Baked Lemon Sunrise Donuts
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Bright and flavorful baked lemon donuts decorated with vanilla glaze and sprinkles make these Sunrise Donuts a fun breakfast treat.
I love watching cooking and baking shows on TV and one of my current favorites is the Spring Baking Championship. I like all of those baking championship shows and it’s easy to watch them because they don’t have to have my full attention.
The other day I was watching an episode and they were making sunrise and sunset donuts. I thought that the ideas were really fun and while some of them looked super cool there were others where I thought I could totally make a better looking one. So I decided to try!
My friend Karen who blogs are Karen’s Kitchen Stories is the queen of all things bread. She has the best recipes. So when she posts a Baked Lemon Donuts during Spring Sweets Week I pinned it immediately to make later on. Later on has officially arrived.
I baked up a batch of these Lemon Donuts knowing they were going to turn out because I totally trust Karen. She did not disappoint! Instead of decorating for spring I dyed a vanilla glaze with orange and blue food coloring to make the colors for my sunrise donuts.
I dipped my donuts half into the blue and half into the orange and then swirled it together in the middle. I grabbed two different types of sprinkles. Half of them had Fresh April Sprinkles Caribbean Sunrise Sprinkle blend and the other half I just put gold sprinkles. I think they both turned out really cute!
These donuts were delicious. They bright lemon really comes through and works nicely with the mellow vanilla glaze. The decorations really stand out and look great!
Pro Tips and Substitutions:
- Use orange zest and orange juice instead of lemon for a new citrus twist! You can also use lime zest and lime juice.
- Add flavored extract to the glaze to give these donuts another zing of flavor.
- Change the color of the glaze to match any holiday or occasion!
Baked Lemon Sunrise Donuts
Ingredients
For the donuts:
- 6 T. butter
- 3 T. vegetable oil
- 1/2 c. sugar
- 1/4 c. brown sugar
- zest of 1 lemon
- 2 eggs
- 2 T. lemon juice
- 2 3/4 c. flour
- 2 t. baking powder
- 1 t. salt
- 1 c. milk
For the glaze:
- 1/3 c. heavy cream
- 3 c. powdered sugar
- 1 T. vanilla
- blue and orange food coloring
- sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Spray a donut pan or pans with baking spray.
- In a large bowl cream together the butter, oil, sugar, and brown sugar.
- Add in the lemon zest, eggs, and lemon juice and mix well to combine.
- In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Add half the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well.
- Add in the milk and mix until well combined.
- Stir in the remaining flour until smooth.
- Put the batter in a piping bag or a strong baggie and pipe into the donut pans.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool 5 minutes before removing from pan and cooling completely on a wire rack.
- To make the glaze whisk together the powdered sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth but thick.
- Divide the glaze in half. Dye half a deep blue and the other orange.
- Dip half of the top of each donut in the blue glaze and allow the excess to drip off. Dip the other top half of each donut in the orange glaze allowing the excess to drip off.
- Place on a wire rack and swirl the area between the blue and orange together then top with sprinkles.
- Continue doing this for each donut.
- Allow the donuts to ssit for 15 minutes while the glaze hardens before eating.
Notes
