How To Make Homemade Doughnuts

How about if I told you that you could make these Homemade Doughnuts real quick, serving them warm and golden to your family, with no knowledge whatsoever of yeast or dough, no special equipment other than what you likely have on hand, and have them done start to finish in under ten minutes, including prep time?

Melt in your mouth Doughnuts

Here’s How To Make Donuts at Home… You’re Welcome 🙂

We Southerners (and humans in general), love our doughnuts. 

The most important thing about this doughnut making recipe though is that you begin with CANNED BISCUITS. No, they do NOT taste anything like a biscuit when you are done. They taste every bit as melt in your mouth good as they look!

ingredients for melt in your mouth doughnuts

Recipe Ingredients:

  • Vegetable oil
  • Canned biscuits for the doughnuts
  • Butter
  • Cinnamon
  • And sugar for the coating.

TIP: For the biscuits, any style at all will do, just don’t get the flaky layers because they will absorb the oil whereas normal biscuits won’t if we get our oil hot enough before frying them. 

Cinnamon Sugar Mixture
Cinnamon Sugar Mixture
  • In a bowl, stir together cinnamon and sugar and set that aside.
  • Melt a stick of butter in another bowl and set aside as well.  Now they will both be handy as soon as the doughnuts are done.

cutting holes in doughnuts

Making the doughnut hole

Now you can go buy a doughnut cutter or some other fancy finagled device (which I actually have tucked away in the dark recesses of my kitchen drawers) but I like to show y’all how to do things the simple way. I’m a big fan of not over complicating a simple matter. For that very reason, we are going to just use a plain old 20 oz bottle cap to cut the centers of our doughnuts out. 

doughnuts with holes ready for frying

  • Cut out the holes in every doughnut, reserving them to cook along with the doughnuts.

doughnuts prepped for frying

  • Voila, our doughnuts are done.

doughnut holes frying in oil

Pour your oil in a skillet. You need a little less than a half inch.

Heat your oil on medium to medium high for several minutes. We want it to be hot so that our doughnuts are instantly seared when they enter it. This prevents them from absorbing too much of the oil and being soggy.  However, we don’t want it too hot so that the outside gets done before the inside.

TIP: To test my oil, I put a doughnut hole in it. It should sizzle and bubble around the edges and then you know its hot enough. You may need to turn your heat down a bit after testing it with some doughnut holes to see if it is just right.  Once the doughnut hole is golden, remove it and let it cool a minute before taking a bite to make sure it’s fully cooked, not gooey, in the center. 

doughnut frying in oil

Time to cook the doughnuts!

TIP: If your skillet isn’t big enough you may have to do them in batches. By the time you have put them all in, some may already be ready to turn. It takes less than a minute for them to be ready to turn over.

This is how they look, nice and golden.

  • Turn them all over and let them cook until the undersides are this way. All in all, this should take less than two minutes.
  • Remove cooked doughnuts from oil and place on paper towel lined plate or a drying rack if you’re feeling fancy. 
  • Now do the same thing with the doughnut holes.

Doughnut cooked and cooling

  • Here are our cooked doughnuts, now let’s add a little bit of heaven to them!

doughnut being dipped in melted butter

  • The doughnuts should have cooled just enough so that you can handle them but they will still be very warm.
  • Pick each one up and dip both sides in melted butter…

Doughnuts in cinnamon sugar

  • Then press them down into the cinnamon sugar on both sides.
  • Repeat with all doughnuts and doughnut holes.

Melt in your mouth Doughnuts

  • Eat them warm. They will positively melt in your mouth, they are so good!

No one will believe you started out with canned biscuits so lets just keep that little tidbit to ourselves 😉

doughnuts and doughnuts holes

Doughnuts in minutes! What a fun breakfast or evening treat when family is visiting! 

doughnuts and doughnuts holes

Melt In Your Mouth Doughnuts

Learn how to make doughnuts homemade. Simple and easy. No special equipment needed. Serve them warm and golden to your family
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: doughnuts
Servings: 4
Calories: 452kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 large can Grands style biscuits or your preference, just not flaky layers
  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons cinnamon
  • 1 stick butter melted
  • Vegetable Oil For Frying

Instructions

  • Pour oil into skillet to the depth of a little less than 1/2 an inch and heat on medium to medium high for about five minutes. In a bowl, melt butter. In a separate bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar.
  • Using a plastic bottle cap, cut the center out of each biscuit. Drop dough into hot oil, watching carefully and turning when golden. Once doughnuts are golden on both sides, remove to paper towel lined plate. Repeat until all dough is cooked, including doughnut holes.
  • Dip both sides of each doughnut into melted butter, then press both sides into cinnamon sugar mixture. Serve warm.

Nutrition

Calories: 452kcal
Tried this recipe?Mention @southernplate or tag #southernplate!

You may also like these recipes:

Quick and Easy Jelly Filled Doughnuts

Biscuit Pretzels – AMAZING Pretzels From Canned Biscuits!

Puddin’ Poke Cake

 

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350 Comments

  1. My grandma made this recipe only left the biscuits whole and baked them in the oven. I still make Nano’s recipe today. Just open the can of biscuits slop them front and back in the butter. Dip front, back and sides in cinnamon sugar and bake in 350 degree oven. While still hot from the baking, dip in milk and eat. Life doesn’t get any better.

  2. First time making them with my little boys today. Work in progress on shaping them right. Taste awesome though. Thanks for the great recipe.

  3. Hi! I loved reading your story just as much as reading your wonderful easy recipe. I haven’t told my husband and 3 boys I’m making these tonight yet. They will be so pleased. Thanks for pleasing us all 🙂

  4. Loved this, tried it last night, used honey instead of the butter, sugar and cinnamon. I did only have the Pillsbury flaky biscuits, but they worked fine in my deep fryer.

    1. I will add that I think because your pushing a middle out of the biscuit, it probably helped to pull the biscuit together so that the oil wouldn’t get into the flaky insides.

  5. Yikes! I accidentally bought the darn FLAKEY buttermilk biscuits! (Which apparently I was being yesterday at the store…not paying attention) Has anyone tried using these?!? Will they still work? What about baking them instead of frying??
    Thanks in advance for the help 🙂

  6. I made these today for the first time. The donut holes were fine, but the doughnuts were raw in the middle. I couldn’t fry them any longer, as they were getting too dark. My oil was at 350 degrees. Where did I go wrong?

      1. Whenever a doughnut is burned on the outside but uncooked in the middle this means the oil is too hot and they are being fried too fast to be able to cook fully. If you reduce your oil temp and let it cool a bit, they will fry up just fine. You can always put one in and test cook it before doing the entire batch.

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