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Kid-approved and perfect for your dorky goth teenager all year-round, this Halloween donut recipe is your cute & spooky flex. I made these 100% vegan and easy-as-heck to decorate, so you can get them together at a moment's notice anytime Elvira or Art the Clown come to call.
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Why learn to make these vegan Halloween donuts from me? Sorry to toot my own horn, but since you asked… I have won awards for my vanilla bourbon creme brûlée donuts, my vegan apple cider donuts have been featured in the New York Times, I have competed on the Food Network's Donut Showdown, and my vegan gingerbread donuts are just insanely popular around the holidays. Of course, we have churned out many years of very over-the-top decorated Halloween donuts. But I wrote this recipe for you so that cute treats are actually doable, even if you totally suck at decorating.
Like most of my vegan Halloween recipes, the decorations aren't just adorable, they're actually fun to make, and easy enough for your kids (or husband, who already drank too many candy corn martinis) to help you out with.
Besides being super cute, my favorite thing about these donuts is that they are not disgustingly sweet. It's more of a bittersweet chocolate, and perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. I ran out of agave and had to substitute brown rice syrup, but the texture is lovely and I used the baking method since I don't have a doughnut dropper thingy yet. I will definitely make this recipe again, and find other ways to decorate them for different holidays (or even just because!) Thank you Chef Adam 🕷️🕷️🕷️
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🥰Why you'll adore this chocolate Halloween donuts recipe
💪 Vegan AF: Like all of my vegan donut recipes, these contain no cholesterol and cause no avoidable harm to animals, because that stuff is genuinely more terrifying than Halloween is prepared for.
🍫 Double Cocoa Chaos: Dutch-process and black cocoa bring a deep chocolate punch and dramatic Halloween-worthy color without food dye fakery.
👻 Decorate Without Losing Your Mind: These spider and mummy designs look killer, but come together with supermarket basics and zero artistic skills.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all my vegan recipes, these donuts have been tested and adored by a massive crew of hundreds of recipe testers.
🍩 Vegan Halloween donut ingredients
Black Cocoa Powder
We refer to non-dark chocolate cakes as "brown suitcakes" in our house, because chocolatey things that are very light brown super-lame, right? Anyway, this ultra-dark powder turns your donuts nearly noir. I use black cocoa powder in a lot of chocolate recipes like my vegan chocolate babka and flourless chocolate cake for its subtle, Oreo-esque flavor. If you only have Dutch-process, sub it in, but know your donuts will be more brown than black.
Unsweetened Plant-Based Milk
Use soy, almond, oat-your choice, as long as it's unsweetened and plain. My personal fave for baking is soy milk, but you do you, as they say.
Apple Cider Vinegar
This tiny splash of acid plays a major role-it curdles the plant milk just enough to mimic buttermilk, giving your batter added richness and a moist, tender crumb. It's the same method I use in my vegan apple cider donuts, vegan gingerbread donuts, and even my vegan pancakes. Don't freak out, your donuts will not taste sour, because the acidity will be balanced by the sugar.
Powdered Sugar
Here's the spooky thing: not all powdered sugar is vegan. Many brands use bone char filtration (yep, literally using charred animal bones) to whiten the sugar during processing. To keep your donuts actually vegan and not low-key haunted, look for brands that explicitly label their powdered sugar as vegan.
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Chilled vegan cream cheese frosting pipes neatly into mummy wraps once your glaze sets. You should whip up my tasty 4-ingredient vegan cream cheese recipe or use Tofutti and follow my vegan cream cheese frosting recipe, which is also pretty legendary in vegan carrot cake bee tee dubs.
Vegan Candy Googly Eyes
Don't skip the googly eyes-they're the charm bomb on both spider and mummy donuts. Most grocery stores have candy eyes, but many are made with non-vegan confectioner's glaze. Either find a vegan one, or make your own with my vegan royal icing recipe, made a little bit on the thicker side with just a touch less liquid.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
The Home Donut Making Equipment I Love
My #1 fave donut dropper for home use is the Belshaw Type-K. Those are pretty pricey, so a good alternative is this Type-K knock-off by Vevor. The build quality is great, but the size of the donuts are a bit smaller.
A frying thermometer is a must for cooking accurately at the right temperature, even if you cook in a countertop deep fryer.
For roll-and-cut donuts you will need a 3-inch donut cutter.
For most baked cake donuts, you will want to use a donut pan.
Lastly, if you want to avoid using much oil, you can use an air fryer.
🤯Variations
Pumpkin Patch Donuts
Use my vegan pumpkin donuts as a base for this one. You can frost each donut to look like a jack-o'-lantern using tinted vegan royal icing. Go orange for the pumpkin face and black and yellow for the details.
Matcha Halloween Donuts
If you're planning to make Frankenstein-inspired donuts, my vegan matcha donuts are the perfect choice. Just tint using vegan royal icing: black for the hair and bolts, then use candy eyes and jagged icing smiles to bring your Franken-donuts to life.
📖 How to make vegan Halloween donuts
If the photos are just taunting you at this point, you can scroll to the bottom for the printable recipe card. Otherwise, follow along below:
Step One
Whatever You Do... DoNut Fall Asleep:
In a mixer, whisk together the all-purpose flour, Dutch-process cocoa, black cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt.
Step Two
Batter Watch Out:
Add the canola oil, plant-based milk, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, agave nectar, and sugar. Mix using the paddle attachment until smooth.
Step Three
To Bake:
Grease your donut pan and fill each mold with ¼ cup of batter. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10-12 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Step Four
To Fry:
Heat oil to 350°F (175°C). Test drop some batter to check consistency. Fry 4-5 donuts at a time, 2-3 minutes per side, until lightly golden. Drain on a rack.
✅ Use a frying thermometer in your pot of oil to make sure you are somewhere in the range of 350-400°F (175-200°C).
To Decorate as Spider Donuts:
Step One
The Blaire Whisk Project:
In a bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, cocoa powder, black cocoa, and plant-based milk until smooth.
Step Two
Rackula:
Dip each donut into the glaze and set on a wire rack to drip.
Step Three
Eye Know What You Did Last Summer:
While the glaze is tacky, press 2 vegan candy eyes onto the front of each donut.
Step Four
Arachnophobia:
Snap pretzels in half to create 8 legs. Insert 4 into each side of the glazed donut.
✅ Legs go in easier if you poke starter holes first with a popsicle stick, ice pick, or anything slim.
To Decorate as Mummy Donuts:
Step One
How I Met Your Mummy:
Mix powdered sugar and plant-based milk until smooth to make the mummy glaze.
Step Two
Mummy Dearest:
Dip each donut and set it on a rack to drip dry.
Step Three
Eye-vil Dead:
While the glaze is tacky, place 2 vegan candy eyes near the top of each donut.
Step Four
Goodnight Mummy:
Once the glaze is set, pipe chilled vegan cream cheese frosting in bands across each donut, avoiding the eyes.
👉Top tips
- Sift The Cocoa Powders: Black cocoa's moody and broody, but it's also a clumpy menace. Sift it with your flour to dodge bitter bites and streaky batter. Uneven color in Halloween donuts? That's a real horror story.
- Don't Overmix The Batter: Stir only until your batter comes together. Once the dry streaks are gone, step away. Overmixing gives you dense, rubbery pucks, aka donuts, that ghost their rise.
- Cool Before Decorating: Hot donuts will melt glaze into a sugary puddle. Give them time to cool completely, or you'll end up with a sticky slip 'n slide where your decorations should be.
- Use A Squeeze Bottle or Piping Bag for Control: Use a squeeze bottle or piping bag to lay down clean mummy bandages. Especially if tiny humans are helping, this is your best shot at organized chaos instead of sugar graffiti.
- Use a Thermometer and Don't Crowd the Pot: If you're frying, use a frying thermometer to keep your oil locked at 350°F (175°C)-too low and your donuts will get greasy, too high and they'll burn before they cook through. A Dutch oven or any pot with high sides is best to reduce splatter. If you've got a countertop deep fryer, even better. And don't crowd the pot! Frying too many donuts at once will drop the oil temperature and lead to soggy rings of regret.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Add more powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time, until it thickens. If too thick, add a splash more plant milk.
❄️Refrigerating:
Cool completely, then keep them in a non-airtight container (a box is great if you have one) at room temperature for up to 3 days. If you have a very warm house, refrigerate decorated donuts and eat them within 3 days.
🧊Freezing:
Yep! Freeze plain donuts in a single layer on a tray. Once solid, transfer to a container or bag. They keep for up to 1 month. You'll need to decorate them once thawed.
The oil used for frying these Halloween-themed vegan donuts can also be reused for other fried goodies like karioka, zeppole, bomboloni, or vegan apple fritters.
And, come on, you can think outside the box here and use the oil for savory stuff too. Use it to fry tempeh mendoan, vegan fried chicken, Thai spring rolls, vegan drumsticks, or Indian bhaji.
If the oil won't be reused within 24 hours, strain it to remove any food particles that could cause it to spoil more quickly. Allow it to cool completely, then store it in an airtight container in a cool, dark place. Use within a few weeks, and avoid reusing it more than once or twice for health reasons. If the oil darkens in color or smells rancid at all, it should definitely be discarded.
You betcha! Some of our recipe testers did it using silicone donut pans (big shout out to Alexis who air-fry tests a ton of my donut recipes). Here's how to do that:
Alexis says a silicone donut pan fits nicely in her Ninja Foodi Megazone XL Air Fryer. Those with smaller air fryers can cut their silicone donut pans to size.
Preheat your air fryer to 350°F (175°C).
Grease the donut pan before piping on the donut batter.
Spray the top of the donuts with cooking oil before air frying.
Air fry at 350°F (175°C) for 7-9 minutes until just cooked through but not dried out.
Allow the donuts cool on a wire rack for at least 5 minutes before releasing from the molds.
🎃You'll love these vegan Halloween treats too:
Vegan Halloween Donuts
Equipment
- Donut pan (for baking)
- Dutch oven or countertop deep fryer
- donut dropper (for frying)
Ingredients
Chocolate Donut Batter:
- 2 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)
- ½ cup black cocoa powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 cups unsweetened plant-based milk
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup agave nectar
- ½ cup sugar
- 3 cups canola oil if frying
For Spider Donuts:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons black cocoa powder
- ½ cup unsweetened plant-based milk
- 24 pretzels
- 24 vegan candy googly eyes
For Mummy Donuts:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup unsweetened plant-based milk
- 1 ½ cup vegan cream cheese frosting
- 24 vegan candy googly eyes
Instructions
- In a mixer, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, black cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add the canola oil, plant milk, vinegar, vanilla, agave and sugar to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix with the paddle attachment until smoothly combined.
- To bake, load the batter in to a lightly greased donut pan using about ¼ cup of batter per donut, and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10-12 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- For fried donuts: Use a frying thermometer to make sure the oil in your Dutch oven or countertop deep fryer has reached 350°F (175°C). Fill a donut dropper with the batter and drop a test donut or two back into the bowl of batter to make sure it it's dropping uniformly. Working in batches of 4-5 donuts at a time, as not to overcrowd your fryer, drop the batter carefully into the hot oil. Fry each donut for 2-3 minutes on one side, then flip and fry for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through. Transfer the donuts to wire cooling rack thats been placed over a baking pan to drain any excess oil.
To Decorate Spider Donuts:
- Mix the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, black cocoa, and milk together until completely smooth.
- Dip each donut in the glaze and let it drip off on a wire rack.
- While the glaze is still tacky, press two candy eyes onto each donut near the "front" of the donuts.
- Break the pretzels in half to make "legs," and insert four on each "side" of the donuts, giving each 8 legs. You may find that the legs are easier to stick in if you first make a small hole for each one in the side of the donut using an ice pick, the end of a popsicle stick, or another narrow instrument.
To Decorate Mummy Donuts:
- Mix the powdered sugar and milk together until completely smooth.
- Dip each donut in the glaze and let it drip off on a wire rack.
- While the glaze is still tacky, press two candy eyes onto each donut near on another as the "top side" of each mummy's face.
- Once the glaze has fully set, using a piping bag fitted with a small flat tip, make lines of the cream cheese frosting back and forth across each donut, covering most of them almost completely, without covering up the eyes.
Notes
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Paige Davis says
Besides being super cute, my favorite thing about these donuts is that they are not disgustingly sweet. It’s more of a bittersweet chocolate, and perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. I ran out of agave and had to substitute brown rice syrup, but the texture is lovely and I used the baking method since I don’t have a doughnut dropper thingy yet. I will definitely make this recipe again, and find other ways to decorate them for different holidays (or even just because!) Thank you Chef Adam 🕷️🕷️🕷️
Dushenka Silberfarb says
Yummmy!!!!