Carrot Cake Baked Doughnuts – Pastries Like a Pro

These Carrot Cake Baked Doughnuts are a quick treat for anytime of the day. Light, moist doughnuts are loaded with flavor and have three different finishes or none to choose from. You can serve them as is, with a pecan topping, dipped in cinnamon sugar or fill the hole with cream cheese – your choice.

Top doughnuts: Plain and with pecan topping. Bottom: Dipped in cinnamon sugar and a plain doughnut filled with cream cheese.

Completely made in the processor, you don’t even have to grate the carrots. Just whiz it all together, fill the pans, bake and you’re ready to finish them as you choose or not.

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Here are a few other quick treats: Pumpkin Cake Doughnuts, Apple Fritters with Speculaas Spice, Apple Cake Doughnuts, A Perfectly Easy Basic Muffin Mix, Crumb Topped Orange Date Muffins, and the always popular, Easy PBJ Muffins.

Two Types of Doughnuts

There are basically two types of doughnuts although fritters are sometimes considered doughnuts.

Cake Doughnuts are just that. They are often miniature cakes made in doughnut pans as is this recipe. I simply cut down the carrot cake my bakery made and baked it in the doughnut pans. We used the same recipe to make adorable little carrot cake petit fours that people loved.

Yeast Doughnuts use yeast to rise and are generally fried quickly in oil but can also be baked. They are lighter in texture but take longer due to having to rise. There is an interesting article, Baked or Fried Doughnuts which is based on my Fresh as a Daisy Doughnuts.

The doughnut pan or not

There is a special pan for cake doughnuts made by Wilton. It has six doughnut cavities and comes 2 tins to a package. They are most reasonably priced on Amazon. However, if you don’t have these or there is extra batter, I just put it in standard size muffin pans and it works fine. See the bottom photo.

What makes these so appealing

• Easy is the word made for this recipe.
• Flavor packed and fun to make.
• Great for beginners to baking.
• Fun for children to help with (they can grate the carrots)

Recipe Ingredients

Pecan Filling

FRONT ROW: Melted unsalted butter, vanilla

BACK ROW: Granulated sugar, pecans, all-purpose flour

Carrot Cake Doughnuts

FRONT ROW: Cinnamon, baking soda, honey, salt

MIDDLE ROW: Vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs

BACK ROW: Carrots, all-purpose flour, brown sugar

Cream Cheese Filling

FRONT ROW: Unsalted butter, vanilla

BACK ROW: Cream cheese, powdered sugar

Be sure to see the recipe card below for the exact ingredients & instructions.

Recipe FAQS

These were made in standard muffin tins.

Other Quick Recipes for You

Carrot Cake Baked Doughnuts

Helen S Fletcher

These Carrot Cake Baked Doughnuts are light, moist doughnuts loaded with flavor and have three different finishes or none to choose from. You can serve them as is, with a pecan topping, dipped in cinnamon sugar or fill the hole with cream cheese – your choice.

Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Course Doughnuts

Cuisine American

Servings 17 doughnuts

Calories 273 kcal

Ingredients

Carrot Cake Baked Doughnuts

Instructions 

Pecan Topping

• Place the pecans, flour, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Process until everything is finely cut together.

• Remove from the processor bowl and add 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix with a fork until it forms crumbs. Add a bit more butter if necessary.

Carrot Cake Baked Doughnuts

• Preheat the oven to 350°F.

• Cut the carrots into ½” pieces. Without cleaning the bowl of the processor place them in the food processor and process until very finely cut into very small pieces. Remove from the processor.

• Without cleaning the bowl, place the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in the processor bowl. Pulse several times to mix.

• Add the eggs, oil, buttermilk, and honey to the bowl. Process to mix everything well.

• Return the carrots to the processor and pulse several times to mix everything completely.

• Spray the baked doughnut pans with a non-stick baking release. Spray 5 muffin cups. If using the pecan topping, add it to the pans first. Make sure the pans are well sprayed or the topping will stick. Spoon the carrot cake mixture almost to the top of the doughnut pans. Fill the muffin tins about ¾ full.

• Bake the doughnut pans 13 to 15 minutes until they are set and spring back when lightly touched. Bake the cupcake pans for 15 to 17 minutes.

• Cool for about 5 minutes. Remove from the molds, turning the doughnuts upside down.

• This makes about 17 doughnuts.

Finishing the Doughnuts

• If finishing with cinnamon sugar (combine sugar and cinnamon to taste), coat them immediately while the doughnuts are warm. After a few minutes, repeat the cinnamon sugar.

• For the cream cheese frosting, fit a pastry bag with a #4 open star tip. Fill the bag with the cream cheese frosting and pipe a swirl into the hole of the doughnut or on top of the ones baked in the muffin cups.

Notes

There is always an abundance of photos to guide you in the post above.
As always, I recommend using a scale for accuracy and consistency.  Flour, in particular, is difficult to measure by volume.  For my recipes, I use 140 grams per cup of unsifted  all-purpose, bread or whole wheat flour and 125 grams of cake flour. Others may use different weights so use whatever they suggest.
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The pans for cake muffins are from Wilton.  They come packed 2 tins (12 muffins) together. Amazon. has the best price I saw.
The batter should cover the top of the pan enclosing the hole in the center.  I love this because it allows me to put something delicious in the hole instead of glazing them. 
Standard size muffin tins can also be used.  The yield will be less.
Cut the peeled carrots into about ½ inch slices before processing.
This seems like a lot of cinnamon, but the doughnut is very balanced in flavor. 
 

Nutrition

Serving: 17doughnutsCalories: 273kcalCarbohydrates: 44gProtein: 3gFat: 10gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 3gMonounsaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 33mgSodium: 142mgPotassium: 113mgFiber: 1gSugar: 34gVitamin A: 2402IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 39mgIron: 1mg