Yum… the delicious, aroma of freshly baked doughnuts. Want one? This easy Jam Doughnuts recipe, which incidentally is baked, makes a real treat. They’re easy to make and are healthier than doughnuts which are deep-fried in oil. Happily, these yummy jam-filled, baked doughnuts are made from ordinary everyday ingredients and don’t require any special equipment to create.
Bake a double batch and freeze some for get-togethers or after-school meet-ups.
Why you’ll love this easy baked doughnut recipe
- Whether you spell doughnuts as donuts or doughnuts, they’re delicious.
- They’re healthier than a deep-fried bakery version because they’re baked.
- Sugar-coated on the outside and because you’re making them, you can choose whether to cover them in icing sugar or caster sugar.
- They’re made from sweet buttery dough, making them as good as, if not better than, your bakery favourites.
- No special pans or equipment are needed to make these doughnuts so you’ve no excuses about trying them.
- Jam filled and guess what, you can decide on the flavour. We tend to make strawberry jam doughnuts here but use raspberry jam and yes … you’ve guessed it, you can have raspberry jam doughnuts.
Step by Step Instructions for making this baked Jam doughnut recipe
This easy doughnut recipe uses an enriched bread dough, unlike our Cinnamon Sugar Baked Donuts recipe which uses a batter.
Part 1 – making the doughnuts
The dough uses simple, everyday ingredients that you’ve probably already got in your pantry, such as bread flour, yeast, sugar (caster sugar or icing sugar whichever one you’d prefer to coat them with), an egg, butter, baking powder and milk. Plus if you’re going to fill them with delicious strawberry jam you will need jam and an icing bag or syringe to get the jam into the doughnut.
The dough will need time to rise and double in size, this will probably take about an hour, and a further half an hour to rise again once you’ve divided it into 10 equal-sized pieces. This sounds like a lot of time but you don’t need to sit with it, you can leave it to do its own thing whilst you go off and do other things too.
Part 2 – covering in sugar and making the cavity for the jam
Once the dough has had a chance to rise for a second time. Bake it until nicely golden brown. Take them out of the oven and allow to cool a little. Then insert a medium-sized, pointed kitchen knife into the baked dough, about 3/4 of the way through, and move it very slightly from side to side. This is the cavity which we’ll fill with jam a little later on. Do this to all the doughnuts.
Melt the butter in a bowl and dunk each doughnut into it, to cover it thoroughly. Then roll each doughnut into a bowl of either caster sugar or icing sugar. Set them out on a cooling tray until you’ve covered all of them. These sugar-coated, baked doughnuts are delicious even at this point. If you want to fill them with jam … carry on reading.
Part 3 – filling the doughnuts with jam
Fill your icing bag or icing syringe with strawberry jam and use it to squeeze the jam into the cavity that you made earlier. It’s quite simple to do and you can be firm with the doughnut.
Tips for success with this easy baked doughnut recipe
- Read the recipe.
- Measure the ingredients out carefully. I always use a digital scale when I’m baking.
- Plan ahead so that you can allow time for the dough needs to double in size.
- Sit your dough in a draught-free spot and away from bright sunlight.
- Warm the milk so that it isn’t fridge cold. You should be able to insert your finger into the milk and barely detect that it’s warm. Warmed milk helps the dough to rise.
- Use a smooth textured jam. If you use a jam with pieces of fruit in this is going to be more difficult to pipe into the doughnut as the fruit pieces may clog up the piping nozzle. Sieve your jam if it’s full of seeds or just remove any large fruit pieces with a spoon and pop those back into the pot for another time. This is what I tend to do.
- Ensure that your oven is at the correct temperature before baking the dough.
- Cover the doughnuts evenly in the melted butter so that you get a nice even covering of sugar.
Variations to this baked doughnut recipe
- Use a different flavour jam. There are so many delicious jams available why not use your favourite, this includes sweet spreads such as Nutella, (our recipe for a homemade version – Chocolate and Hazelnut Spread would be nice), lemon curd, Biscoff maybe. Once you’ve mastered the basics you are free to experiment a little.
- Sugarcoat them in icing sugar for a sweet and silky covering.
- Omit the jam – these light-textured, bread-based doughnuts are delicious just dipped in butter and coated in sugar. Sometimes simple is perfect!
F.A.Q’s
Use dried active yeast in this recipe. This is the kind of dried yeast that is suitable for hand baking and does not require activating by mixing it with warm milk or water.
This recipe suggests using strawberry jam but you can use your favourite kind including chia jams or lemon curd. It’s up to you. One thing to think about, however, is that you want a jam without too many fruit pieces in it as these can clog up the icing bag or icing syringe. If your jam does include fruit pieces then either remove them or push the jam through a sieve so that there aren’t any lumps to cause problems.
If you’ve never kneaded bread dough before it is really just a stretching and folding exercise. It develops the gluten in the flour which gives us light and lovely bread. If you’ve never made bread before it’s a skill worth learning and this is a good YouTube video of How to Knead if you’re not sure about what to do.
I find it easier to use a piping syringe when making these donuts but I also believe that you should use what you have to hand. You need a smallish nozzle to insert into the side of the donut. I’ve mentioned the jam before but you need to avoid using jam with large pieces of fruit as they can clog up the nozzle and make filling the doughnuts difficult.
Storing the donuts
Well, now you’ve made these delicious donuts how long will they last? If you don’t manage to devour them all on the day they’re made, they do last quite well for up to 3 days before they become a little dry.
Freezing Baked Donuts
It’s useful to know that if you wish to make a couple of batches of these donuts for a party or any kind of fun gathering you can freeze them. However, you need to freeze them before adding the sugar coating and the jam filling. Freeze them in ziplock bags and they will last for up to 2 months.
To eat: Thaw the doughnuts on the countertop and then proceed to dip them in melted butter and the caster or icing sugar. Once this is done you can fill them with the jam using an icing bag or icing syringe.
If you have any questions about this recipe or any others that you find here on The Simpler Kitchen then please contact us and we’ll do our best to help. We’d also love to see any pictures that you’re happy to share.
If you like this recipe then you may like these;
- Baked Cinnamon Donuts
- Lemon Cookies
- Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Easy Chocolate Lava Cake
- Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
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Easy Baked Jam Doughnuts Recipe
Equipment
- baking tray
- plate
- bowls
- digital scales
- icing bag
Ingredients
Ingredients for the dough
- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt omit if you use salted butter
- 2 teaspoon dried yeast suitable for hand baking
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoon caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup semi-skimmed milk luke warm
- 1/8 cup unsalted butter softened (if you substitute salted butter omit the salt in the recipe.)
For coating the doughnut
- 3/4 cup caster sugar use icing sugar if you prefer
- 3 tablespoon butter melted
Jam Filling for the doughnuts
- 1/3 cup jam if your jam contains fruit pieces you may need to sieve them out so that it can easily flow through the icing 'tube'
Instructions
- Prepare a baking tray by either greasing the surface of the tray or lining it with a strip of baking parchment.
- Soften the butter in a small bowl and warm the milk. The milk needs to be tepid. (So that if you put your finger into the milk it feels neither warm nor cool.)1/8 cup unsalted butter
- Measure the flour, salt (if using unsalted butter), dried yeast, baking powder and caster sugar into a large bowl2 1/2 cups bread flour
- Beat the egg into the warmed milk. 1 egg
- Add the egg to the flour mixture. Add in the softened butter. Stir everything together using either a fork or a spoon until it begins to come together to form a dough.
- Keep working the dough with your hands until all the flour is incorporated and you have a rough-looking dough. The butter will work into the dough easily with very little effort
- Tip the dough onto the work surface and begin to knead it for around 5 minutes until you have a smooth, silky feeling dough. Pop this into a bowl, cover with a cloth and leave it to prove for about an hour or until it doubles in size.
- At the end of this first proofing time, knead it again for about 5 minutes and then divide it into 10 equal-sized pieces.
- Roll the dough pieces in your hands to make a round bun shape, place on a prepared baking tray and cover with a cloth. Leave the dough to rise for a further 30 minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 340F/170C/150C Fan.
- After the 30 minutes have passed, place in the pre-heated oven and set the oven timer for 10 minutes.
- At the end of ten minutes they should be golden brown. If they're not, allow them to cook for a few minutes more until they are.
- Remove from the oven and allow them to cool for at least 8 minutes on a cooling tray.
Preparing to fill the doughnuts with jam
- Pick up one baked donut and using a small kitchen knife with a sharp point insert it into the side of the donut and move the point of the blade from side to side slightly. You're not making the hole where you inserted the knife bigger you're just making a cavity for the jam to go.
- Do this to all the doughnuts.
Sugar coating the doughnuts
- Melt the butter. You can do this in a small saucepan or more quickly in the microwave. 3 tablespoon butter
- Brush (use a pastry brush) the melted butter over each of the cooled doughnuts.
- Add the caster sugar to a plastic food bag 3/4 cup caster sugar. Dip the doughnut into the bag and move it around a little until it is coated completely covered in sugar. Remove it from the bag and set it back on the cooling tray. Do this all of the doughnuts. There maybe some sugar left unused.
Fill the doughnuts with Jam
- Add the jam to an icing bag. Fit the icing bag with a suitable nozzle that can be easily inserted into the cavity that you made earlier.
- Insert the nozzle into the place where you made the hole and squeeze out the jam. Slowly withdraw the piping syringe as you do so and your doughnut is now done.
- Repeat for all of the doughnuts. Your delicious doughnuts are now ready to eat.
Notes
Nutrition
Why not Pin this easy Baked Donuts recipe for later?
Yes, I think I will have a donut or two or maybe a dozen. 🙂 I have a serious weakness when it comes to hot donuts. Thanks for a recipe using simple ingredients.
Dang, this recipe is impressive 🤩! I love baked donuts; I don’t feel too bad when I eat so many of them 😂.
Thank you so much for the easy-to-follow recipe!
I love these! They were absolutely delicious and I will be making them again!
These look so yummy, and I have a bunch of fresh strawberry jam to use up. I can’t wait to try these delicious looking doughnuts. Thanks for sharing
Of course, I want one; you need no ask! Especially with homemade strawberry jam, and fried in butter, yummmmm!
I can’t wait to make these, I know my kids will love these donuts.
Fluffy jelly donuts? Sign me in!! These are just so good!