Calling all banana lovers! These easy baked banana bread donuts combine the flavors of a sweet banana bread with a semi-sweet chocolate glaze, and are the perfect snack or dessert!

What do you do when there are overripe bananas in your kitchen? Make baked banana donuts of course! This is one of my son’s favorite things to make. He absolutely loves anything to do with bananas, he loves donuts, and he loves dipping things in chocolate. So pretty much, this is his dream recipe. 

Ingredients

This banana donuts recipe is made from very simple ingredients, most of which are probably sitting in your pantry right now!

For the Banana Donuts

• Butter: The base of these donuts is butter and sugar, which should tell you everything you need to know. Margarine works as a substitute for the butter in this recipe. It makes a very minor difference in the texture, but that’s it!
• White Sugar: Where would baked donuts be without the sugar?. If you want a more dense donut base with deeper flavor, you can sub half the white sugar for light brown sugar. Personally, I love the lightness of the flavor the granulated sugar gives. 
• Over-Ripe Bananas: You want your bananas very ripe. Overripe bananas have a ton of concentrated flavor, so super ripe bananas are what you want to use to create your best baked bananadonuts. You can even add an extra banana if you want to increase the banana flavor.
• Milk: You can use any milk you’d like. I’ve tested this recipe with whole milk, 2%, and skim. I didn’t notice a whole lot of difference between the 2% and skim. The whole milk definitely made for a richer dessert.
• Lemon Juice: This keeps your donuts from getting too brown. They stay a light and lovely yellow!
• Flour: This recipe uses all-purpose flour. I’ve never tested any other kind so I can’t speak to how your donuts might turn out, but if you try something leave a comment and tell us how it went. 
• Baking Powder and Baking Soda: The combination of both of these is the secret to that gorgeous crumb!
• Salt: This brings out the flavors of the banana.

For the Chocolate Glaze

• Powdered Sugar: This is the base of that chocolate ganache glaze. I do not recommend subbing powdered sugar for any other kind of sugar. Your glaze will not have the correct texture, and it will not set up.
• Light Corn Syrup: If you don’t care about having a set-up glaze, you can leave this ingredient out. The corn syrup allows the glaze to “dry” so that you can stack the donuts, or eat them, without getting gooey glaze everywhere. 
• Cocoa Powder: You can use either dutched or natural cocoa powder. For a different flavor, consider using Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa. That deep dark chocolate flavor is to die for!
• Vanilla Extract: This brings out the chocolatiness of the cocoa powder. You can sub this for almond extract, butter flavoring, or even espresso!

Instructions

Step 1 | Wet Ingredients

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine your butter, sugar, bananas, milk, and lemon juice. Beat them until they are well combined. 

Step 2 | Dry Ingredients

Now, add the dry ingredients to your banana mixture and mix them until you have something that looks like banana bread batter. This is your donut batter. 

​Step 3 | Into the Pan

Before you start putting that delicious batter into the pan, you need to prep it — don’t skip this step, or you might end up with a banana bread mess. Using cooking spray, butter, or Crisco, grease each groove in your donut pan. Then, flour the entire pan so that nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to stick!

Once your pan is prepped, you can spoon the batter into the donut mold. You can also use a pastry bag, piping bag, or a ziploc bag with the corner cut off to pipe the batter into the donut form. Don’t overfill the pan — try to get your batter level with the bit that sticks up in the center. 

Step 4 | Bake

Pop that donut pan into the oven and bake these for 10-12 minutes at 350°. You can tell when these are done when the tops of the donuts spring back when you touch them.

Remove them from the oven, loosen the edges with a knife, then turn the pan upside down and tap to remove the donuts from the pan. Let the donuts cool on a cooling rack for 15-20 minutes before you glaze them.

Step 5 | The Glaze

While your donuts are cooling, you can make your glaze. In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the glaze except for the water. Add the water 1 tbsp at a time until you get a somewhat thick glaze. Depending on the dryness of your weather, you may need to add up to 6 tbsps of water to get the right consistency. 

Step 6 | Put It All Together and Enjoy!

Dip the donuts in the glaze, then top with chopped nuts or sprinkles if you’d like. You can eat your homemade donuts immediately, or wait for the glaze to set up, which takes about 30 minutes. 

Variations

This banana donut recipe makes the perfect base for experiementation and variation. Here’s a few things we’ve tried and loved!

• Cinnamon Sugar Banana Donuts: Instead of making the chocolate glaze, brush melted butter on the donuts, then sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar for a simple sweet treat.
• Peanut Butter Banana Donuts: Make this peanut butter glaze and dip your donuts in it. It’s a perfect compliment to the banana flavor!
• Pumpkin Donuts: Mashed bananas and canned pumpkin work very similarly in recipes and can often be subbed for each other. In this case, you can sub the bananas for 1 cup of pumpkin purée. Top it with a brown butter glaze for a delicious fall dessert. 
• Chocolate Chip Banana Donuts: Simply add 1 cup of chocolate chips to the battter. Mini chocolate chips are easier to work with as you try to spoon or pipe the batter into the donut pan. You can glaze them, or choose not to. Either way, you’ve still got a ton of chocolate flavor!