Birthday Cake Doughnut Holes

Everyone loves doughnuts, but doughnut holes are so underrated! These Birthday Cake Doughnut Holes take delicious vanilla-packed doughnut holes and cover them in lots of rainbow sprinkles.

(This recipe for Birthday Cake Doughnut Holes was originally published in July 2012, but was updated with new photos in 2020).

It's no secret that the world (or at least my little world) is obsessed with cake batter recipes. From cake batter pancakes to cake batter truffles to cake batter ice cream (did it all start with Cold Stone Creamery??), it's everywhere. And it's delicious. Sometimes I even dream about it.

So, when I decided to make doughnut holes- real doughnut holes (meaning FRIED doughnut holes), I knew they would have to be cake batter flavored. Birthday cake batter to be exact, since there would be lots of rainbow sprinkles involved.

I believe cake batter should be nice and buttery and packed with vanilla flavor, so I used buttermilk and duh, lots of homemade vanilla extract. I packed sprinkles inside the doughnut holes too, making them a bit Funfetti-ish.

How to Keep Fried Doughnuts from Being Too Oily

Obviously fried doughnuts are never exactly a healthy choice. But there are ways to keep your fried doughnuts from being overloaded with oil. The best advice is to make sure your oil is at the right temperature, about 360 degrees F.

If the temperature of the oil drops below 360 degrees, it's much more likely that oil will get absorbed into the doughnuts. At 360 degrees, doughnuts will cook, but excess oil won't be absorbed (when you put your dough in the oil, the steam pushes itself out and creates a seal, not allowing oil to get in). That's why it's important not to overcrowd doughnuts in your skillet; the oil temperature may drop if you add too many.

Of course, you don't want the oil temperature to get too high either as this will cause doughnut holes to brown too quickly without cooking the center. Make sure you continue to observe your oil temperature as you fry doughnuts to ensure it doesn't drop or rise too much.

How to Make Birthday Cake Doughnut Holes

Now that we know how to keep our donuts from getting too oily, let's make these birthday cake doughnut holes! I used a King Arthur's recipe as a base my for my doughnuts, but snazzed it up with vanilla and sprinkles.

Start by bringing your oil to temperature since this will take a little bit of time and you can make the doughnut batter while you wait. Add oil into a 10-inch skillet (or similar size... I feel like it's easier to fry in a shallow pan than deep stockpot), so that you have about an inch of oil. Heat over medium-low heat to bring oil up to 360 degrees.

In the meantime, in a large bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate, smaller bowl, mix together buttermilk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together. Gently stir in the nonpareils.

When the oil is at 360 degrees, drop balls of dough into the oil. The key is to use a very small amount of dough, about a teaspoon. But you can experiment and see what size you like best. Let them cook in the oil for about 1 ½ minutes on one side before flipping and frying for another minute on the other side, until doughnuts are golden.

Remove doughnut holes from oil and place on a paper towel-lined baking sheet to soak up any excess oil.

While your doughnut holes are cooling, whip up your glaze. Place confectioners' sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk in 4 tablespoon buttermilk and vanilla. Add another tablespoon of buttermilk if your mixture is too thick.

In a separate small bowl, pour in remaining 1 cup nonpareils.

When the doughnut holes are cooled, you glaze them. I found it easiest to brush the doughnuts with glaze using a pastry brush. But you can also dunk them right in the glaze; just make sure to let the excess drip off or things will get messy.

And then roll around in the sprinkles until the doughnut hole is completely coated.

Set completed doughnuts on a sheet of waxed paper to dry.

And you're ready to celebrate! Don't have anything to celebrate? That's OK; neither did I. But when is it ever a bad idea to indulge in birthday cake? Or birthday cake flavored treats?

So we'll just celebrate life. And the fact that we're adults. And we can step into our kitchen and fry up birthday cake doughnut holes whenever our little hearts desire. What would your 6-year-old self think of that?

I equate sprinkles with glitter. Both make me wickedly happy and I would throw both them everywhere if I could. Someday I shall have a room where the walls are covered with glitter. But it has to be a secret room in the house that my husband doesn't know about. He is not quite the glitter enthusiast as I am.

And while he may moan and groan when I get out the sprinkles (excuuuse me if I may have dropped an entire container of them on the floor once upon a time), he certainly doesn't complain when I make homemade sprinkle doughnut holes and let him eat as many as he wants.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any equivalent way to charm him with glitter…

Birthday cake doughnut holes (or Munchkins for you New Englanders) are the perfect remedy to a Monday. Who cares if it's actually anyone's birthday? I don't.

Have you fallen into the cake batter craze yet?

If you like these sprinkle donut holes, check out my Glazed Coffee Chocolate Frosted Donuts and my Strawberry Frosted Doughnuts. I also can't wait to make these Raspberry Chocolate Donut Holes from Good Things Baking Co!

📖 Recipe