature, somewhere cool and dry, and consume them within two days. These donuts can also be frozen to be enjoyed at a later stage.