These blueberry baked donuts with naturally-colored blueberry glaze make for a healthy homemade snack or dessert sure to impress family and friends!

This month’s Recipe Redux Challenge is all about making flavorful food without the artificial colorings that often dominate during the holidays:

Holiday feast season is upon us. But there’s lots of room on the table for brightly-colored, nutritious foods. Show us your sweet or savory, naturally-dyed holiday fare.

While cookies are the go-to treat in my family during the holidays, donuts and cinnamon rolls also come to mind as my mom would usually buy one (or both) for my brother, cousins, and me to enjoy in the morning. I would have loved to have made some red velvet cinnamon rolls using beets (hopefully next year!), with the new job and being gone so often on the weekends lately, cinnamon rolls just weren’t going to happen. But baked donuts are another matter as they require no yeast or rising time – they’re as easy and quick to make as muffins or other quick breads.

You will need a donut pan for these; however, if you aren’t in love with the idea of a donut, you could experiment with baking them in a muffin tin for a donut-muffin hybrid.

The donut batter is very simple and made in just one bowl to help cut down on the dishes, especially as your dishwashing arm will get it’s workout cleaning up after the glaze. I used fresh blueberries in my donuts as they were on sale and I didn’t want to risk the blueberries bleeding into the batter. However, if frozen blueberries are all you have you can definitely use them, just know that your donuts will likely have more of a blueberry swirl pattern – which actually might be really pretty. Once baked, you can eat them straight away, but it is the holidays after all so I recommend dipping them in a beautiful, naturally-colored blueberry glaze!

The glaze is a bit more involved as you need to simmer the blueberries with lemon juice and water, blend, then stir in powdered sugar. As with all glazes, add the powdered sugar slowly, about ¼ cup at a time until the mixture is just slightly thick – it will be just a tad thinner than normal icing. Once the donuts have cooled, you can dip the tops into the glaze and allow the glaze to set on the donuts, or eat straight away like Bry and I did 😉

Be sure to check out other Recipe Redux members’ naturally-dyed recipes by clicking on the link below the recipe!

So here’s a toast to beautiful blueberry donuts!

Print Recipe

Baked Blueberry Frosted Donuts

These blueberry baked donuts with naturally-colored blueberry glaze make for a healthy homemade snack or dessert sure to impress family and friends!

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time10 mins

Total Time25 mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Baked donuts, Blueberry

Servings: 6

Author: Kelli

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup cane sugar
• 1 egg whisked
• ½ cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• ½ cup fresh blueberries

Glaze:

• 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 tablespoon water
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

• Pre-heat oven to 350F and cover donut pan with baking spray.
• In large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Gradually stir in whisked egg, milk, almond extract, and melted butter just until combined (be careful not to overmix!)
• Carefully fold in blueberries.
• Place batter into Ziploc bag with a corner cut out using scissors (or use a pastry bag). Pipe batter into prepared donut pan. Note, you may have a small amount of leftover batter, which if you put in a mug you can microwave for 20-30 seconds for a treat while you wait for the donuts to bake ;).
• Bake for 9-10 minutes. Allow to cool while you make the frosting.
• To make blueberry glaze, place blueberries, lemon juice, and water in small saucepan over medium heat.
• Once the blueberries begin to break down and burst, transfer mixture to a blender. Blend to combine then pour into a small mixing bowl.
• Stir in powdered sugar in 1/4 cup increments until smooth (you may not end up using all the sugar).
• Dip donuts in the glaze and serve immediately! Once glaze has hardened you can store them using wax paper between layers, but the glaze will start to seep into the donuts after a day or two.
• Enjoy!