Bay Infused Blackberry Donuts

The best Blackberry Donuts you'll find! These bay infused blackberry baked donuts are an easy recipe loaded with aromatic bay and fresh blackberry flavor from the gorgeous naturally dyed blackberry glaze.

Jump to:

• Why you'll love these donuts
• A Bit of Background
• Equipment Notes
• Ingredient Notes
• How to Make Bay Cream
• How to Make Bay and Blackberry Syrup
• How to Make Blackberry Baked Donuts
• Tips for Blackberry Glaze
• Storage Advice
• Home Freezing
• Substitutions and Variations
• Baking as a Bundt
• FAQs
• More Blackberry Recipes
• Bay and Blackberry Baked Donuts

Why you'll love these donuts

• Infused with aromatic bay - if you're looking to give a flavor enhancement to your recipe, an infusion of bay is a great option! Subtle and yet striking, the bay gives a warmth and aroma to the baked donut.
• Gorgeous fresh blackberry glaze - just look at that purple perfection! A quick, easy and super flavorful glaze, with an incredible vibrancy.
• Easy and unique - if you're tired of the same old baked donuts, these are guaranteed to liven up your baking!

A Bit of Background

We have a pretty gigantic bay tree in our back garden. Over the past year, it grew out of control and started to block the sunlight to our tiny backyard. A couple of months ago, one of our neighbours helpfully offered to clip it back for us. On a cold, dark December evening, he propped a ladder into the tree, climbed up with a saw and sliced off the worst offending branches. The job was incredibly quick, but succeeded in getting light back into our garden patch. A side effect has been a ridiculous amount of bay, which we will be working through for the foreseeable future. So consider this the first in a series of bay-baking recipes: my blackberry bay donuts!

Equipment Notes

For the easiest time making these fun blackberry and bay donuts, you'll need the following:

• Donut pans - I like to use silicone donut molds as these require minimal preparation before use, no greasing/flouring or spraying with non stick sprays. You can use other donut trays here, but you'll need to prepare them for baking.
• Mixing bowls - you'll want a couple of large mixing bowls for whipping up the batter and a smaller one for the glaze when the time comes.
• Small saucepans - you can make this recipe with just one small saucepan, but you'll need to clean it before reusing. If you have two available, this will limit the washing during the process!
• Hand held electric beaters - I like to use hand held electric beaters for creaming ingredients and find this easier than using a whisk, but you could use a whisk if necessary!
• Spatula - a standard rubber spatula is every baker's best friend!
• Piping bag - a piping bag or ziploc bag that you can make into a DIY piping bag will make your life a lot easier here! Donut batter is very thick and is best piped around the mold rather than spooned or poured in.
• Toothpick - or a skewer to test the doneness.
• Wire rack - for cooling once baked.

Ingredient Notes

To make these bay blackberry baked donuts, you'll need:

• Flour - all purpose flour or plain flour work in this recipe.
• Sugar - granulated sugar or caster sugar.
• Salt
• Baking powder
• Eggs - large eggs, ideally at room temperature for baking.
• Butter - unsalted butter softened at room temperature. You can use salted butter here, but that will add saltiness to the recipe. This can be offset by reducing the amount of added salt, however, it does become difficult to manage adjustments.
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground nutmeg
• Vanilla extract
• Bay-infused heavy cream - one of the main ingredients to this bay filled bake. You'll need heavy cream and bay leaves. This requires a little bit of prep as the cream will need to heat to infuse and then cool before use. The process is detailed below. You can make this recipe with just plain heavy cream and leave the bay to the syrup alone, but infusing the bay will add to the flavor pairings.
• Blackberry and bay syrup - this is the highlight to these donuts and provides the gorgeous glaze color. The recipe for this is detailed below. You'll need blackberries, a bit of sugar and bay leaves.

How to Make Bay Cream

I've been giving a lot of thought to infusing flavors into basic ingredients. Vanilla sugar is a classic example of flavoring a cupboard staple - easily accomplished by adding a scraped out vanilla pod to a jar of sugar. It is a great way to get the most out of your vanilla beans, rather than discarding the pods after use.

For bay, it is not uncommon to add the leaves to a soup or a cream sauce as you cook, infusing the flavor into the dish and then removing the leaves. For these donuts, I opted to try the same fundamental process for the cream that is incorporated into the batter.

Follow these simple steps to make your own:

1. In a small saucepan, over a medium low heat, warm half a cup of heavy cream with about six bay leaves. Tip: to help get the most of the flavor, crease the leaves when adding to the cream, breaking the spine of the leaf to release the aroma.
2. Stir the cream occasionally for about 10 or 15 minutes and avoid bringing the mixture to a bowl.
3. Remove this from the heat and leave the cream to cool, with the leaves still in the liquid.
4. Once at room temperature, remove the leaves and then use the infused cream in the donut mix.

How to Make Bay and Blackberry Syrup

The main event in making these blackberry donuts is the blackberry bay syrup for the glaze. This is a super easy flavor infusion and the blackberries make for an absolutely gorgeous colored glaze!

The process here is essentially just adding bay leaves to blackberries as these cook down into a syrup. Follow these steps:

1. In a small saucepan over a medium heat, add about a cup of blackberries with a tablespoon or two of sugar (to taste) and about four bay leaves. Again, crumple the leaves to help release their flavor and stir these through as the blackberries begin to cook down.
2. Allow the mixture to simmer for about 15 minutes, mashing the blackberries to ensure these release their juices.
3. Once ready, remove from the heat. As this will be used for the glaze, strain the syrup, so that this will be smooth.
4. Set this aside to cool.

This recipe produces more syrup than you need for the glaze, so you will have leftover. It's a delicious addition to frostings or cocktails!

How to Make Blackberry Baked Donuts

These donuts follow the same basic recipe as my other baked donuts, such as my Eggnog Donuts, Pumpkin Donuts or Chocolate Sprinkle Donuts.

Step 1: Start by preheating your oven to 350°F and preparing your donut molds. If using silicone, these won't need to be prepped, but traditional metal pans will need to be well greased and floured.

Step 2: In a medium bowl, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt and spices. These don't need to be sifted for this recipe.

Step 3: Meanwhile, in a separate large bowl, cream together your butter and sugar. These should be light and fluffy after about 2 minutes if using handheld electric beaters.

Step 4: Then, add your eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla.

Step 6: Once well combined, slowly add the dry ingredients, careful to mix fully. I do this with a spatula to avoid overbeating.

Step 7: Finally, slowly add in your bay infused cream – mixing continuously until combined.

Step 8: Transfer your batter into a piping bag or sealable plastic sandwich bag. Cut off the end (or corner) and pipe around your molds until they are about ¾ full.

Step 9: Place your donut molds in the center of the preheated oven and bake for about 20 minutes. You are looking for these to rise a bit and go lightly golden. A toothpick inserted at the thickest part of the donut should come out clean.

Step 10: Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin. If using silicon molds, it is important to let these cool down a bit before unmolding. If the silicon is still warn, this might stick a a bit to your bake.

Step 11: After unmolding, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before glazing.

Step 12: Once cooled, whisk together powdered sugar with some of your bay blackberry syrup. Add the syrup slowly, while stirring, until you reach your desired consistency. Adding extra syrup will result in a runnier glaze, while adding less (or adding more powdered sugar) will thicken it.

Step 13: Holding the donuts by their base, invert these into the glaze, dunking the tops. Then flip back over, allowing the glaze to coat the tops and begin to drip down the sides.

Step 14: Repeat the process of dipping the donuts in the glaze until you're finished.

Tips for Blackberry Glaze

The blackberry glaze here is a simple syrup + powdered sugar glaze. The key to success is in a bit of patience while you mix it together. My top tips:

• You don't need to bother wish sifted the powdered sugar for this glaze. The only exception is if your sugar is particularly lumpy with stiff clumps that don't break down when pressed. If this is the case, you'll want to sift to remove these pesky lumps or they may not melt smoothly into the frosting.
• Measurements with glazes are super subjective - some people will like a thicker glaze, others thinner. Brand of sugar, thickness of syrup, humidity and kitchen temperature can all impact the exact amount of syrup that is required to make the exact consistency of glaze you want. Add the syrup slowly, while stirring and stop when you hit the consistency you are happy with.
• You can easily adjust this glaze if you've over-added syrup. Simply add a bit more sugar (a couple tablespoons).
• If you need to thin the glaze, add a bit more syrup. Add liquid about a teaspoon at a time to avoid overadjustment.
• If you're not a fan of dunking the donuts, you can also use a piping bag to drizzle or an offset spatula to frost.

Storage Advice

These blackberry glazed baked donuts are best fresh! As with any donut - you can't quite beat the fullness of flavor on the day. But, also like other donuts, you may well have some leftovers.

If that is the case, the best way to store these is to wrap well or place in an airtight container. They will keep on a cool countertop for a couple of days. The moistness of the donut due to the cream does mean that they have a tendency to start getting soggy, especially if it is warm out.

Home Freezing

Baked donuts, including these bay infused ones, will freeze fairly well. If doing so, personally I recommend freezing before decorating. Glazes, such as the blackberry one here, don't keep as glamorously in the freezer and have a tendency to become runny in the defrosting process.

If wanting to freeze for later, bake as directed and cool completely. Once cool, flash freeze in a single layer on a lined baking sheet or freezer safe tray. When they have become solid, you can then move them to freezer bags and stack for more efficient storage.

They will keep in the freezer for about 3 months. Defrost at room temperature before consuming (and glaze at time of use).

Substitutions and Variations

Some of my favorite and easy alternatives when baking these donuts:

• Leave out the bay - so, I will go on and on about how good bay is...but, maybe you don't like it or don't have the leaves available for any reason. That's OK! Don't let the bay put you off this recipe, you can simply make as directed, leaving out the leaves and various infusions. If doing so, you don't need to infuse your cream, just use half a cup of plain heavy cream. Similarly the blackberry syrup can be cooked down without the bay leaves for a plain blackberry syrup.
• Add sprinkles - if you're a sprinkle fan, you can dip these donuts into sprinkles for color and crunch. Follow similar process to my Chocolate Sprinkle Donuts or just sprinkle the sprinkles over the top when the glaze is still fresh and sticky.

Baking as a Bundt

As with any baked donut recipe, this could also be made in a Bundt cake pan as a donut cake. The recipe is suitable to a variety of size and shape pans. In all cases, aim to fill the pan about ¾ full as the bake will rise in the oven.

Times will vary dependent on size and shape of pan. If making as one large cake, start checking after about 40 minutes and test with a toothpick or skewer inserted in the middle or thickest part of the cake.

FAQs

More Blackberry Recipes

• Blackberry Cinnamon Rolls
• Lemon Blackberry Cake
• Blackberry Apple Crisp
• Easy Blackberry Jam