Recipe This | Air Fryer Doughnuts From Scratch (2024)

Air Fryer Doughnuts From Scratch. How to cook the most delicious homemade doughnuts in the air fryer. Including our quick dump and go doughnut dough, yummy glaze and how to make your air fryer doughnuts taste better.

Air Fryer Doughnuts From Scratch

Back in early 2016, when Recipe This was just 3 months old, we shared with you our ultimate guide to air fryer doughnuts.

Today we are back with our updated version, lots more pictures and an even better way to make the air fryer doughnut dough.

I remember like it was yesterday the first time we made doughnuts for you in the air fryer. It was the same month I had my first pregnancy scan for Jorge.

I had the sugar cravings and making doughnuts for you was an excuse to eat carbs covered in sugar!

We were the first to show you how to cook air fryer doughnuts from scratch and it was so much fun.

This time around as our family has expanded Jorge is now a food obsessed, kitchen gadgets obsessed four year old.

He has grown up watching his parents cook all kinds of air fryer recipes and when I explained to him that it was doughnuts, he grabbed the rolling pin and couldn’t wait to get started.

Can You Air Fry Doughnuts?

Yes you can! Doughnuts are fantastic for the air fryer. They come out perfectly cooked and then you just need to decide what kind of glaze you want on your doughnuts.

The air fryer also works very well with a range of different dough recipes. I love to use the air fryer for air fryer bread, air fryer biscuits and so many other classics.

Do Air Fryer Doughnuts Taste Good?

Yes they do. They remind me of American doughnuts. I close my eyes and I am back at Dunkin Doughnuts or at Disney World bingeing on them.

How To Make Air Fryer Doughnuts?

The best way to make air fryer doughnuts is to use our bread machine doughnut dough.

You then dump the doughnut dough ingredients into the bread machine and then after it’s done its magic, roll out and cut your doughnuts before loading into the air fryer.

When we originally showed people how to make air fryer doughnuts back in 2016, we didn’t have a bread machine.

But highly recommend it if you want to cook bread and similar products in the air fryer.

Air Fryer Yeast Doughnuts From Scratch

The best type of air fryer doughnuts that you make from scratch will be made with yeast.

Any dried yeast will do the trick and if you are slow with air frying your doughnuts they will continue to rise and be even bigger.

We know this because as food bloggers, there is often a big gap from taking pictures of one batch, to the next and in that time, they had expanded with a lot.

This of course started an argument over who got the biggest air fryer doughnut.

How To Air Fry Doughnuts?

The quick version of cooking air fryer doughnuts goes as follows:

1. Roll out just made air fryer doughnut dough.
2. Use cutters to make into doughnut shapes.
3. Load into the air fryer.
4. Air fry + make glaze.
5. Cover in doughnut glaze and eat.

There is a little more to it than that, but those are the simple basics!

Air Fryer Doughnut Temperature

The recommended air fryer doughnut temperature is 180c/360f. This gives your doughnuts an even cook.

We tried a batch at a higher temperature and found that they were too brown and too low and they are too doughy.

Air Fryer Glazed Doughnuts

I remember watching a TV show about people’s favourite type of doughnuts and the glazed doughnuts won.

I personally love my air fryer glazed doughnuts with some pink icing and hundred and thousands on top.

If you want to glaze your doughnuts this is what I recommend:

• Mix in a bowl 240ml/1 cup of icing sugar with 2Tbsp of whole milk. Mix well with a teaspoon of vanilla essence until you have a thick glaze.
• Spread between different ramekins and add a little food colouring into each and mix well.

• You then have different coloured icing bowls and brush icing over each of your warm doughnuts. Add sprinkles straight away, or they wont stick to the doughnuts.
• Or, if you prefer a thin sticky glaze then double the milk quantity.

Air Fryer Doughnuts Best Tips

As you know, we have made air fryer doughnuts a lot over the years and there has been plenty of trial and error before giving you this recipe.

I wanted to share with you a few of our tips for cooking air fryer doughnuts from scratch so that you don’t have the same issues.

• Size of the cutter – We don’t have a professional doughnut cutter and went with using 2 biscuit cutters of different sizes. But the problem was we went too big with the smaller cutter. This meant that the doughnuts were not wide enough. When cooked they were hard to handle and most of them broke.
• Use a spatula – When you are moving your just rolled and just cut doughnut dough it is easy to break. Use a spatula to scoop them up and move them to the air fryer basket.
• Thick roll – Don’t roll your doughnut dough too thin otherwise they will be too hard to handle and wont be the size of a classic doughnut. See our example below of perfectly rolled doughnuts.

• Spray – Its important to spray your doughnuts with extra virgin olive oil. If you don’t they will look very anaemic and wont have a golden glow.
• Cutting – It’s easier to cut the outside of the doughnuts first, do them all and then cut out the middle. It is great this way for speeding you up.

Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!