Lucky Charms Doughnuts

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

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. Maybe some guacamole? 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.

I also have lots of experience with green food coloring. Once, at my old apartment, I made a recipe with green food coloring. I don’t even remember what it was. All I know is that we found traces of green food coloring in our apartment for months. Like, we had no idea how it kept showing up. On the counter, on the floor, sometimes even on my hands. We finally moved… And after a couple months, it started happening in our new apartment! Chris has basically banned me from green food coloring forever. I tried to blame it on Leprechauns.

So, instead of giving you a green dyed dessert for St. Patrick’s Day this year, I’m giving you Lucky Charms doughnuts. Sure, there’s some green dye in those Leprechaun hat marshmallows, but no green food coloring was used to make these doughnuts. And so far, we have not had any green food coloring incidents in our new house. Phew.

LUCKY CHARMS DOUGHNUTS RECIPE

These Lucky Charms doughnuts are baked (and still delicious!) and 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. And, in my personal experience, almost everyone loves Lucky Charms and will gladly welcome any treats made with them. Also? While they're extra fun during St. Patrick's Day, Lucky Charms are really socially acceptable year-round.

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?

Please let me know if you want to start a petition.

And now, onto the doughnuts! To start, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. 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 doughnuts, 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 doughnuts are starting to turn golden around edges and lightly spring back when touched. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

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 Tbsp hot water to turn what is essentially marshmallow fluff into marshmallow icing.

When doughnuts 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.

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. Though the little Lucky Charms marshmallows are strangely more delicious than any other marshmallows (as I wrote that, I realized I probably should have said “magically delicious.”

If you want to check out any of my other Lucky Charms recipes, I highly recommend this Lucky Charms Ice Cream or this Lucky Charms Martini. However, 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!

📖 Recipe

Lucky Charms Doughnuts

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

5 from 1 vote

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Baked Donuts, Baked Doughnuts, Lucky Charms Desserts, Lucky Charms Donuts, Lucky Charms Doughnuts

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Makes: 6

Author: Sues

Ingredients

• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup crushed Lucky Charms
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• Pinch salt
• ⅓ cup whole milk
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 batch marshmallow icing (recipe below)
• 1 cup Lucky Charms Marshmallows

Marshmallow Icing:

• 1 large egg white
• ½ cup corn syrup
• Pinch salt
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ½ Tbsp vanilla extract
• ⅛ tsp cream of tartar
• 2 Tbsp hot water

Instructions

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray a doughnut pan with cooking oil.
• 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.
• Add the egg and mix to combine.
• In a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, crushed Lucky Charms, baking powder, and salt.
• Stir dry ingredients into the butter sugar mixture, alternating with milk, until just combined. Stir in vanilla extract. Be careful not to over-mix.
• Evenly distribute batter into prepared doughnut pan, filling cavities almost all the way.
• Bake the doughnuts at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, until doughnuts are starting to turn golden around edges and lightly spring back when touched.
• Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Once cooled, frost doughnuts with marshmallow icing and top with Lucky Charms marshmallows.

Marshmallow Icing

• In the bowl of a stand mixer beat together egg white, corn syrup, and salt on high speed for 4-5 minutes until it thickens quite a bit and turns white.
• Mix in the powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream of tartar on low speed, until combined.
• Stir in hot water.
• Marshmallow icing can be stored in airtight container in fridge for about 10 days. This recipe makes enough to frost 4 batches of doughnuts.

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