Donut Hole Eyeballs

You won’t be able to take your eyes off these Donut Hole Eyeballs! All you need is 4 ingredients and 15 minutes to whip up this creepy-cool Halloween treat. Kids and adults both love them, so make them for your next Halloween party and watch them disappear.

 👁 Turn donut holes into creepy Halloween eyeballs

About 10 years ago, I published a Halloween recipe for Donut Hole Monster Eyeballs on SugarHero. Both the doughnuts and glaze were made entirely from scratch, and the recipe produced approximately eleventy bajillion donut holes. I loved those weird misshapen eyes, but if I’m being honest, no one wants to make eleventy bajillion donut holes and then decorate each one individually. I created the recipe, and even I didn’t want to make it again! The concept was solid, but the execution needed serious work.

So this year, I revisited the idea of donut hole eyeballs, but took some major shortcuts to make the recipe fast and easy to pull together. After all, these are the quintessential Halloween party treat, so you need to be able to bust out a ton of them without blocking out a day and a half in the kitchen.

These donut hole eyeballs are made with just 4 ingredients, and use entirely store-bought components so you can spend all your time decorating them, not deep-frying anything! This is a great dessert for little ones to help with, and kids and adults both love them, so they’re perfect for any Halloween party or movie night.

Need more Halloween inspiration? Check out more of my favorite recipes like Zombie Brain Brownie Bites, Bloody Truffles, Red Velvet Hot Chocolate and Melting Chocolate Skulls!

🧾 What You’ll Need

Ingredients

Semi-homemade fans, this is the perfect recipe for you! Grab these simple ingredients from the store and you’re ready to go. (Links are affiliate links and I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.)

• Donut Holes: You need donut holes that are sturdy enough to be skewered and dipped. While I love freshly made donut holes from a donut shop, they can be too light and delicate to work well. I’ve had more success with the boxed grocery store variety, like Entenmann’s brand. The ones I used in the pictures are pumpkin spice flavor, which is why they’re pumpkin colored on the inside.
• Candy coating: We are using bright white candy coating to cover the donut holes, and red candy coating to give them creepy blood vessels (optional but awesome.)
• Candy eyeballs: I like using the large size candy eyeballs, because they look more proportionate, but any candy eyeballs you can find will work. If you can’t find the blood-stained ones I used, check out the Tips section below for some advice on making your own.

Equipment

• Long toothpicks: You can use long toothpicks (4″ or longer) or wooden skewers to dip the donut holes in candy coating.
• Piping bag:A piping bag is a must for piping the thin red blood vessels on the sides.
• Bowl and spatula: You’ll need several microwave-safe bowls to melt the candy coating, and spatulas to stir the colors.
• Styrofoam block: I save large pieces of styrofoam from packages to use as a drying base when dipping lollipops or cake pops. If you don’t have any styrofoam, try a cardboard box, egg carton, or anything else you can stick the donut hole skewers into.

📋 Instructions

Yes, it is this easy! Peep these step-by-step photo instructions, then grab the printable recipe down below.

Skewer the donut holes

• Stick long toothpicks firmly into the center of your donut holes.
• Melt the white candy coating and stir until it is completely smooth and fluid.

Dip the donuts

• Dip a donut hole in the white coating until it is completely submerged. Take it out of the bowl and let the excess drip back into the bowl.
• Stick the toothpick into a foam block to set.

Decorate your eyeballs

• Press a candy eyeball into the top while the coating is still wet.
• Pipe squiggly red lines up the side of the eyeballs to look like blood vessels.
• When everything is set, gently twist the toothpick to loosen it, and slide it out of the donut hole.

💭 Variations

If you want to take your eyeballs up a notch, try one of these variations:

• Eyeball lollipops: Instead of toothpicks, skewer the donut holes with lollipop sticks. First dip the tip of a stick in melted coating, and let it set so the stick is firmly held in place. Then dip and decorate as usual. When everything is set, you can wrap the pops individually for a fun party treat!
• Cake pops: use this same decorating idea with cake pops instead of donut holes. Just as eerie, just as delicious!
• Use them as decorations: you can enjoy these eyeballs on their own, but they also make awesome edible decorations! Put them on top of cupcakes or layer cakes to transform them from cute to creepy.
• Make giant donut eyeballs: why stop at donut holes? Make a mega eyeball instead! Take a powdered sugar donut and fill the center with a gummy or chocolate eyeball. Don’t forget the red blood vessels on the sides!

💡 Tips and FAQs  

🦇 More Spooky Sweets

• Brain Cupcakes
• Red Velvet Marshmallow Spiderweb Cake
• Melting Chocolate Skulls
• Spiderweb Cupcakes and Chocolate Spiders
• Caramel Skull Chocolate Cupcakes