I don’t know about you, but next to a straight up original glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut, my favorite are the glazed raspberry filled donuts.
And today I am sharing my copycat recipe for these delicious and addictive little babies. Are you ready for this?
For ease of browsing, here are all of my sweet yeast bread recipes in one place. Thanks for stopping by!
If you are a Super Fan of yeast-raised doughnuts, you may also want to check out my key lime pie doughnuts, glazed donuts, or these wonderful pumpkin spice donuts.
Watch my glazed jelly donut web story here.
I made these a few weeks ago and they were so delicious! My adult children said they were the best they’ve had.
Reader Debra
Tools for Doughnut Success
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Before we make these fried donuts, I do have some recommendations for some products that will make your glazed donuts project go smoothly.
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But for breads, especially ones made with very slack, enriched dough, you’ll just get frustrated trying to make them by hand.
I recommend a good, solid stand mixer with direct drive and all metal gearing for years of service.
If you’re going to spend a boatload of cash, you want your investment to last more than a year or two.
And as much as I don’t love having a tool that only does one thing, a donut cutter is actually a really nice tool to own if you’re going to make a lot of yeast doughnuts or even cake donuts.
You can also get a set of graduated cutters and choose the two sizes that give you the doughnut and hole sizes you want.
A Bismarck pastry tip makes filling doughnuts, eclairs and cream puffs a snap. You’ll want a good instant-read thermometer to check the temperature of your oil, and some cooling racks for both cooling and letting the glaze dry.
Donut Dough
Ingredients and Substitutions
Here’s what you’ll need to make your dough.
It’s worth noting that you can use this dough to make any donut you want, from plain glazed to chocolate-dipped to maple-bacon or whatever you can think of.
- flour: This provides the bulk and the gluten structure of the donuts. I recommend all-purpose. If you use bread flour, you’ll have a somewhat stiffer dough (though still slack) and your donuts will be a bit chewier
- sugar: provides some sweetness (but not too much), retains moisture, and assists in browning
- malted milk powder: Adds that delicious malty-donut flavor. If you don’t have malted milk powder, you can substitute dried or instant milk.
- yeast: either active dry or instant will work. If you are using active dry yeast and you’re not sure if it’s still alive, proof the yeast in the water called for along with a little bit of the sugar. Once it gets foamy, add everything to the mixer bowl.
- salt: I use kosher. You can use fine salt as well, but decrease the amount by about 1/3.
- water: makes up part of the liquid in the dough. You could use all water, but then the donuts might not brown as much since it’ll have fewer milk solids in it to brown well
- milk: I use whole milk. You may substitute 2% if you like. Don’t use all milk. Keep the liquid 1/2 milk and 1/2 water so the donuts don’t overbrown (again, because of the milk solids)
- egg yolks: for added richness and color as well as flavor and emulsification of a very wet dough
- vegetable oil: you can substitute with melted butter if you prefer. Either helps to carry flavor and tenderize the dough
Yeast-Raised Doughnut Q & A
These doughnuts are not hard to make, but they do take a bit of time. Allow a good 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. Not too much time, considering you end up with these perfectly glazed, filled-with-jam, pillows of dough.
Donut dough is very soft–it is almost like a super thick batter rather than a bread dough. So it’s not the easiest to work with. Keep your hands oiled (or spray with pan spray) when working with the dough. Also, use a thin coating of oil both on your counter and on top of the dough when rolling it out. To make it even easier to work with, refrigerate the dough overnight before forming your donuts.
Technically you can freeze them filled, but I recommend if you’re not going to eat these babies straight away, you fry them, cool them completely, and then freeze them, well-wrapped in plastic wrap and then in a freezer bag.
They will be fine for a couple of months. When you’re ready to fill them, thaw them, still wrapped, in the fridge overnight and then set them on the counter until they come to room temperature. Then you can use your Bismarck tip to fill them however you like.
Honestly, they will have the best texture if you make, fill, and eat them (or share them) on the same day or within a day or two, but if you have to freeze them, you certainly can,.
Honestly, if you’re here and want to make fried doughnuts, you’re probably not too worried about your carb count! But I have a label with the estimated nutritional value down below the recipe for you.
For reference, according to their website, a Krispy Kreme raspberry donut has 290 calories and 38 grams of carbohydrates.
There’s not anything wrong with buying doughnuts, but know that many commercially-made raspberry donuts have a TON more than just raspberries and sugar in the filling. Read on to see the ingredients in Krispy Kreme’s filling.
I added this question in response to a reader’s question. The answer is yes, you can make and cut the donuts the evening before, spray them with pan spray, cover, and refrigerate them overnight, and then fry them in the morning.
Test a donut to see if it floats in water. It should sit about 1/3 in the water when it’s ready to fry, so if they sink lower, give them 30 minutes or so and test again. Just be sure to blot off the excess water after testing so your hot oil doesn’t sputter and splatter to much when you fry.
Ingredients in Krispy Kreme Raspberry Filling
Note these ingredients, per the Krispy Kreme website
- Water
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Sugar
- Modified Food Starch
- Red Raspberries
- Adipic Acid
- Citric Acid
- Sodium Citrate
- Sodium Benzoate (To Maintain Freshness)
- Salt
- Locust Bean Gum
- Xanthan Gum
- Potassium Sorbate (To Maintain Freshness)
- Artificial Flavor
- Red 40
- Blue 1
You can make your own filling with not much more than
- raspberries
- sugar
- lemon juice
- some cornstarch for thickening
Just cook everything together until thickened, puree in a blender or with an immersion blender, and then cool.
Or you can do what I did and use high-quality, straight-up raspberry jam as filling.
Tips for Filled Donuts Success
While doughnuts aren’t hard to make, you do have to follow some Rules to help ensure success.
Make sure you allow 30 minutes for the second rise–more if it’s cold in your kitchen. Your doughnuts should look puffy and should bob along on top of the oil and not be submerged.
What you’re looking for is a doughnut where 1/3 is submerged and the rest is bobbing above the oil.
When you turn it, another third will get golden brown and delicious, and the middle third will stay pale.
What If My Doughnuts Sink When I Go To Fry Them?
If you go to fry your first doughnut and it is sitting too low in the oil:
- remove the oil from the heat
- take that doughnut out if you can
- allow your doughnuts to rise a few more minutes
A dense doughnut is nobody’s friend.
Coffee and Donuts
There’s a reason why these two go so well together. If you have never tried beaten coffee, I hope you will consider it.
You make it with instant coffee, believe it or not, and it’s creamy and delicious, plus way cheaper than a latte from the coffee shop!
What To Do with Your Leftover Donuts
Make bread pudding! I have a couple of different recipes for doughnut bread pudding. Of course, neither of these recipes uses leftover raspberry donuts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them. Enjoy!
- Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts Bread Pudding this version has coffee in the custard so you get coffee and doughnuts in every bit. Plus the chocolate glaze is No Joke.
- Apple Cider Doughnut French Toast Casserole Just sub your leftover doughnuts for the apple cider doughnuts and keep the spicing neutral. And a handful of chocolate chips wouldn’t be a bad addition, especially if you’re a fan of chocolate and raspberry together.
A Note on Measurements
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
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Glazed Raspberry Filled Doughnuts (Krispy Kreme Copycat Recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 12 oz all purpose flour (I use King Arthur)
- 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons malted milk powder (Gesine uses nonfat dry milk powder. You can use either)
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 oz room temperature water
- 4 oz whole milk
- 2 large egg yolks
- 3 Tablespoons neutral vegetable oil
For the Filling
- 2 18 oz jars seedless raspberry jam well stirred
For the Glaze
- 2 Tablespoons neutral vegetable oil
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- heavy pinch kosher salt
- 1 pound confectioners sugar
- 1/3-1/2 cup very hot filtered water
Instructions
For the Dough
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix together all the ingredients.
- Mix on low speed using the dough hook. After about a minute, increase the speed to medium and knead for 10-15 minutes, or until the dough completely clears the sides of the bowl. It will still be gooey in the bottom, and you think it will never happen, but it will. Give it time.
- Oil your hands well and gather the soft dough into a ball as best you can.
- Oil a bowl and place the dough ball in it. Spray or brush the dough with some oil. Cover and let rise in a warm place (I boil water in the microwave and then move the mug to the back, making room for the covered bowl) until doubled, about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
- Once the dough has risen, gently press out the gases and then roll it to a 1/2″ thickness on a heavily floured surface.
- Using a 3″ cutter, cut circles out of the dough and place them on parchment-lined pans. From the first roll, you will get maybe 11-12 doughnuts. Gathered the scraps together, let them rest covered so the gluten can relax and then reroll to get 4 more rounds for a total of 15-16. You may get one or two more or less depending on how thick/thin you rolled.
- Spray the doughnuts with some oil or pan spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for about 30 minutes or until noticeably puffy.
- In your heavy Dutch oven, bring the oil up to 360F.
- Fry 2-3 doughnuts at a time. Fry on one side for about a minute, until the side that is down is doughnut colored. Flip with chopsticks or whatever is handy and fry another minute until the second side matches the first.
- Remove to a rack with paper towels under it to drain and cool. Let them cool completely before filling and topping. This will take about 20-30 minutes.
- Once cool, fill a pastry bag fitted with a Bismarck tip with the raspberry jam. Insert the tip all the way into one side of the doughnut. Slowly squeeze the bag and fill the doughnut while slowly pulling the tip out of the doughnut. Don’t overfill. You want about 2 Tablespoons of filling per doughnut.
For the Glaze
- Melt the butter and oil together over low heat.
- Whisk in the salt and powdered sugar as well as you can.
- Add 1/3 cup of hot water and whisk until smooth. You are looking for a thin but not watery glaze. If it seems thick to you, add a bit more water, a teaspoon at a time, and whisk again.
To Glaze
- Place a doughnut into the glaze to coat and the flip over. Fish out the doughnut with a fork and tilt the doughnut to let all but a thin coating of glaze run off. The goal is for the glaze to be transparent, It should be almost invisible once it dries. Place on racks to allow the glaze to set up.
- These are best served the day they are made. Refrigerate any leftovers and warm them very gently in the microwave to serve.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
Nutrition
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Can you use canola oil in this recipe? Thank you.
Hi Rebecca! Yes, canola will work just fine. Other options would be sunflower, safflower and “generic” vegetable oil. Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to ask if you have other questions!
As a baker and pastry chef myself I am constantly trying new recipes. I weigh all my ingredients also. I tried this recipe myself this morning and followed your directions explicitly. To say it was sticky is an understatement and I had to throw everything in the garbage and complained about what a waist of ingredients.
I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, Marie. I’d be happy to help troubleshoot, if you’d like. It is indeed a slack dough, but I find it is workable with oiled up or pan-sprayed hands.
I made these a few weeks ago and they were so delicious! My adult children said they were the best they’ve had. I want to make them for a weekend brunch but I don’t want to do all the work the same morning. I’m wondering if I could go through all the steps and after cutting them if I could cover and keep in the fridge overnight. Then take out and let them come to room temperature before frying them the day of the brunch. Can you advise me please?
Thanks!
Hi, Debra! I’m so pleased these were a hit with your family! Yes, you can absolutely refrigerate the cut donuts and fry them up on the day. I’d pull them out maybe 45 minutes before frying. Consider testing 1 straight from the fridge by floating it in a dish of water. When ready to fry, donuts should only sit down in the oil by about 1/3, so check with water to make sure they’re ready to go. Just carefully blot off the water before frying so you don’t get too much sputtering from the hot oil.
I Would Love To Try Some Of Your Recipes!!!!Sincerely Deborah Brown
Wonderful! Thanks for letting me know, and I hope you enjoy them!
I may have over mixed my batter because these didn’t come out as airy and melt away as I’d expected. However my biggest problem was some taste very oily. I’m sure my oil temp was the issue. I used a small deep fryer. If I try again I’ll try the Dutch oven with a thermometer.
I’m sorry they didn’t turn out perfectly for you. Were you able to get them to where they had a pale line around the center? That is what a well-risen donut looks like when fried, and it does take some practice to nail it. In a small fryer, I imagine the oil would cool quickly even when adding just 1 or 2 donuts to the oil, so I bet you are correct there. If you do try again with your Dutch oven, please let me know how they turn out!
Hi Jennifer. I just made these doughnuts for my mom for mother’s day. Followed the recipe as prescribed (except after cutting the doughnuts they rose over night in a cool setting so that I didn’t have to wake up early). They were delicious. Light and fluffy! Thanks for the recipe.
What a lovely gift for your mom, Owen! I’m so glad they turned out well! Take care!
I had a lot of problems with this recipe. I used a kitchen aid stand mixer to mix the ingredients, and I was left with a wet mess after an hour, let alone 15 minutes.
I added extra flour until it was able to be formed into a ball as described. It likely took double the amount stated in the recipe.
The glaze is an INSANE amount for what you need. After brushing over the doughnuts, I was left with a huge pot of leftovers, 10 times more than I’d ever need to use. A pound of sugar completely wasted and it just tastes like butter!
When I finally finished the recipe and went to reap the benefits of my hard work, I found that they in fact taste nothing like krispy kreme donuts, and in fact taste like buttered brioche bread rolls with jam inside. I’m so disappointed in this absolute waste of my time and money under the guise of making delicious donuts.
I hope you read this before attempting the recipe, look elsewhere. These are NOT krispy kreme donuts.
I’m sad and disappointed.
Hi, Sam.
I’m very sorry you did not experience success with this recipe. I would love to help you troubleshoot, and I’m always happy to answer questions should you run into trouble even in the middle of making something.
For my information, did you measure using a kitchen scale? I find using a scale invaluable to getting consistent results most inline with how I wrote the recipe and how it worked for me.
I will refer you to this part of the recipe:
“Mix on low speed using the dough hook. After about a minute, increase the speed to medium and knead for 10-15 minutes, or until the dough completely clears the sides of the bowl. It will still be gooey in the bottom, and you think it will never happen, but it will. Give it time. Oil your hands well and gather the soft dough into a ball as best you can.”
Perhaps I should have been more explicit in saying the dough is very slack. I did describe that it would still be very gooey in the bottom of the bowl and that you would need to oil your hands well so you could gather the soft dough into a ball as best you can. Perhaps I should have been more clear in letting you know this is indeed a very soft dough. Adding all that extra flour would certainly give you an end product that would be much more dense than you’d want, and I can understand how frustrating that is.
As to tasting like brioche, my brioche recipe contains 1 pound, 1 oz of butter and 3/4 pounds of whole eggs. This dough is nowhere near as rich, calling for only 2 yolks and 3 Tablespoons of oil.
As to the amount of glaze, I freely admit it is a lot. I believe that amount of glaze is necessary to be able to dip and flip each doughnut to get it completely coated on all sides without risking smashing the doughnuts in the bottom of the bowl you’re using for glazing. I see you just brushed the glaze on, which is not the method I stated in the recipe. If you change the method, of course you would need less, and I leave those decisions to you. If you are going to deviate from the instructions, it is also quite alright to make less glaze than called for since you’d be using less per doughnut by brushing rather than dunking and flipping.
I do hope this helps some, and again, I am very sorry you had a bad experience making these doughnuts.
I had the same problem. After a while the mixture didn’t form a dough. It was more of a crepe mix than a doughnut one. Buuuut I didn’t use the scale and measured 1 1/2 cups. Terrible mistake!!! 12 weighted oz are different from liquid or dry oz. 12 oz od flour are actually 2 3/4 cups. After I made that adjustment the dough came out perfectly!
I’m so glad you were able to use a scale to get the desired results. I would even call 12 oz flour closer to 3 cups, as I scale my flour at about 4 oz/cup.
Although I always encourage people to get a scale, not many folks have them, especially in the US. Glad you enjoyed the donuts!
These look amazing! I wouldn’t mind giving these a try! I can imagine fresh and hot these taste amazing.
Thanks, Stephanie! All I can say is that I’m really glad they’re gone. Because they’re dangerous! lol