There’s Nothing Better Than Blood Orange Vanilla Donuts
The following post may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra charge to you. To learn more about this, please visit my Disclaimer page. Thank you for your continued support!
It’s citrus season, and more importantly, it’s blood orange season. What better way to savor our favorite end-of-winter fruit than with some beautiful blood orange vanilla donuts!
These donuts are speckled with real vanilla bean and blood orange zest. Then, they are topped with a delicately pink citrusy glaze with a zig-zag of decorative red. How could you resist one of these beauties with your morning coffee?
So, let’s get baking!
Blood Orange Vanilla Bean Donut Batter
I’ve noted before that donuts are more like having a cupcake for breakfast than even having a muffin. That’s because my donut batters more closely follow cake method than muffin method.
With muffin method, you’ll fold the dry into the wet. In the case of baked donuts, you’ll instead cream your fat and sugar, and then alternate adding in wet and dry ingredients in three stages.
These donuts are a little extra special as well because we’re using blood orange and vanilla bean. To get the most out of those flavors, we have to use them properly.
Tips for Zesting Blood Orange
The best advice I can give you regarding zest of any citrus is this. Turn the zester so the bottom faces you. Hold your orange on the bottom, and zest so you can see whether you’re grating into the pith or getting the good stuff.
By doing it this way, you can also see how much you are accumulating. Approximately 1 medium blood orange will get you 1 teaspoon of zest which is what you need for the batter.
Now, my second best bit of advice is to add your blood orange zest directly into the sugar. The flavor comes from oil in the skin, so if you put it in a prep bowl, you lose most of it there. Adding it to the sugar means you don’t lose any flavor.
Tips for Using Vanilla Bean
That brings me to making the most of your vanilla beans. These are a special ingredient that you usually have to go out of your way to buy. They’re not cheap, and they usually are sold at the store individually. So, let’s use them well.
First of all, to split your bean, you want to use a sharp knife to cut straight down the center. Then, you’ll use the BACK of your knife to scrape out the caviar from each half.
Similar to the blood orange zest, add the caviar directly to the sugar. This ensures you don’t lose any flavor to a bowl. Once you’ve added both zest and caviar to the sugar, give it a good stir to distribute the oils and flavors. It’ll smell pretty nice!
Now, don’t let the pod go to waste. Add it to a bottle of vodka or whiskey! That pod still has subtle vanilla flavor to impart, and it makes your favorite liquor taste beautiful.
Creaming Sugar and Coconut Oil
For this recipe, we’re using coconut oil as our fat. It’s a lightly flavored oil that just goes really well in blood orange vanilla donuts. But here’s the deal. The ratio isn’t quite right for actual creaming.
1 cup of sugar to 1/4 cup of coconut oil means nothing is going to get light and fluffy. So, what you’re aiming for is dispersal. You want the sugar and oil to be well mixed enough that there is not dry sugar left. Yes, it’s going to look grainy, and that’s okay.
Also, take a sniff at this point because, remember, your sugar has blood orange and vanilla in it. Those oils are going to be very happy to see a carrier oil like coconut, so those fragrances will spread out more. Mmm!
The Wet Team of Blood Orange Vanilla Donuts
For the wet ingredients, I like to use a 2-cup glass measuring cup. It makes it a lot easier to pour out later. To this, I measure in my almond milk and beat in 2 eggs. It’s really that simple.
However, make sure to truly beat in the eggs. Egg white is notoriously hard to beat up, so you might end up with a clump of the stuff left.
If that clump goes into your batter with flour already in, you’ll be forced to beat it extra hard. This leads to overmixing and excess gluten formation. Excess gluten means big weird holes in your donut’s crumb structure.
The Dry Team for Your Donuts
The dry team is simply flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. These guys are very straight forward. My main tip is in how to measuring your flour.
You know you should never pack in your flour. So, the best way to make sure your flour measures light and fluffy is to, well, fluff it up before measuring.
Take a spoon and lightly whisk the flour in your container to aerate it. Now, spoon flour into your measuring cup. Finally, level off the top. To save dishes, I use the handle of my spoon to scrape the excess flour off and back into the jar.
Finally, you can use a sieve for your dry ingredients, or you can whisk it together in the bowl. Either way is good for breaking up clumps and making sure everything is evenly distributed.
Blood Orange Vanilla Donuts Assemble!
From here, you’ll mix a third of the wet and dry into your sugar and oil mix. Once that’s fully combined, repeat with the second third and again with the last third.
Move your batter to a gallon-sized zipper top baggie. Snip the corner off where you’ll have about a half-inch hole. Carefully, pipe the batter into each of your nine donut mold holes. You want them halfway full to avoid spillover.
A Couple Tips for Using a Silicone Donut Pan
Silicone donut pans are awesome, but they do have some drawbacks. Mainly, they’re flexible. This is great for getting your donuts out of the pan in one piece. But it’s hard to get it in and out of the oven safely.
This is why I highly recommend setting your donut pan on a sheet pan for support. It just makes it a whole lot easier to retrieve from a hot oven.
My second tip is to move the donut pan to a wire rack immediately. This gets air flowing underneath to cool your donuts off. You definitely need them cooled completely so they pop out of the pan easily. Trying to remove them from a hot silicone pan usually leads to ripped donuts.
I usually let the donuts cool right side up for 10 minutes and then flip the whole pan upside down on the wire rack for another 10 minutes. This way, if they’re ready to fall out, they can. Otherwise, gravity helps to coax them out of their molds as they cool.
To remove, I stretch the pan a little bit in all 4 directions. Most of them will pop out at this point. Some, I’ll have to poke the bottoms a little for them to come out.
Blood Orange Donut Glaze is Beyond Amazing
The final touch is glazing our donuts. It’s time to smack the blood orange flavor right out of the park. So, take that same blood orange you zested and juice it. You should get about 2 tablespoons worth. I would probably buy two oranges just to be on the safe side.
Into a small mixing bowl, sift in your powdered sugar. To this, you’ll drizzle in that beautiful red orange juice. Whisk it really well. It should be pretty thick. You can add more sugar or juice depending on the texture you’re seeing compared to what you’re hoping for.
A thicker glaze will be more like icing, which is really nice. A thinner glaze will be transparent but still show off a pink hue. Choose your own adventure here.
I prefer to dip my donuts rather than spoon the icing on. This is, again, your choice. To dip, I turn all my donuts upside down. The bottom is the side that baked in the pan so it’s smoother and more donut-looking.
This is the side I dip into the icing. I give it a little swirl to make sure it’s well coated. Then, I set it back on the wire rack to set. It’s important that your donuts are totally cool before you ice them. Otherwise, they just absorb the glaze instead of it setting on the outside.
Tools You’ll Need for Blood Orange Vanilla Donuts
I don’t have to tell you how to eat a donut. You’ve got that well in hand, I’m sure. However, here are a few tools I use for making donuts.
- 9-Cavity Large Donut Pan (this is my favorite donut pan of all time)
- Sheet Pan to support your donut pan
- Medium and Small Mixing Bowls
- 2-Cup Glass Measuring Cup
Where to Find Sustainable Vanilla Beans
Also, I’d highly recommend checking out Java Sisters Vanilla for your beans. They grow their beans in Java, Indonesia under tight ethics and sustainability practices while constantly learning from local farmers.
Part of their profits goes to saving rainforests destroyed by the vanilla industry in Madagascar. On top of that, they are a women-owned business, and they’re really kind people.
You can use my code ELLEJAYATHOME10 to get 10% off your order. Or you can shop through my affiliate link here. I like their Grade-A, extra-long Bourbon Madagascar Vanilla Beans.
Let me know if you get some beans and how you like them!
Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!
Blood Orange Vanilla Donuts
Equipment
- Donut pan
- Sheet pan to support the donut pan
- Medium mixing bowl
Ingredients
For the Donuts
- 1 cup pure cane sugar
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- 2 large eggs beaten (or flax eggs: 2 Tbsp ground flax + 6 Tbsp water)
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 tsp blood orange zest
- 1 large vanilla bean
- 2⅔ cups unbleached flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp pink himalayan sea salt
For the Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp blood orange juice
Instructions
For the Donuts
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Spray the pan down with non-stick spray. If you're using a silicon pan, set it on a light-colored sheet pan for stability.
- Zest your blood orange into the sugar so you don't lose any oil.
- Begin by beating together the blood orange-sugar and coconut oil for about 2 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, beat together the almond milk, eggs (or flax eggs), and vanilla bean.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Alternate adding the wet ingredients and the dry to the oil-sugar mixture, a third of each at a time, adding the dry ingredients last.
- Spoon the batter into a gallon-sized bag. Cut one corner off, and pipe the batter into the donut molds so they are about half-full.
- Bake for 10 minutes. Allow the donuts to cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes. Turn the pan over on a cooling rack and gently work the donuts out of the pan if they don't fall out on their own.
- You should be able to get 9 donuts out of this batter with just a little leftover.
For the Glaze
- Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl, and whisk in the blood orange juice.
- Dip the top of each donut into the glaze, and place them on a wire cooling rack to set.
