Light and fluffy lemon donuts topped with freeze dried fruit.
Have you ever gone to multiple stores to inquire if they sell freeze dried fruit, just to have half the people point you to the frozen fruit aisle? We have.
We love donuts. All donuts. Filled donuts. Donut holes. Frosted donuts. Sprinkled donuts. Long donuts. Mishapen donuts. Fried donuts. Even bad donuts taste good.
Most people, ourselves included, do not want to bother with yeast, and frying a bunch of hot oil that is ultimately going to splatter and burn us and make the entire house stink for days. That is why we LOVE baked donuts.
Baked donuts are so easy and do not require any of the horrible things we mentioned above.
Sure, they are not going to be the same texture as a fried donut. But you are still going to get a delicious frosted dessert that’s just a little more cakey. Nothing wrong with that!
The base for our donuts is a lemon cake. Lemon is light and refreshing and works well with a generous slather of icing on top. Of course, you could leave out the lemon and just make plain vanilla donuts if you wish.
We topped these with a lemon glaze but wanted to add another flavor to these. That is when we got the idea to add freeze dried fruit! We got ours at Trader Joe’s after a lonnnnnng hunt at multiple stores. It is surprisingly hard to find.
- Because no one knows what it is/what aisle it’s in.
- Not all stores even have it.
Trader Joe’s is the best place to go because they have all different kinds of fruit. Mixed right in the with snacks and nuts. A lot of the other stores we went to either didn’t have any, or they just had strawberry. Here is a link to some on Amazon https://amzn.to/2DMCam4. This is actually the same brand we got at Trader Joe’s.
I do not know the science or method behind freeze dried fruit..but basically its crunchy, dry pieces of fruit. Sounds gross. But when you crush it up, you get a beautiful, colorful fruit dust that adds flavor to whatever you put it on. You could also add it into yogurt or cereal.
If you are okay with just a delicious lemon donut with lemon glaze, then just omit the freeze dried fruit!
Baked Lemon Donuts
Ingredients
For the donuts
- 1 Cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 2 TBS melted butter
- 1 egg
- 1/3 Cu milk
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 TBS lemon juice
Glaze
- 2 TBS unsalted butter melted
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 2 TBS milk
- 1 TBS lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
for garnish
- Freeze dried fruit of your choice crushed into powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a donut pan with baking spray.
- For the donuts, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk together melted butter, vanilla, egg, sugar, milk, lemon juice and sour cream.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Pipe the batter evenly between 6 donut molds, about 2/3 full. It is easiest if you put the batter in a ziplock bag and cut the corner off.
- Bake for 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Let cool before removing from molds.
- For the glaze, whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Add more milk if consistency is too thick. Once donuts are cool, dip them into the glaze and sprinkle with the powdered fruit. Garnish with fresh fruit if desired.