I guess I’m dubbing myself the allergy friendly, holiday/seasonal donut gal. 😀
I brought you the allergy free pumpkin donut in the fall. For Christmas I brought you the gingerbread donuts with cinnamon buttercream frosting. And now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, I bring you a chocolate donut with strawberry frosting…allergy free of course!
Now, this chocolate donut is not very sweet. If you just love, love, love super sweet stuff this donut may not be for you. It is more reminiscent of dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate, but it’s not for everybody I guess. Besides the chocolate factor, this donut is low in sugar. Now I like that because than I feel a little better about using a lot of powdered sugar in a frosting.
For the frosting I chose to make a strawberry frosting without using food coloring or strawberry flavoring. A “more natural” frosting on a low sugar donut equals a less guilt donut for me!
I thought I would also take a minute to discuss my choice of flour. For probably 80% of my baking projects I use Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour. I like this because it is readily available in most stores and online for anyone. Of all the flour mixes out there this seems to be the most affordable choice with ingredients I prefer. It is also free of xanthan gum or guar gum. I prefer flours without the added gums, simply because I have not had good luck baking with flour blends that already contain a gum. I also find that Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour is the closest in weight to regular wheat flour. It’s becoming increasingly common in gluten free baking to weigh flours rather than measure; so to have my baked goods reach their best potential I thought I should get on that bandwagon.
Honestly, I’m rather tired of chocolate donuts. I do not put baked goods on the blog unless I have tried the recipe several times. This time around it took many takes to get it right. One of the reasons is probably because I decided to take it upon myself and experiment with psyllium husks as a binder rather than xanthan gum. Why? Because xanthan gum is derived from corn so corn allergic people cannot enjoy baked goods with xanthan gum. But another reason I tried psyllium husks is because I bought them for another recipe that, as it turns out, I do not like. And what am I going to do with a 12 oz. container of colon cleanser? Well, try and use it as a binder of course! (Yes, psyllium husks are basically Metamucil. Don’t let that scare you. Eating these donuts will not have you running to the bathroom).
I searched the internet far and wide to find guidelines for using psyllium husks in baked goods. I found some information that basically stated, “Yes, it is a good binder.” But I did not find any comparison ratios to use it replacing xanthan gum. So I had to experiment. But for those of you who want to stick with xanthan gum for this recipe I made the donuts that way too.
However, what I found though was interesting. I didn’t change any of the other ingredients or method, yet, the donuts with psyllium husks were lighter and fluffier. In fact, when making the donuts with the husks I consistently had enough batter for 9 donuts. When using gum, I only had enough batter for 8 much smaller donuts than the 9 fuller donuts. I am not sure why this happened. I am not a psyllium husk or xanthan gum expert by any means. This is just my observation. As you can see in the picture below there is a difference between the two.
Now, after all that, why not drool over this picture once again?
In fact, why not pin it? Or better yet, follow me on Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook. And if you try these donuts, make sure you come back and let me know what you thought of it!
Also shared at Slightly Indulgent Tuesday , Allergy Free Wednesday, Wheat Free Wednesday and Gluten Free Wednesdays. Gluten Free Tuesday.
Chocolate Donuts With Strawberry Frosting
Ingredients:
- Chocolate Donuts:
- 3/4 loosely filled cup (or 90g) of Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp+1/8 tsp. psyllium husks (or 1/4 tsp. xanthan gum)
- 1/3 cup granulated white sugar
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 T. Earth Balance Mindful Mayo (or regular mayo)
- 1/4 cup rice milk (or regular milk)
- 1 1/2 tsp. Ener G Egg Replacer mixed with 2 T. warm water (or one egg)
- 3 T. canola oil
- 1/4 tsp. vanilla
- =
- Strawberry Frosting:
- 1/2 cup dairy and soy free shortening (or regular shortening)
- 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup + 1 heaping T. of strawberry preserves
- 1/4 tsp. vanilla
- 2 T. rice milk (or regular milk)
Directions:
- For Donuts:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- In a large bowl, place the flour, husks or gum, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk well.
- In a liquid measure, whisk the remaining 5 donut ingredients.
- Pour liquid into dry mixture and blend well, making sure to incorporate any flour at the bottom of the bowl.
- Spray donut cavities with cooking spray and fill the cavities with about 2 – 2 1/2 T. of batter.
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Cool in pan for 15 minutes before removing to cooling rack.
- Cool completely before frosting.
- For Frosting:
- In a stand mixer, cream shortening.
- Add powdered sugar and mix.
- Add strawberry preserves and mix well.
- Add vanilla and rice milk and mix until well blended.
Just curious but how are these chocolate when there isn’t any chocolate in the recipe? My son is wanting chocolate donuts and these look delicious just wandering if they taste like chocolate without any cocoa powder or chocolate in the recipe.
Love your blog and your recipes! I really appreciate all the time you put into it.
Thanks,
Glenda
Eek! I forgot to type that in the recipe. I’ve been operating on half speed because I’ve been under the weather and accidently left that out. Thanks for pointing that out! I fixed it now though in the recipe section.
Glad you like the blog. Thanks for telling me so. I really appreciate it.
Can you use Spelt flour in place of the Bobs Red Mill Gluten Free mix? My son is allergic to wheat but can tolerate Spelt.
Thanks!
I have never baked with spelt, so I’m not completely sure. But I do know that you would need to omit the xanthan gum and if you have a kitchen scale I’d weigh the flour to 90g as the recipe states. Good luck!
YUM!!! You always have the best looking donuts! I saw the picture first before I started reading and you mentioned your other donuts.
I sooooo wish I had some of these right now! I just want to stick my finger in the icing and taste it. And the cake looks so moist. Wish I could be one of your donut testers!! 🙂
Aw, thanks Devin. And I could use another tester around here! 🙂
Oh this recipe looks fantastic! I can’t wait to try it out for myself, I’m always looking for new GF dessert recipes 🙂 And thanks for the discussion on xanthan gum versus psyllium husks! I always have psyllium in the house but I’ve never tried cooking for it. I like how it noticeably made your donuts fluffier, now I’m really eager to start experimenting. Thanks for sharing & for stopping by earlier! New follower via Twitter & Facebook (as Holistic Chick)
Micheline @ Holistic Chick
Thanks for the kind words, Micheline! I was surprised too about the psyllium husks and am eager to try it in more recipes. Thanks for the follows!
Is there a grain free substitute for the flour? Protein powder, coconut flour, almond flour, hemp fiber?
I wish I knew how to answer. Unfortunetly I am not real familier with grain free baking…adding in the other allergy free stuff would probably be even harder…esspecially without eggs.
Hi,
What is the purpose of the mayo in recipe? Also an elementary baking question, but this is new for me: is the baking powder used to make the donut rise?
Thank you,
Congetta
HI Congetta,
Good questions! The mayo helps make things moist, as well as using less oil/’butter’ and can be esspecially good when you don’t have moisture from eggs. As for the baking powder, it helps the baked goods expand and fluffy because there is no gluten in the gluten free flours to help the baked goods expand. Then when you take eggs out of the baked good, you need even more baking powder to help with the leavening process. A ‘normal’ recipe would not have near as much baking powder as an allergy free one. I hope that helps! Thanks for asking and coming by. Peggy
Oh yes! These look outrageously good! And strawberry frosting, MMMMMMM!!! Nice work on the creativity, seriously. I need to try a version of these with stevia 🙂
Thank you. I’ve just started learning about stevia and am hoping to incorporate it more into my baking. I’m just slow to getting around to it. 🙂 Hope you can make it work!
These donuts look so good!
Thank you. I think I need to remake them myself!
These look delightful! I have never made donuts or used psyllium husks! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you!
Hi!
Ever since I came across these donuts last week on Pinterest I have been craving them! I made them over the weekend, and they turned out delicious! 🙂 I had to make a couple other substitutes because of the ingredients I had on hand (Chia seeds for egg replacer, a different brand of flour, and coconut oil instead of shortening in the frosting). I don’t think that the donut had the same fluffy consistency your’s do here (mine didn’t rise at all), but they totally fulfilled the donut craving I had, and it’s hard to really tell the difference to “normal” donuts after at least 1.5 years of not eating one!
I am planning on sharing my process of creating these donuts on my blog tomorrow (www.jenuinelife.com), but I will certainly direct my readers to your fab website and the original link to the recipe! 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Jenny
Glad they worked for you. Thanks for directing your readers here.
I have a question about psyllium husks. How do you figure out how much of this to add to your recipes? Is there an equation or just good guessing :).
Just good guessing on your part…I never did find a good ratio anywhere.