Cake Mix Donuts

Cake Mix Donuts are the quickest and easiest baked donut recipe you can find! With just a box of the cake mix flavor of your choice (we love Funfetti!) and a few other ingredients, you can make a simply sweet and delicious donut!

Jump to:

• 🗒 Ingredients
• 🍩 Tips for making cake mix donuts
• 🎉 Variations on recipe
• 🥣 More boxed mix recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

One of my favorite things to do is take a boxed mix and figure out how to create fun new recipes with it.

For me, it's a bit like a puzzle waiting to be solved; there's generally lots of trial and error before I get to the best possible treat recipe that all started with a box of mix.

I've made crepes with pancake mix and cookies with muffin mix. I've made banana bread with cake mix and cookies with pancake mix. The combinations are nearly endless and so much fun to create.

But these donuts with cake mix were an especially easy creation. Cake and baked donuts are already pretty similar, after all, and with just a few simple ingredients, you can turn a box of cake mix into a batch of donuts.

🗒 Ingredients

You don't need much to make these donuts... And you can do it all in one bowl!

Here's everything required (be sure to view the recipe card at the bottom of this post for ingredient amounts and full recipe instructions):

• Box cake mix: any flavor you want
• Large egg
• Whole milk
• Vegetable oil

If you want to top them with the easiest frosting ever, you just need:

• Store-bought frosting
• Whole milk

If you prefer homemade, you can use this great homemade vanilla icing recipe.

🍩 Tips for making cake mix donuts

• Mix all the ingredients in one bowl to minimize mess.

• When mixing ingredients together, be sure to get lumps out, but don't over-mix the batter as it will make your donuts tough.

• The recipe written is best with a 15.25 oz. box of cake mix. But if you're using a 13.25 oz. box, you can simply cut 1 tablespoon of the oil (and use a total of 3 Tbsp) and 1 tablespoon milk (and use a total of 11 Tbsp). You may only get 11 donuts.

• Use any flavor of cake mix you want or add in any add-ins you want!

• I highly recommend piping donut batter into the pan as it can be hard to spoon it in. Either use a pastry bag and round tip or put the batter in a plastic bag and cut off the corner.

These cake mix donuts will definitely be cake-ier and fluffier than your typical donuts, but most baked donuts are more cake-like than fried.

And they're absolutely delicious.

• You can make a homemade donut icing or you can simply use a store-bought icing that you thin out with a little bit of milk.

I used store-bought vanilla icing here.

And then I dunked the donuts in it to totally coat the tops.

Of course, I added tons of sprinkles on top, too!

Because what are funfetti cake mix donuts without extra sprinkles on top?

🎉 Variations on recipe

Of course, you can make these cake mix donuts with any flavor of cake mix. But there are other ways to add fun variations to them, too. Here are some ideas:

• Add cocoa powder to a yellow or white cake mix to add chocolate flavor.
• Add chocolate chips or mini chocolate chips.
• Mix sprinkles into the batter.
• Mix fresh or freeze-dried fruit, like strawberries or blueberries into the batter.
• Add lemon juice to yellow cake mix matter.
• Add peanut butter swirl or mini peanut butter cups into chocolate batter.
• Top donuts with a chocolate ganache

It's so easy to make these donuts in a million different ways, you'll be tempted to make a new variety every weekend!

🥣 More boxed mix recipes

I have a whole library of boxed mix recipes with cake, pancake, muffin, and brownie mix. Here are some of my favorite recipes:

I also love these cake mix cookie bars!

If you love the idea of a super quick and easy baked donut, I highly recommend trying my baked donuts with cake mix!

📖 Recipe