Baked Lemon Poppy Donuts

These tender baked lemon poppy donuts are absolutely bursting with fresh lemon flavor!

I’ve been participating in the Secret Recipe Club, an event where bloggers are matched up and cook a recipe from their partner’s blog, off and on for a few years now.  It’s always fun to discover new blogs and try out other people’s recipes, but after a lot of thinking I decided that it’s time for me to part ways with the group. My own list of recipe ideas is getting longer and longer and, as it is, I don’t have time to share them all. While the SRC is fun, I need to focus on events like Sunday Supper and Recipe ReDux where I can focus on my own recipe creations.

This month, I was paired up with Lindsay from Life And Kitchen. I don’t think I had ever stumbled across Lindsay’s blog before, but I love it! She has some really great recipes and her photos are so light and fun – I had a really hard time deciding what I wanted to make. I almost  went for her bean and cheese taquitos (you all know I love a good taquito – see here, here, and here), but when I realized that reveal day would fall on my birthday, I decided to make something a little more celebratory.

I browsed her desserts section looking for a good cake or cupcake recipe, but these baked lemon poppyseed donuts kept calling to me.  They seemed so perfect for Spring, plus I could call them breakfast and still have cake later in the day. Yay!

If I blow out candles twice, I get two wishes, right?

I’m a big fan of anything with lemon, and these definitely delivered – between the lemon zest in the batter and the lemon juice in the glaze, they packed quite a punch! The inside was light and fluffy (a little more like a muffin than a donut) and they glazes hardens up to give them that little bit of crispness that can otherwise be missing when you bake donuts instead of frying them.

My only regret is not making more. (I didn’t realize until it was too late that Lindsay made mini donuts, and I don’t have a mini donut pan so mine were full size. She made tons, but I only had enough batter to make 6.)

Baked Lemon Poppy Donuts

Yield: 6

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon reduced fat milk
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 1/2 cup Gold Medal® all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 tablespoon poppy
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly coat a donut pan with cooking spray.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and sour cream. Set aside. In another small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, lemon zest, and poppy seeds. Beat for 30 seconds, or until combined.
4. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk mixture. Stir gently to combine. Add the remaining flour and milk; stir until just combined.
5. Transfer the batter into a pastry bag fitted with a large tip (I used a batter dispenser, which was perfect!). Fill each indention in the donut pan about 1/2 full. Bake until the donuts are slightly browned and spring back when touched, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a rack. Gently remove from the pan.
6. In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and powdered sugar until smooth. Dip the top of each donut into the glaze and dry on a baking rack.