Baked Mini Donuts with Strawberry Frosting

These baked mini cake donuts with strawberry frosting are super cute and easy to make. The frosting is naturally flavored with freeze dried strawberries. Add some pink and white sprinkles for a sweet Valentine’s Day donut treat.

Valentine’s Day Donuts

Want to make sweet, flavorful and adorable donuts for Valentine’s Day? Try this easy baked donut recipe with gorgeous pink hued frosting and fun, festive sprinkles. They boast of sweet vanilla cake and naturally flavored strawberry frosting. Traditional Valentine’s Day sweet treats are chocolate and strawberries. Making these strawberry donuts is a must try. They are baked and there is no need to spend time over the fryer. And the best part is, that the kids can have fun and help with decorating them. My three-year-old niece had fun and loved adding the Valentine’s Day Sprinkles to the donuts. And I loved spending the time with her. 

Baked Mini Donuts with Strawberry Frosting

These are mini cake donuts, since they are made with cake batter and have a cake-like consistency. The cake batter is made with just a few simple ingredients; however, it is the combination of those ingredients that are important. In this recipe we used melted butter and vegetable oil. The fat content is the exact amount that this recipe calls for. Using melted butter adds flavor and using vegetable oil adds moisture to the cake. Most of my batter recipes whether for baked cakes, cupcakes or donuts will contain a combination of melted butter and vegetable oil. Try our Spiced Pear Coffee Cake recipe.

Natural Pink Strawberry Frosting

The frosting is sweet with a strong strawberry flavor. We used Freeze Dried Strawberries to make a natural pink strawberry frosting. Freeze dried fruits have a concentrated flavor and make a fantastic flavoring for frostings or cake batters. We blended the strawberries in a Mini Food Processor until they pulverized into a fine powder. The strawberries became almost the same consistency as the powdered sugar. They had a deep vibrant crimson color and made a perfect natural flavor enhancer and colorant for the frosting. All natural with no artificial coloring or flavoring. How awesome is that?

Ingredients and Variations for this Recipe

Donut Batter

all-purpose flour – use a spoon to add the flour to the measuring cup and level with a butter knife

whole milk – this recipe calls for whole milk, but you can substitute low fat milk to reduce fat and calories

sugar – white granulated sugar works well

unsalted butter – use unsalted regular American butter. Don’t use European butter, it contains more fat and we have not tested it with this recipe. Too much fat in baked products with result in a greasy texture.

vegetable oil – regular vegetable oil, canola oil or light olive oil will work well in this recipe

eggs – room temperature

vanilla extract – use pure vanilla extract, do not use imitation vanilla extract, ever, for anything

baking powder – adds volume to the donuts

fresh squeezed lemon juice – adds acid to the donuts

baking soda – activates the lemon juice in this recipe

salt – balances and enhances all the flavors without add a salt flavor

Strawberry Frosting

powdered sugar – regular powdered sugar works well

melted butter – unsalted melted American butter at room temperature

milk – whole milk, but low fat can be used as well

freeze dried strawberries – pulverized into fine powder similar to powdered sugar using a food processor, we used a mini one for this recipe

How to bake donuts

Donut Batter

Preheat oven to 425°.

Spray Mini Donut Pan with non-stick spray, set aside.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together and place in a large Mixing Bowl.

Add sugar to the sifter flour and mix well. Set aside.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk all remaining ingredients until well combined.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and carefully fold in with Spatula until batter is formed. Don’t overmix.

Place the donut batter into a large plastic bag and cut a hole in one of the corners.

Pipe the batter into the donut cavities halfway.

Bake for about 6-7 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

Let donuts cool completely before frosting them.

Strawberry Frosting with Freeze Dried Strawberries

Making an all-natural, flavorful and vibrant colored frosting for these baked donuts is very easy. You only need a few ingredients and follow these few steps. 

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix together.

Frost donuts and add sprinkles for decoration.

Pink Strawberry Donuts for Valentine’s Day

I hope you enjoyed making these super fun pink strawberry donuts for your special Valentine. If made these, we want to see them!!! Tag us on instagram @thymeofseason. We love seeing your creative imagination at work. View more Divine Doughnut recipes. Also, did you know that National Doughnut Day is celebrated every year on November 5th.