The Original Krispy Kreme Glazed Doughnuts you know and love and now you can make them at home and eat them fresh!
Krispy Kreme Glazed Doughnuts are the original glazed yeast raised doughnut that made Krispy Kreme famous. I’ve been known to make the detour when the “HOT” sign is on at Krispy Kreme but since I can make them at home I’ve become immune to the pull of the brightly lit signs.
If you’ve ever looked up doughnuts on Pinterest you’ve likely seen many Krispy Kreme copycat recipes. I tried 4 of them off Pinterest and was less than enthusiastic. The dough wasn’t fluffy enough, the glaze didn’t harden to a point where it was thin and shattered upon being bitten into. Those qualities are what make Krispy Kreme so special. So I ditched Pinterest and dug a whole lot further. I found a recipe from the Chicago Tribune that they tested and retested six times until it was the flavor we all know and love.
It works! With just a couple of adjustments, these Krispy Kreme Glazed Doughnuts are a GREAT copycat, not perfect mind you as part of the magic lies in their air pressurized extruders, but if you are looking to make this recipe at home, you need to go no further. These doughnuts are best right after the glaze dries!
To get ahead of the questions:
- Yes I totally made these in vegetable shortening (I use Spectrum), that is authentic to Krispy Kreme Glazed Doughnuts. You can absolutely substitute with canola oil if you prefer. Just know the more you change the less “authentic” to expect it to be.
- I used my trusty cast iron skillet with a frying thermometer to maintain the perfect temperature. If you eyeball it instead of using a thermometer you may end up with burnt/raw donuts or oily ones if your oil is too hot or too cold. If you are going through the process of making these definitely grab the tools to make it right.
- You can make any shape you need. I pictured the classic shape, but I also made bars and experimented with maple bars (I failed on that glaze. Don’t worry I will keep trying, purely for scientific reasons of course 😉 )
- These are glazed when warm and eaten within minutes of the glaze hardening. I am also sometimes guilty of eating them before the glaze even hardens. Messy but DELICIOUS.
Ingredients
- Doughnuts:
- 2 packet yeast ¼ ounce packets
- 1/4 cup warm water 105-115 degrees
- 1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk scalded, then cooled
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 cups vegetable shortening or vegetable oil if you would prefer for frying
- Glaze:
- 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup I make my homemade corn syrup in my [url:2]Caramel Popcorn recipe[/url]
Instructions
- Add water and yeast together in a your stand mixer and set aside for 10 minutes.
- Add in the milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening and 2 cups of the flour.
- Turn the stand mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, then add in the rest of the flour and mix until just combined.
- Take the bowl out of the stand mixer and cover with a clean towel to let it rise for 1 hour.
- When you can push down on the dough and your fingerprint stays you're ready to move on to the next step.
- Working with half the dough at a time, roll it to ½ inch thick on a floured surface.
- Dip your doughnut cutter in flour and cut out a dozen doughnuts with each half of the dough and out onto wax paper.
- Let rise, covered, in a warm spot for 30-45 mins (I did 45)
- In a cast iron pan or other deep saucepan, heat the vegetable shortening to 375 degrees.
- Please use a thermometer to measure the temperature as this is a critical step.
- Fry the doughnuts on each side for 90 seconds.
- Drain on a cooling rack until you finish cooking them all then dip into the glaze.
- To make the glaze, add the powdered sugar, milk and corn syrup to a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds.
- Most importantly, eat with reckless abandon.
Nutrition
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ok you added the link and it show’s using butter here on yours you didn’t state butter at all???
I’m so sorry, it looks like your question was caught in my spam filter. I used 1/2 cup shortening instead of butter. Hope this helps clear up any confusion.
Hi,
I tried your recipe today and while I needed to add about an extra cup of flour, allow the dough to rise for around 3 hours and didn’t find the outcome anywhere near the class of Krispy Kreme, it will be a recipe I’ll hold on to as a fabulous home-made doughnut, perhaps with a simple cinnamon & castor sugar coating.
I just wanted to bring to your attention, that in the instructions, point 7 says to cut out a dozen doughnuts from EACH half of the dough, implying 24 doughnuts in total, but right at the beginning of your recipe, it states 12 servings. I managed to get 27 doughnuts from the mixture, but as I said, i added extra flour and my cutters were smaller than yours.
Thank you for sharing.
🙂 Always
M.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the doughnuts and thank you for your suggestion but to clarify, I am assuming that most people will eat 2 doughnuts in one serving…or more if you’re me 🙂 So 12 servings would be around 24 doughnuts. Hopefully this helps with any confusion.
Can I prepare ahead of time and leave it in the fridge ?
No, unfortunately this recipe requires it to be made immediately. Sorry
I’m a little nervous here. ? I currently have the dough rising (45 minutes left, and it seems to be rising nicely!). However, my dough was *very* wet/sticky. It’s almost more like a thick batter than a yeast dough. Is this normal? I’m an experienced baker, and I’ve never worked with such a wet dough. My concern at this point is that when I go to roll them out, I’ll have a gooey, sticky mess on my hands (literally, lol). I plan on flouring the counter heavily, so I’m hoping that will help. The only substitution I made was to use softened butter instead of shortening. Help!!
Forgot to add that I ended up adding one additional cup of flour to the dough. It helped somewhat, but it’s still very sticky. I’ve just read through the comments and it seems that others have had this problem as well. I was hesitant to add more for fear that the dough would be tough. That’s the beauty of Krispy Kreme’s–they’re like a mouthful of air. 🙂 I know when baking bread, a wetter dough gives a fluffier loaf of bread, so I’ll just flour the counter heavily and hope for the best, lol
Your question was stuck in my spam file 🙁 So sorry about that. My suggestion would be to add more flour. The dough shouldn’t have been wet or sticky. Hopefully they turned out well for you.
Hi Sabrina, I would like to make these doughnuts but first, I would like to know if you used oil or solid shortening for the recipe. Can’t wait to try them.
Thanks
I used vegetable shortening but you can absolutely substitute with canola oil if you prefer. Just know that it will be less “authentic”. Can’t wait to hear what you think!
Lol, I Was Making The Dough And Left It To Cool Overnight… The Next Day The Recipe Changed, Wish Me Luck!
So sorry, this was caught in my spam filter. Hope it turned out ok!
If you don’t have a stand mixer with a dough paddle can you use a regular hand mixer
No I would probably hand knead it, I don’t think a hand mixer would build the gluten the same way.
Tried this recipe for a superbowl party. Not good results. Can’t figure out what went wrong. New yeast, new flour. The dough was thick and sticky and never really got a good rise. The instructions could be a little more clear on what the dough consistency should be. I might try these again to see what went wrong. It won’t be for a while…I need to get my blood pressure down.
I’m so sorry you had issues with it 🙁 If you would like to troubleshoot I would be happy to discuss it further. Email me at contact @ dinnerthendessert.com
Making the now
Getting ready to put them in fridge overnight
Well I had the same problem with it not rising everything was just bought. But it takes s little more flour then it says and it was alright then.
Making the now
Getting ready to put them in fridge overnight
Awesome! Come back and let me know what you think!
I believe your recipe may be short 1 cup of flour. If everyone is commenting that it’s a sticky mess then we’re all having the same problem. I added exactly 1 more cup of flour before it finally stuck to the paddle and came out clean when pressing with a finger.
I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond, it went into a spam folder. After some testing, I was able to update the recipe. I realize this doesn’t help you at this point but unfortunately this post isn’t allowing me to update. If you’d like to try again, the edited version is in the above comments.
Hi,
I am trying yo make the donuts. Upon the second rise (after adding the foamy yeast + flour to eggs, sugar, butter), it is not rising hardly at all. I regularly make bread dough and pizza dough from scratch (weekly), so I am not unfamiliar with yeast and rising. Is is just not supposed to rise much?? I even activated more yeast and also added some gluten (1 tsp), in case that was the issue.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Thank you!
I’ve been working on this recipe since the posting. Some people find it works well while others have had issues with rising. Because of that I did more testing with alternate recipes and have updated this one. I am so sorry, I realize that does not help you given the fact you’ve already made the dough, but I can assure you that if you try the newly updated version it works quite well and with no issue rising.
I’ve updated the recipe in the recipe card. The updated recipe has been tested by 5 friends who have never made doughnuts before with success!
Where is your updated recipe? I can’t find it. I would like to give it a try!!
I was finally able to update the recipe card so the way it is written is the update 🙂
Can substitute butter for shortening?
I haven’t tried it because I was wanting to keep it more authentic to the original. If you do try, I’d love to hear how it worked out for you.
Hi
I live in the UK and we do not have corn syrup here. What can I substitute for it?
From what I’ve found, Golden Syrup seems to be a good substitution or others have suggested boiling 2 parts sugar and 1 part water to a syrupy consistency. Once you try, come back and let me know how they turned out!
Tgank goodness they tasted great, because they looked horrible. They totally stuck to the pan and was too loose to pick up after the last rise. What a bummer. So much work.
I’m glad they at least tasted great! I would be happy to trouble shoot more with you and try and figure out what happened. You can contact @ dinnerthendessert . com ?
We do not have Krispy Kreme nearby..AND I’m eating gluten free. Can I use Bobs Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free baking flour to make these? Any way to make theses gluten free?
Hi Christine, I’m so sorry I can’t comment on making them GF and knowing if they are still delicious/will work well. I don’t want you to try them and feel let down. I do love a GF blog called dishingdelish.com I would highly recommend though.
So does this dough not require kneading? Just wanted to double check before making. Thanks!
The stand mixer will do all the work for you 😉
Just to clarify. What type of flour did you use? All purpose, Bread etc. Thanks.
All Purpose Flour 🙂
My donuts were delicious! A little more cakey than Krispy Kreme, but still very good. I will second the comment related to color- my donuts were very dark and I can only attribute that to the oil temperature- next time I will fry at 350. It’s also very tricky to get the donuts off of the parchment/wax paper before frying. Thanks for a great recipe!
So glad you liked them! Yes, the darkness will be temp of oil 🙂
good recipe doughnuts came out well, i found that 375 was to hot for the oil as although cooked it left the doughnuts very dark on the outside but i could play about with the temp in the future. thanks
I’ve had pretty successful frying at 375 but I’ll give it a shot at 350 and report back! Thanks for the feedback. 🙂
Hi, may I ask how heavy are ur eggs? We have weight from 35g to 65g eggs with shell. Thanks
A normal large egg that I use is about 60g.
Is the dough supposed to be sticky? I just wrapped my first attempt in plastic and put it in the fridge, but it seemed very sticky?
It can be a little sticky but if it’s really sticky, I would add a little more flour.
I love copycat!!! I think this recipe was beyond them all! I’m so glad I no longer have to buy expensive donuts as often (no offense Krispy Kreme)
Hello.. Please do not try this recipe. It IS an waste of resources.. I always make donuts using my moms homemade recipe and though they come out nice they never taste like krispy kreme..
These donuts did not rise at all. They were heavy and dense and very much raw after frying at the specified temperature.. Sadly i will have to keep searching for a copycat krispy kreme donut recipe.
Hi Katherine,
First, I am so sorry the recipe did not pan out for you. Speaking from personal experience we have not encountered the same issues you did and the recipe was adapted from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-10-17/entertainment/0110170040_1_krispy-kreme-doughnuts-glazed the Chicago Tribune who did extensive testing to ensure it was as close a copy as promised. I would be happy to try troubleshooting with you if you are interested. With yeast dough sometimes it can be one little thing that can cause the recipe to fail. Would love to help you end your search here. 🙂
The recipe on Instructables worked a lot better for me. I followed this recipe to the T and it was, as some have indicated, heavy dough. I refrigerated over night cut them out and waited for them to rise. They only came up a little so I waited longer, about 80 minutes. My family still enjoyed them but to me they were much more like cake donuts than glazed donuts. I’ll not be spending time with this recipe again. The recipe on Instructables is a lot lighter and takes much less time to complete.
I’m sorry the recipe didn’t work for you. If you’d like, I’d be happy to troubleshoot with you, just send me an email at [email protected].
Hiya, I am a Krispy Kreme fanatic. I think my problem was the yeast. I had fresh yeast but i think the water I used was way too hot. The donuts rose and were very tasty but were not the actual Krispy Kreme taste and consistency. The outside of the donut was not as light as the originals. Mine were more crispy and had a thicker crust on the outside, so the meltiness of the actual Krispy Kreme was lost. I used canola oil which could’ve been a problem with the frying.
Still my family Loooooed them. I was the critical one lol but they also eat anything. . I’ll try them again with the right temperature water with the yeast, different oil and a cast iron pan.
I’m sure your family won’t mind you experimenting as long as they get to eat yummy donuts, lol!
I am going to try this recipe tonight. Scott, what recipe did you use on Instructables?
my wife and I just made these in africa.there’s no krispy kreme here. They came out great even though we didn’t have a thermometer, a mixer or a rolling pin, we just use the beer bottle to roll it out and used the donut holes to test to get the temperature right and of course a wooden spoon and a tired arm. thanks for the excellent recipe.
Fantastic! And I love that all it took was a beer bottle! Thank you for coming back and letting me know you enjoyed it 🙂
I don’t have a stand mixer. Can I still make these?
Yes, you can, it may wear your arm out a bit though. Do you have a hand mixer?
In the steps you said to add cream. But, you did not list cream as an ingredient. Did you mean shortening?
My apologies, I need to change that as it is confusing since cream is a food product. I meant it like cream the ingredients together. I changed it to reflect that. The shortening is actually melted for frying…but you can also substitute vegetable oil for that if you would like.
Im so ready to try this? Would these stay fresh if i made them a day in advanced?
I have kept them for a couple of days. They are never as good as the morning of, but a 7 second zap in the microwave gets them almost back to fresh 🙂 (PS the 7 second thing was a tested exact time. You can tell I have made these too many times! Haha).
How long do you mix dough for? I have an electric kitchenaid stand mixer, I mixed for 6 minutes..dough never really “hugged” paddle, but gluten was definitely activated. I allowed dough to rise for 1 1/2 hours, and it didn’t seem very risen like bread dough does, but more elastic in texture. Any suggestions on how long approximately to mix dough?
Hi Rachel! My first thought is perhaps the flour was a little light if it didn’t quite stick to the paddle. You added the one cup of flour in earlier and the remaining 3 1/2 cups before mixing correct? My gut is saying it probably needed a bit more flour, but I am happy to do some more troubleshooting with you via email. I have a couple of questions about how it went up to that point to be able to give you my best ideas to correct it. 🙂
Isn’t 1 1/4 c. sugar too sweet? And what type of flour did you use, bread flour or AP flour?
Tested it with less sugar and it wasn’t as authentically krispy kreme. Wish I could’ve ditched some sugar though, it is a lot. Also, regular all purpose flour 🙂
will try
I have never had one of these doughnuts but they look great! I would love to also win this money which would be especially helpful this time of year!
I know, I want to enter, haha!
omggg these are one of my down falls! i loveee donuts and these look and sound so amazing.
Thanks so much Dawn!
hey sabrina im wondering if u can still make the donuts wihtout a stand mixer i cant find one anywhere
Sorry this totally got snagged in my spam filter and I just saw it. Yes, you could or you could knead it by hand too. It would just be more elbow grease.
What delish photos. Not sure which I’m more excited about making your Krispy Kreme copycat recipe or entering to win that $135 prize.
I’d like to have a doughnut while perusing Amazon 😉
I am getting hungry just reading this. I love Krispy Kreme donuts!
I love dughnuts and I love Amazon. I need to enter to win!
Good luck!
Sabrina, please I need help!! I made the dough and it didn’t rise, I made all the steps , left it for 2 hours and in the refrigerator overnight but it isn’t rising!! In the making the yeast was bubbly as you said! Please help me
I’d be happy to help you troubleshoot! I’m out of town at a conference, but send me an email at [email protected] and we’ll figure this out together!
We always get Krispy Kreme donuts on vacation because we don’t have any near us. But now that I know I can make them at home…. well this is a whole new world. Hehe!
Awesome! I hope you enjoy them!
These sound like great donuts. We love Krispy Kreme donuts this is a fun option to have them more often!
Thanks Vera!
Ugh, I tell you, I just love, love, love donuts. HA! Thanks so much for the recipe and the change to win
My pleasure 🙂
Krispy Kreme doughnuts are so delicious. I am excited to try this recipe. It is always fun trying copycat recipes.
Oh my family would be excited for this on Christmas morning! I’d be excited that I didn’t have to leave bright an early to enjoy them! 😀
Oh my gosh these sound perfect! We would definitely have to eat some warm. I do love them when they’re flaky too though!
There’s no wrong way to eat a doughnut!
This is my go-to donut and all-time fav! Since I no longer have a Krispy Kreme nearby I will definitely be making use of this recipe.
I’m glad I could bring back some warm memories for you!
My kids just love the Krispy Kreme glazed donuts. I need to get my cast iron skillet out and make some of these.
They’re amazing – you and your kids will love them!
I am totally in your debt for this recipe! This is my favorite donut ever! It would be dangerous for me to make them because I would eat them all myself.
I definitely have to send them away or I eat too many of them too. 🙂
Donuts are a serious weakness of mine. We don’t have krispy kreme here in Canada but we do get prepackaged ones in our stores.. These are the type we have here and they are SO good.
I used to get the packaged ones, but when you try it fresh it is a whole different ballgame.
You know, I really fell like even if I don’t win the giveaway, I still won. I have this fantastic Krispy Kreme copycat recipe to try!
Aww you’re so sweet! I hope you win! 😉
These look incredible! You did an amazing job!
Aww thanks Paige! You’re so sweet!
I love Krispy Kremes and I love copy cat recipes. This is getting printed and put in the ‘must make’ book for sure!
Yay! I hope you love it!
OMG! Krispy Kremes are the best! I can’t wait to give this a try. I can only imagine making “Krispy Kremes” any time I want.
oh yes! I love Krispy Kremes!
Love! We don’t have Krispy Kremes here, so I have no choice but to make my own.
Krispy Kremes are a recent addition to the West Coast too, so it is still a huge novelty to me still.
This recipe did not come out for me at all. The result brought me to tears. The dough did not rise even after sitting for 3 hours trying to fry them was a disaster they never cooked all the way through I’m beyond upset at the horrible recipe
Wow, I am so sorry to hear that. Could you email me so we can troubleshoot? The recipe is based on a heavily tested recipe and I’ve made it many times without fail. Would love to see if we can figure out where it went wrong together. Maybe the yeast wasn’t active? Let’s work on it. contact @ dinnerthendessert.com
No need to add sugar to warm water to dissolve yeast?
No, I’ve never added sugar to my yeast and in the testing the Chicago Tribune did they didn’t either. I referenced my source in the recipe card, but perhaps reading their version can be of help too? http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-10-17/entertainment/0110170040_1_krispy-kreme-doughnuts-glazed.
I hope you make them and love them!
I would say she used the wrong type of flour…usually..that is what happens or the yeast is old.
I think your yeast didn’t activate. Either your water was too cold and didn’t activate the yeast or it was too hot and killed it. Heat the water in the microwave for about 30-45 seconds. Don’t add the yeast to the water until you dip your pinky nuckle into the water and it feels warm to the touch. If its too hot for your finger then it’s too hot for the yeast. When you combine the warm water and yeast also add a tablespoon of sugar for the yeast to feed on. Don’t add salt yet as it tends to hinder yeast’s development. I suggest leaving out the step of adding the cup of flour and letting it sit for an hour before adding everything else. Just do this to activate the yeast (make sure the yeast/water mixture looks foamy and/or bubbly, if you can see all the yeast granules floating or it all sunk and there’s no foam then it didn’t activate and try again, altering the temp of the water). Then just add all the rest of the ingredients at once and mix. I personally melt the butter. Make sure all the liquids you add are not cold and aren’t too hot. You want them to be warm too for the yeast to flourish. I hope that extremely long reply helped somehow 🙂
Your awesome. I never baked with yeast. I wish there was a way to pin your reply. You taught me how to work with something i feared.
Happy Holidays
when letting the yeast rise add a tbsp of sugar so that the yeast will have something to feed into.
Possibly your yeast was too old….or….you killed the yeast by adding TOO WARM (hot) water to the yeast in the first step of dissolving the yeast. I always make sure the yeast is ‘alive’ by….adding warm water to dry yeast, waiting about 5 mins to see if yeast becomes bubbly…if so its alive, if not…its dead.
This happened to us the first time round too – however, we came back to the recipe the next day with more patience and freshly bought yeast – and this time the result was out of this world.
Amazing Recipe 🙂
My guess is that your yeast was bad also HOWEVER you all who hated this recipe may have interpreted the yeast amount wrong it is TWO 1/4 oz pkgs yeast (standard size packets) NOT 2 1/4 ounces which would have been 9 packages of yeast! Obviously not that amount if you are even a basic baker…
Yes, it is definitely 2 (1/4 ounce) packets. I feel awful if the wording of it was confusing for people, I will edit the recipe to make it perfectly clear. Thanks Cindy!