Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts, Vegan

Perfectly spiced, moist, and full of flavor, these vegan pumpkin donuts are the perfect fall treat! These dairy-free and egg-free baked donuts can be topped with cinnamon sugar or a tasty glaze with festive seasonal sprinkles.

There are certain things you miss when you make a life-style/dietary change like one does when eating vegan. Especially when it’s the time of year we reminisce about favorite food traditions…like pumpkin pie, pumpkin spiced coffee, pumpkin cookies…AND BAKED PUMPKIN DONUTS!

This recipe is a vegan adaptation of the Baked Pumpkin Donuts found on Sally’s Baking Addiction. Luckily, with a little kitchen magic, we don’t need to give up anything! Chances are, these vegan pumpkin donuts are exactly what you have been looking for – a seasonal yummy treat!

Check out this post with all the vegan pumpkin recipes – both sweet and savory – from Veggie Fun Kitchen!

Reasons you’ll love these baked pumpkin spice donuts! They are:

• Vegan
• Dairy-free
• Egg-free
• Moist
• Spiced just right
• Made easy with a few vegan baking hacks
• Fun to decorate!

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Ingredients needed to make the tastiest vegan baked pumpkin donuts ever!

• ground flaxseed
• plant milk (I used oat milk)
• apple cider vinegar
• all-purpose flour
• white and brown sugars
• pumpkin pie spice and ground cinnamon
• cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, salt
• vegetable oil
• vanilla
• pumpkin puree
• You absolutely have to have a donut pan (affiliate link) for this recipe!

How to make vegan baked donuts

Vegan baking can be a bit of mystery science. I’ve learned a few tricks over the years to make it easy. Follow along with me as we make it easy without giving up flavor or texture!

Step 1: Prep the donut pan and preheat the oven

An absolute must for this recipe is a donut pan! I use this one by Wilton, found on Amazon (affiliate link).

Even though my donut pan is non-stick, I still spritz a little cooking spray so that the baked donuts will just pop out. Wipe away any excess oil from the top of the pan before filling with donut batter and baking.

Step 2: Make a flax egg and sour milk – a vegan baking hack

This is the most important vegan baking hack for making donuts – or any vegan baked goods! We need to replace the egg and will do that by making a flax egg for binding and sour (plant) milk to help the vegan donuts rise.

Simply add the ground flaxseed to a little warm water and the apple cider vinegar to the plant milk and set aside while you are prepping the other ingredients.

Step 3: Prep the dry ingredients

Add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl. It’s really important that all the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed before you add the wet ingredients. Make sure that any lumps of brown sugar are broken up and mixed in. The last thing you want to do is to over-stir this baked donut batter. Making sure the dry ingredients are mixed before adding the wet ingredients is the best way to ensure this. (See below under “wet ingredients”.)

Another vegan baking hack – the cornstarch

Why do we add cornstarch to the dry ingredients? If you have followed me for any amount of time, you’ve likely noticed that I add a little cornstarch to most of my vegan baked goods. Adding cornstarch helps give egg-free baked goods a more tender texture. This is another vegan baking hack I’ve discovered over the years.

Step 4: The Wet Ingredients

The flax egg and sour milk need to sit for at least five minutes. This will take about as long as it takes to mix the dry ingredients and prepare the wet ingredients.

Add all of the wet ingredients along with the flax egg and the sour milk to a medium-sized bowl and mix well.

Step 5: Combine the wet with the dry

Make a little “well” or center spot in the bowl with the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredients all at once and begin mixing.

Once you add the wet ingredients, you will want to just stir to combine well and moisten. If you are stirring too long or too vigorously, you risk over developing the gluten which will cause a tough donut. These donuts are super tender! We like tender baked goods:)

Your mixed batter should be the consistency of a quick bread batter. Thicker than a cake batter but thinner than a soft cookie dough.

If you are having trouble incorporating all of the dry ingredients you will want to add a little more plant milk – one Tablespoon at a time. I have noticed that different cans of pumpkin might have different levels of moisture. That’s just the way it is; but as a result, you’ll need to add a little more moisture to make up for it.

Check out the photo below – I made two batches of donuts with a different can of pumpkin in each. The last batch I made did require me to add in a tiny bit of extra liquid. But what I want you to notice is the different colors in the final product. One is definitely darker than the other. Just goes to show that each can of pumpkin will be unique!

Step 6: Filling the donut pans and baking

You don’t want to just glob the batter into the pans with a spoon. First of all that will be messy and make for ugly donuts. Secondly, it would be tedious and frustrating trying to fill each little donut space that way.

You can easily fill the donut pans with a pastry bag! Fill each little donut space about half-way. Overfilling will cause a messy finished product that will be hard to remove from the pans.

To easily fill the pastry bags, simply place the bag (uncut) into a drinking glass, pointy end down – and then fold the top over. Fill the bag a little over half full. Take it out and gather/close the open top part and then just snip the tip off. You will want the opening to be about the size of your finger-tip.

Step 7: Baking and cooling the donuts

This recipe will make about 18 donuts so you will need to cook it in batches. Put your pan/s into the preheated oven and bake for 13-16 minutes. These baked donuts take exactly 14 minutes in my oven; but every oven is a little different.

You will know they are finished when you do the press test. Just give a baked donut a gentle press with your finger tip. If it bounces back you know it’s ready. If it shows a depressed or indented spot, put them back in for another minute.

When the donuts have finished baking, remove them from the oven and place them on a backing rack for about 10 minutes. The pan should then be just cool enough to touch. Turn the pan upside-down on the rack and give the edge a little whack. The donuts should pop out! These donuts are best iced warm if topping with a glaze or cool if using frosting (see below).

The best step: decorating the donuts!

There are a few options for you to top your donuts: You can ice with frosting, ice with a donut glaze, or sugar the donuts with a sugar/pumpkin pie spice mixture.

Frosting the donuts

If you ice with frosting, you will want to make sure the donuts have been thoroughly cooled. You can use your favorite vegan frosting recipe. My Crazy Good Salted Caramel Date Frosting would be amazing as would my Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (coming soon).

Glazing the donuts

If you choose to glaze the donuts, you’ll want the donuts to be warm when glazing to avoid cracking the glaze. Try my Brown Sugar Cinnamon Glaze, Browned Butter Glaze, or Maple Glaze (coming soon). Or just do a standard glaze with plant milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar.

Spiced Sugar Topping

Make a spiced sugar topping with one cup granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. Mix together in a shallow bowl.

Melt four Tablespoons of vegan butter in a small bowl. Working with one donut at a time, brush the top and bottom of the donut with melted butter. Place it into the bowl with spiced sugar. Gently move around to cover well, then turn over to get to the other side. Use a spoon to cover with the sugar if necessary.

Are sprinkles vegan? Where can I find vegan sprinkles?

Sprinkles are often not vegan but they are an important part of life! Sprinkles might contain a red die made from beetles or “confectioner’s glaze” also made from bug secretions. Read more about it on Taste for Life What to Know About Confectioner’s Glaze.

Luckily, it’s a new world filled with vegan-friendly products!

I find my vegan sprinkles at Baking Time Club. (They also have an Etsy shop). When you shop at Baking Time Club, you can be sure the sprinkles you are getting are vegan! (Not sponsored.)

I’ve also found vegan sprinkles at Fancy Sprinkles. Most of their sprinkles are NOT vegan, but many are. Just read the descriptions, they say if they are vegan. (Not sponsored.)

Sprinkles are so much fun!

How long will these vegan baked donuts keep?

Idk….or I wouldn’t have know till this last weekend when I made three batches for photos.

We eat them pretty much right away so I had not had a true test of time before. Of course, we were not able to eat three big batches of donuts at once! Even we have our limits lol.

I made the donuts on Saturday morning and by Sunday night they were starting to taste a little…dry. By Monday afternoon they were chewy and not edible. So if your crew has more patience than mine and can make 18 donuts last more than a day and a half, just cut the recipe down by one half.

Will the donuts freeze?

I don’t recommend freezing with the glaze on. It will crack and you will be sad. If you freeze then glaze afterward, the glaze will also crack. You can thaw and cover with sugar or regular frosting.

Looking for some other delicious seasonal treats?

• Pumpkin Muffins
• Pumpkin Apple Bundt Cake
• Apple Spice Cake in the Slow Cooker
• Pumpkin Dump Cake
• Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream
• Harry Potter Pumpkin Juice
• Apple Cinnamon Dumplings in the Instant Pot

The printable recipe card for vegan pumpkin donuts