Don't Make Donuts From Scratch, Start With Store-Bought Pancake Mix Instead

When it comes to donuts, one of the reasons many of us choose to buy them from a bakery, donut shop, or even grocery stores where they're packaged is because it's easier than making our own. Between mixing the ingredients, letting the dough rise, frying or baking, and glazing or decorating, homemade donuts can take hours to complete. Fortunately, if you have a box of pancake mix in your pantry, you've already got half of what you need to make a fresh batch of donuts in no time at all. Incidentally, it also makes homemade biscuits in a cinch.

When you mix some milk into boxed pancake mix, you'll create the perfect donut batter that you can cook in a donut pan; roll, cut, and fry; or simply roll into balls to make fried donut holes. You'll need about three cups of mix to one cup of milk, so the batter won't be runny. The consistency is similar to making pancake batter, but it should be a bit stiffer so you can roll it out. The resulting donuts would taste like pancakes, but of course, you can sweeten them up by dunking them in maple syrup. You can treat them like any other donuts and glaze them with a mixture of powdered sugar and milk, chocolate, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, and sprinkles or chopped nuts.

The great thing about making donuts from pancake mix is that you can add extra flavor to the batter by simply mixing in your favorite ingredients. Both fresh and dried fruit are great in these types of donuts, but you should be aware that the juice from fresh fruit could seep out and react with your frying oil, causing pops and burns. As a result, it might be a better idea to use dried or freeze-dried fruit in donuts you plan to deep fry, and save the fresh fruit for oven-baked donuts. Add warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin, or apple spice to the batter, or even cocoa powder for a chocolatey depth. Mix in nuts, shredded coconut, or crumbled cooked bacon.

You can also make filled donuts. After frying and cooling, use a piping bag with a piping tip to pierce a hole in the sides and squeeze a sweet filling into each donut. Fruit jam is a classic choice (we ranked Bonne Maman's preserves to find the best flavors), but hazelnut spread, pistachio cream, caramel, custard, pudding, and marshmallow fluff are also delicious choices.