Recipe for fluffy donuts with pink berry glaze. They taste amazing! The naturally dyed pink raspberry icing is bursting with raspberry flavor. No artificial food coloring needed. Just raspberries and sugar.
How to make a pink raspberry glaze?
Making a vibrant pink glaze without food coloring is easy. You simply cook fresh or frozen raspberries with a splash of water until they release their pink juice. Cook them for a few minutes to reduce the juice, then pass them through a sieve.
This way, you get a raspberry juice concentrate, full of raspberry flavor. Mix the raspberry juice with powdered sugar. Dip the doughnuts in and you’ll get pink glazed donuts. You could also call them Homer Simpson donuts ;-) If you prefer an intense purple glaze, simply substitute blueberries for raspberries.
How to make fluffy donuts
This recipe produces light and fluffy donuts. The dough is not too sweet or greasy, it’s soft and fluffy inside. I use my easy go-to yeast dough for doughnuts, which is fool-proof and the key to light donuts.
The dough comes together with a mixer but you can also make the dough by hand, which I have done for the step-by-step pictures below. Deep-frying the dough will yield the best results. I’ve tried baking them in the oven as an alternative, but they would come out less fluffy and rather pale (see pic here). So, I recommend deep-frying them for a perfect light donut.
The bright pink glaze on top makes these donuts perfect. Alternatively, you can dust them with confectioner’s sugar – like the traditional Austrian jam filled donuts.
Step-by-step recipe for fluffy donuts with berry glaze
You can make the dough by hand (see recipe note below) or in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. I recommend the latter since the dough is rather sticky. However, I made the dough by hand for this article because I didn’t own a stand mixer at the time I took the pictures.
Mix all dough ingredients and allow the dough to rise, covered, until doubled in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the room temperature.
Roll the dough to 3/4-inch (2 cm) thickness using a rolling pin. Cut out the donuts with a doughnut cutter. Alternatively, you can use a large circle cookie cutter (or glass) with 3 inch in diameter plus a small cookie cutter (or shot glass) to cut out the center.
Transfer cut-out donuts on two floured baking sheets with room in-between. Cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise at warm room temperature until slightly puffy, about 30-45 minutes.
Heat oil in a pot over medium heat to 338 °F (170 °C). See recipe note in case you don’t have a thermometer. Fry for ½ minute to 1 minute on each side. They should be deep golden all over.
Raspberry Glaze or Blueberry Glaze
For the blueberry glaze, heat blueberries and some water. I also added some sliced ginger to enhance the blueberry flavors. Let berry-mixture reduce, then pass it through a sieve to remove seeds.
For the raspberry glaze, simply use raspberries instead of blueberries and proceed the same way.
In a bowl that’s wide enough to dip a donut in, whisk together confectioner’s sugar and 2 tablespoons raspberry/blueberry juice concentrate, using a hand whisk.
Mix well until smooth. Add another tablespoon of juice if necessary until you get the right glaze consistency. It should be thick but still runny.
Dip each donut into the glaze. Let excess glaze drip off and place onto a rack with parchment paper below the rack. Stir glaze every now and then with a whisk to prevent it from forming a skin.
If glaze is too thick, add more raspberry/blueberry juice (or water), if too runny, add some confectioner’s sugar. If glaze hardens over time, a few seconds in the microwave will make it runny again. Let the glaze set on the donuts and enjoy.
Donuts are best eaten on the same day. If you store them in an airtight container at room temperature overnight, the glaze will get sticky (but donuts still taste good). If you have too many donuts, freeze them without the glaze.
Enjoy!
Are you looking for jam-filled donuts? How about these fluffy Austrian-style jam fille donuts!
Light and fluffy Donuts topped with a bright pink raspberry glaze. No artificial food coloring needed. Frying them makes them soft and fluffy. Note: Do not bake them as they will not turn out well - you would need a different batter for baking (cake batter).
Recipe: Ursula | lilvienna.com
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240 ml) warm milk
- 1/4 cup (55 g) sugar
- 2 1/4 teaspoons (7 g) instant or active dry yeast
- 2 large eggs
- 5.5 tablespoons (80 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) fine salt
- 4 cups (515 g) bread flour (AP-flour works too)
- 4 cups (1 liter) neutral tasting oil with a high smoke point (canola, sunflower), for frying
- Alternative to glaze: confectioner’s sugar for dusting
- 1/2 cup (60 g) fresh or frozen raspberries
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) water
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) lemon juice (if not on hand, substitute water)
- 1 cup (120 g) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
- 3/4 cups (120 g) fresh or frozen blueberries (less for a lighter color)
- 2 slices of fresh ginger (optional but recommended)
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) water
- 1 cup (120 g) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
Instructions
- You can make the dough by hand (see note) or in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. I recommend the latter since the dough is rather sticky.
- In a large bowl of a stand mixer, add warm milk and sugar. Sprinkle instant yeast on top and let sit for 1 minute (or 5 minutes if using active dry yeast).
- Add the eggs, melted butter, vanilla extract, and salt, stirring to combine.
- Add roughly half the flour (simply eyeball it), mix until combined. Add the remaining flour and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes on medium low. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl and be slightly sticky. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons additional flour if necessary.
- Place dough inside an oiled bowl. Turn to coat and cover with a fitting lid or plastic wrap. (At this point you could do an overnight rise in the fridge, see note.) Allow to rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the room temperature.
- Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface, dust the dough with flour, and roll it to 3/4-inch (2 cm) thickness using a rolling pin. Cut out the donuts with a doughnut cutter. Alternatively, you can use a large circle cookie cutter (or glass) with 3 inch (7.5 cm) in diameter plus a small cookie cutter (or shot glass) to cut out the center. Flour the cutters as you go. Either reserve the donut holes or add them to the scrapes. Knead scraps together, and let the dough rest for 5 minutes to relax before re-rolling.
- Transfer cut-out donuts on two floured baking sheets with room in-between. Cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise at warm room temperature until slightly puffy, about 30-45 minutes.
- Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat to 338 °F (170 °C)*. You should have at least 1-2 inch (3-5 cm) of oil in the pot. Meanwhile, line a baking sheet or several plates with paper towels.
- Fry 2 donuts at a time for ½ minute to 1 minute on each side. They should be deep golden all over. If it takes shorter or longer for them to get the desired color, adjust oil temperature. Carefully remove donuts from the oil and transfer onto paper towels. Repeat with the rest of the donuts. Glaze or dust with powdered sugar and enjoy!
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, stir together raspberries, water, and lemon juice. Cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly, until berries are soft and release their juice. Smash raspberries with the back side of a spoon or a spatula.
- Let berry-mixture reduce to about 3 tablespoons (45 ml), then pass it through a sieve to remove seeds. If you have a bit more or less than 3 tablespoons of juice concentrate, don’t worry, you can later add water. Use juice concentrate immediately, no need to cool.
- For the blueberry glaze, stir together blueberries, ginger, and water and proceed as described for the raspberry glaze (steps 10 & 11).
- In a small bowl that's wide enough to dip a donut in, whisk together confectioner’s sugar and 2 tablespoons raspberry/blueberry juice concentrate, using a hand whisk. Mix well until smooth and add another tablespoon of juice if necessary until you get the right glaze consistency. It should be thick but still runny.
- Dip each donut into the glaze. Let excess glaze drip off and place onto a rack with parchment paper below the rack. Stir glaze every now and then with a whisk to prevent it from forming a skin. If glaze is too thick, add more juice (or water), if too runny, add some confectioner’s sugar. If glaze hardens over time, a few seconds in the microwave will make it runny again. Let the glaze set on the donuts and enjoy.
- Donuts are best eaten on the same day. If you store them in an airtight container at room temperature overnight, the glaze will get sticky (but donuts still taste good). If you have too many donuts, freeze them without the glaze.
Notes
Make the dough by hand:
To make the dough by hand, I start by mixing the ingredients in a bowl with a wooden cooking spoon until the ingredients form a shaggy dough. Then, knead by hand in the bowl for a few minutes. Only add additional flour as needed to handle the dough. Transfer to a well-floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough should feel slightly sticky and moist. If it’s awfully sticky, add some flour, tablespoon by tablespoon. After rising, it is much easier to handle.
Make ahead / Overnight rise:
You can do the first rise of the unshaped dough overnight (10-15 hours) in the fridge. Here is how: As soon as you place the dough into a greased bowl to rise, cover it tightly with a fitting lid or plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes at room temperature (it will not rise at all or only a bit), then refrigerate overnight. Before rolling out the dough the next day, allow it to rest at room temperature for 1/2 hour.
* A deep fry/candy thermometer is really handy for heating the oil to the correct temperature. I have made fried donuts without thermometer though. To know when the oil is hot enough, dip a wooden chopstick or wooden skewer into the oil. The oil should start steadily bubbling to be hot enough for frying. If the oil bubbles very vigorously, it is too hot, if there are no or very few bubbles it’s not hot enough.
