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Homemade Donut Recipe

Prep Time2 minutes
Author: Tara Dodrill

Ingredients

  • 2 packages Pillsbury Baby Grand Biscuits - or whatever brand is on sale. I have made this simple donut recipe using crescent roll dough as well. The ingredient amounts in this recipe are geared to the large Baby Grand 8 biscuits to a tube, as the dough base.
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup cinnamon
  • 1 stick butter melted

Cream Filling Ingredients

  • 6 cups powdered sugar
  • ½ to 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 to 1 ½ tbsp milk
  • 1 and ½ sticks butter

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • Dip each biscuit on both sides in the melted butter.
  • Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.
  • Place the biscuit in the mixture of cinnamon and sugar and coat each one thoroughly on both sides.
  • Place the biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet. I have been known to spray some Pam onto the sheet from time to time, but it usually is not necessary. 
  • You can also cut the center out of the biscuits and then roll the excess dough into little balls and make donut holes with the excess dough.
  • While the donuts are baking for 14 to 18 minutes at 350F / 176 C, it is time to make the optional cream filling. If you have a pastry injector, I highly recommend using it to speed up the filling process an make it a whole lot less messy.
    Combine all of the cream filling ingredients together in a bowl. I hand-mix mine, but using a stand mixer would also speed up the process. Think of hand mixing as both a great arm workout and practice for living in an off the grid situation - if you're like me, you do not want to mess with lugging out the stand mixing and then cleaning it afterwards.
    If your cream filling mixture looks a bit thick and lumpy like in the photo, add just a little more milk to garner a creamy consistency that will flow through a pasty injector, pastry bag, or a sandwich baggy that is doubling as a pastry bag.
  • Pour or spoon the cream filling in the donut delivery method you have chosen. If using a sandwich baggy like I did, simply snip a little bit off the corner of the bag to create an access point.
  • Use something round and sharp to poke a hole almost completely through the donuts once they come out of the oven. I used the tip of my meat thermometer to make a hole for the cream filling.
    Only let them cool just enough that you do not scorch your fingers when handling them, before injecting the cream filling. 
  • Push or inject the cream filling into each donut.