How To Make Doughnuts at Home
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Today we’re learning how to make doughnuts at home. It’s so quick and easy to make crisp yet tender cinnamon-sugar doughnuts from scratch with a secret ingredient.
What if I told you that you could make this homemade doughnut recipe real quick, serving them warm and golden to your family, with no knowledge whatsoever of yeast or dough, no special equipment other than what you likely have on hand, and have them done start to finish in under 10 minutes, including prep time?
Sounds too good to be true right? Well, I’m here to show you how to make doughnuts at home quickly and easily with a secret ingredient… canned biscuit dough! A favorite ingredient down South, we’re going to turn out canned biscuits into doughnuts and have doughnut holes to spare! And just in case you’re wondering, no, they do NOT taste anything like a biscuit when you are done. They taste every bit as melt-in-your-mouth good as they look!
All you have to do is deep-fry them in oil, dip them in melted butter, and toss them in cinnamon sugar. 4 ingredients and 10 minutes are all it takes to make a batch of homemade doughnuts from scratch. Music to my ears! We Southerners (and humans in general) love our doughnuts and now you have an easy doughnut recipe to share with your friends and family. Biscuit doughnuts… they’re the new trend 😉.
Recipe Ingredients
- Vegetable oil for frying
- Canned biscuit dough
- Butter
- Cinnamon
- Granulated sugar
How to Make Doughnuts at Home
In a bowl, stir together cinnamon and sugar and set that aside.
Melt a stick of butter in another bowl and set aside as well.
Now they will both be handy as soon as the doughnuts are done.
Making the doughnut hole
Now you can go buy a doughnut cutter or some other fancy finagled device (which I actually have tucked away in the dark recesses of my kitchen drawers), but I like to show y’all how to do things the simple way. I’m a big fan of not overcomplicating a simple matter.
For that very reason, we are going to just use a plain old 20 oz bottle cap to cut the centers of our doughnuts out.
Cut out the holes in every doughnut, reserving them to cook along with the doughnuts.
Voila, our doughnuts are done.
Pour your oil into a skillet. You need a little less than a half inch.
Heat your oil on medium to medium-high heat for several minutes. You want it to reach at least 350 to 375 degrees (use a thermometer to double-check).
We want it to be hot so that our doughnuts are instantly seared when they enter it. This prevents them from absorbing too much of the oil and being soggy. However, we don’t want it too hot so that the outside gets done before the inside.
How to test your oil
I personally put a doughnut hole in mine. It should sizzle and bubble around the edges and then you know it’s hot enough.
You may need to turn your heat down a bit after testing it with some doughnut holes to see if it is just right.
Once the doughnut hole is golden, remove it and let it cool for a minute before taking a bite to make sure it’s fully cooked, not gooey, in the center.
Time to cook the doughnuts!
If your skillet isn’t big enough you may have to do them in batches. By the time you have put them all in, some may already be ready to turn. It takes less than a minute for them to be ready to turn over.
This is how they look, nice and golden.
Turn them all over and let them cook until the undersides are this way as well. All in all, this should take less than two minutes.
Remove cooked doughnuts from the oil with a slotted spoon and place them on a paper towel-lined plate or a wire rack if you’re feeling fancy.
Now do the same thing with the doughnut holes.
Here are our cooked doughnuts, now let’s add a little bit of heaven to them!
The doughnuts should have cooled just enough so that you can handle them but they will still be very warm.
Pick each one up and dip both sides in melted butter…
Then press them down into the cinnamon sugar on both sides.
Repeat with all doughnuts and doughnut holes.
Eat them warm.
They will positively melt in your mouth, they are so good!
No one will believe you started out with canned biscuits so let’s just keep that little tidbit to ourselves 😉.
Biscuit doughnuts, ready in mere minutes!
What a fun breakfast or evening treat when the family is visiting.
Storage
Store leftover doughnuts in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. I recommend reheating them in the oven or air fryer.
Recipe Notes
- For the biscuits, any style at all will do. Just don’t get the flaky layers because they will absorb the oil whereas normal biscuits won’t if we get our oil hot enough before frying them.
- Besides the cinnamon sugar coating, you can cover your biscuit doughnuts in pumpkin spice sugar or simply powdered sugar. Alternatively, swap the granulated sugar for brown sugar.
Recipe FAQs
How long do you fry donuts for?
You only need to fry doughnuts for about 2 to 3 minutes, until both sides are golden brown.
What is the best oil for deep-frying donuts?
The best oil for deep-frying doughnuts is a neutral oil like peanut oil, vegetable oil, or canola oil.
Do you bake or fry donuts?
Most doughnuts (like those from Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kreme) are deep-fried, not baked. If you’d prefer baked to fried donuts, follow this baked donut recipe to make them in the oven.
How do you make glazed doughnuts?
To transform this into a glazed donut recipe, skip the cinnamon sugar and instead drop the cooled doughnuts into a vanilla glaze instead. All you need is confectioner’s sugar, vanilla extract, and milk. For a chocolate glaze instead, add a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the above glaze ingredients and follow the directions in the post.
Check out these other delicious recipes:
Quick and Easy Jelly-Filled Doughnuts
How to Make Funnel Cakes at Home
Easy Fried Pies, Southern-Style
Ingredients
- 1 large can Grands biscuits
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1.5 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 stick melted butter
- vegetable oil for frying
Instructions
- Pour oil into skillet to a depth of a little less than 1/2 an inch and heat on medium to medium-high heat for about five minutes.vegetable oil for frying
- In a bowl, melt butter. In a separate bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar.1 cup granulated sugar, 1 stick melted butter, 1.5 tbsp ground cinnamon
- Using a plastic bottle cap, cut the center out of each biscuit. Drop dough into hot oil, watching carefully and turning when golden. Once doughnuts are golden on both sides, remove them to a paper towel-lined plate with a slotted spoon. Repeat until all dough is cooked, including doughnut holes.1 large can Grands biscuits
- Dip both sides of each doughnut into melted butter, then press both sides into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Serve warm.
Nutrition
Wrote this one down and heading to the kitchen to try them. I make Biscuit Cookies for Christmas and have 4 cans of biscuits left over.
I checked out those biscuit cookies you made, those things were NEAT!!!!!
Let me know how you like these!!
christy these were the best I don’t make sweets often but the doughnuts were great and i couldnt believe they didnt taste like biscuits thanks.
Thank you!!! I’m so glad you liked them!!!!
I really appreciate you commenting and letting me know, too!!!
Elizabeth I know just what you mean! I do all sorts of neat things with canned biscuits but I can still make great ones from scratch! Lol Glad this brought back some memories of your clearly wonderful mother! I am trying to avoid the calories, too…so I’m eating these one bite at a time… ~grins~
Jo Hey! Oh now I need that potato doughnut recipe, I’ve never had those !!
I rock your socks? Wow, I must not be all that bad after all! Lol I’m going to tell my kids that, maybe they’ll start to be a bit more impressed with me….nahhhhh.
Always a divine pleasure to see ya, Jo!
Michelle Okay, now that is WEIRD!! I hear twilight zone music!!
Amber Oooh yeah, girl, melted butter improves everything! Lol hehe, my husband laughed out loud when he read the shamwow comment, too! Lol Those commercials are all over the place right now!! Lol My in laws say the guy reminds them of crazy frog. If you don’t know who that is, go to youtube and do a crazy frog video search. I hope you can get the crazy frog voice out of your head though!
Stephanie aww, I loved reading about your mother’s dishes and glad it brought back some memories. I know with me personally, I feel closer to my kids when I take time to think back to my own childhood.
Now I’m feeling all nostalgic…
Linda I need to do them with a glaze but I just love how the cinnamon and sugar cake onto these when you dip them in the melted margarine. I’ve quite the cinnamon sugar addiction, I’m afraid! Let me know how the sloppy joes turn out!
Mary Hey Mary! Do you ever have folks pronounce your name “Mae-ree”? I have a friend named Mary and I always thought it was sweet how the old folks would say her name that way.
The twirling idea is brilliant. I bet your granddaughter had a great time!!!! It takes so little to create magic for a child and when that yields a delicious result all the better!! Hehe, I don’t know if my way is better…but you do have an excuse to drink a twenty ounce coke if you want!!
Judy oh they will have such fun! You’re a cool grandma, I can tell!!
You know, when my sister was younger, my great grandmother didn’t get around too well but she would let Patti spread peanut butter on Ritz crackers and sandwich them together. Once, Patti was out of school and had to stay with her for the whole day. She and my great grandmother went through an entire box of Ritz letting her do that! She brought them home wrapped in foil and was so proud of her special “recipe”!
Olga ~hands Olga a plate of warm cinnamon sugar doughnuts with a big grin~
April you know what is funny, my mom never made these for me!!!
Lol
Candace okay, now that is the second person who just made these the same time I posted them! We must all be on the same craving wavelength!!
Su Hey, if hot and fresh and made by someone else is an option – I’m in!!
Pamela That is the sweetest memory. Thank you so much for sharing that. I love reading these stories of times past. They may have been harder, but they were so precious at the same time.
Amy I know just the dishes you mean!! Isn’t it cool how well we remember them? I hope you enjoyed your dessert, thank YOU!!!
Darius oh what a neat idea, sounds almost like making beignets! Love it!!!
Mary Hey, why mess with a good thing? I actually use some dishes which were made in the forties as well! Lol
I gotta get past my cinnamon sugar fixation so I can try them glazed! Lol
Tina Ooooooh couldn’t you just lick the pot on that fudge glaze? Lol
Always a treat to see you, Tina!
1stopmom You’re just a baking madwoman! Lol I hope you liked them, let me know! We need to work together again soon!
Angie lol Hang in there, I have some light things coming up this month, Honest!
Michelle OH YAY!!!! I’m so glad you liked them!!! I ate a stale one this morning and it was pretty awesome, too! Lol Thank you SO MUCH for reporting back!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
OMG… I just wanted to share that we made these this morning and they are fantastic.
Thanks so much for sharing…
Michele
Why the doughnuts? and so easy! Oh my goodness – not a good start to the new years resolutions!! 🙂
Oh my goodness those look good. I am sending my husband to the store right now so I can make them. You are the best!!
Christy I love making these donuts and so do the kids. We made some and dipped them in chocolate. I still have to post that recipe. It was paulas chocolate dippy donuts. I think i used your Fudge Glaze from your chocolate pound cake recipe. Ü