Lucky Charms Donuts

You don't need a holiday to enjoy a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal or a Lucky Charms dessert, but these Lucky Charms Donuts are the perfect St. Patrick's Day treat!

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
• 🗒 Ingredients
• 🍩 How to make Lucky Charms donuts
• 👩‍🍳 How to make marshmallow icing
• ⏲️ How to store donuts
• 🎉 Variations on recipe
• 🍀 More Lucky Charms recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

In second grade, we had this thing on St. Patrick’s Day called The Eating of the Greens. All three classrooms came together and ate about a billion different green foods.

I remember thinking it was SO crazy how many green foods we managed to pack on our plates. Looking back, I now realize it was probably all vegetables, jello, and green-dyed cake.

Making an entire green meal really isn’t that impressive to me anymore. I mean, I drink a green smoothie pretty much every day and eat avocados by the bushel.

An entire meal made of Lucky Charms? Now that would be impressive. So, for St. Patrick’s Day this year, I’m giving you Lucky Charms donuts.

❤️ Why you'll love this recipe

These Lucky Charms doughnuts are baked and yet still incredibly delicious! And since they're baked and not fried, they're also super easy to make.

You can whip up a batch in no time at all for any St. Patrick’s Day festivities you may be attending this year. But they're also perfect for a special March 17th breakfast for the kids and are even acceptable year-round, whenever a Lucky Charms craving hits.

Which is often for me.

🗒 Ingredients

You don't need too many ingredients to make these Lucky Charms donuts... Really, just basic baked donut ingredients and a box of cereal.

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

• Unsalted butter
• Granulated sugar
• Large egg
• All-purpose flour
• Crushed Lucky Charms
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Whole milk
• Vanilla extract
• Marshmallow icing: recipe provided
• Lucky Charms Marshmallows

And here's everything you need for the icing:

• Large egg white
• Corn syrup
• Salt
• Confectioners' sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Cream of tartar
• Hot water

Can we talk about the serious issue with cereal to marshmallow ratio in Lucky Charms? Like, how is this OK? Why haven’t we been actively fighting this? Hello?

Did you know you can actually buy a bag of just Lucky Charms marshmallows??

You don't need to purchase them for these donuts as you will have enough in a box of cereal. But it will prevent you from having to pick them out and ensure you still have plenty for snacking on!

🍩 How to make Lucky Charms donuts

And now, let's bake those donuts!

To start, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and crush the cereal.

I recommend putting your Lucky Charms in a bag to crush them. Make sure you get a semi-reasonable cereal to marshmallow ratio.

Look at those colors!

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with hand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Then mix in the egg until combined

In a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour,  crushed Lucky Charms, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

Stir dry ingredients into the butter sugar mixture, alternating with whole milk, until just combined. Stir in vanilla extract.

Be careful not to over-mix, otherwise you’ll get cake-y donuts, which are generally looked down upon. I really think that's the biggest complaint people have about baked doughnuts.

Lightly spray a doughnut pan with cooking oil and evenly distribute batter into pan, filling cavities almost all the way. I recommend putting batter in a pastry bag and piping it into the pan since the batter is rather thick. You can also use a Ziplock bag with the corner cut off.

Bake the doughnuts at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, until they're starting to turn golden around edges and lightly spring back when touched. 

Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

👩‍🍳 How to make marshmallow icing

Now, you need to get your marshmallow icing on. This is a super quick recipe, but you can make it ahead of time if you want because it keeps for 10 days in the fridge!

In the bowl of a stand mixer beat together egg white, corn syrup, and pinch of salt on high speed for 4-5 minutes until it thickens quite a bit and turns white. Then, mix in the  powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream of tartar on low speed, until combined.

Stir in 2 tablespoon hot water to turn what is essentially marshmallow fluff into marshmallow icing.

When donuts are cooled, ice them… And top with Lucky Charms marshmallows, of course.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! You should be aware that this recipe only makes 6 doughnuts. You may need to times it by 50 in order to keep everyone happy on St. Patrick’s Day.

But then, due to the seriously sucky marshmallow ratio in Lucky Charms, you’ll have to buy a few boxes of the cereal.

Worth it.

⏲️ How to store donuts

These Lucky Charms donuts are definitely best when enjoyed fresh, but if you have leftovers or are making them before an event, you can definitely store them for later.

As long as your room isn't too hot or humid, you can store the donuts in airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

If your kitchen is hot or you're storing for longer than 2 days, keep them in the fridge. However, note that the fridge will likely make the donuts a little denser and will make the marshmallows a bit mushy.

🎉 Variations on recipe

• These would also be totally cute as mini donuts. When baking in a mini donut pan, they'll likely need between 7-10 minutes at 350 degrees.

• If you like the idea of adding chocolate, you can incorporate chocolate chips into the batter or top the donuts with a chocolate ganache instead of marshmallow icing.

• White chocolate chips would also be delicious in the baked donuts. Or you could make a white chocolate ganache.

• Feel free to use a dairy alternative like soy milk, oat milk, almond milk, or coconut milk to substitute the whole milk for a dairy-free version.

We rarely keep cereal like this in our home as it can get seriously dangerous. I’m almost ready for bed now and all I can think about is a giant bowl of Lucky Charms. Already brushed teeth. Must not succumb.

Also, already ate one of these doughnuts tonight.

Also dangerous? You’ll have some of that marshmallow icing leftover after frosting these doughnuts. And eating it with a spoon is pretty much the best thing ever after these Lucky Charms doughnuts.

I would try to justify all of this by reiterating that these doughnuts are baked and not fried. But I think all that really means is that they’re more like cake instead of deep fried dough. But still?

I use a variation of my baked doughnut recipe all the time and it took a long time for me to perfect. I’m a big believer in frying doughnuts, but baking is a lot quicker and less intimidating for many people.

Also, it keeps your house from smelling like oil, which is always a major plus. This recipe is my favorite alternative to frying because it’s not dense or too cakey…. Especially with a good icing on top.

And marshmallows. Always marshmallows.

🍀 More Lucky Charms recipes

I love creating recipes with Lucky Charms cereal and am always coming up with new ideas! Here are some of my favorites:

I am also seriously swooning over this “cake” from Jackie Alpers. Maybe next year!

Do you have any St. Patrick's Day food traditions?

My parents make an incredible corned beef dinner, so I'll be heading there for what I'm sure will be a feast this weekend!

And then I'll be making these corned beef melts with the leftovers. And, of course, Lucky Charms donuts for dessert.

📖 Recipe