Yup, so this actually happened in my kitchen today!! I’d been seeing a lot of pictures of donuts around and my friend Deepa at GirlBoyFoodBaby made some healthy donuts also, so I decided to give it a go.

I wanted to make them using pumpkin (had a bee in my bonnet) so that they were autumnal (best word) and obviously now it’s made from a vegetable it’s basically like eating a salad so I can have as many as I want, right??

I found an organic pumpkin puree at Ocado which worked great. I could have pureed my own of course but these are so time consuming that I thought I’d buy the tinned one seeing as it was organic! This is the pumpkin puree I used…

Speaking of time consumption, this deserves a warning… the donuts themselves do not take long to make at all. About 10 minutes prep and 7 minutes in the oven, but the toppings take a while. That is if you want to do different kinds like I did. If you just do one kind, you can whip it up while the donuts are in the oven and cooling and it won’t take too long at all. As usual, it’s really just the clearing up that takes up most of the time with baking… Surely I deserve to have someone to wash my dishes for me by now right?? 🙂

Anyway time-consuming toppings aside, does it really matter? I mean look how awesome they look! And they taste awesome too. Of course they taste nothing like a Krispy Kreme, but then again, I wouldn’t want it to. I want Braxton to grow up appreciating natural sweetness and natural flavours, not artificial rubbish filled with sugar and preservatives. Speaking of which, I used a lot of Biona products for these. Including their coconut palm sugar and coconut oil. I love how natural and organic their products are. Great for our health and for the environment.

You’ll need a donut tin for this, I got mine on Amazon and it looks like this…

We took these with to our sister-in-law for dinner and everyone seemed to really enjoy them. We’ve saved one over for Braxton for a snack later (well, he’ll have a quarter) I hope you enjoy them xx

Ingredients (ingredients for toppings below at bottom of method)

1 flax egg: 1 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed with 1.5 tbsp water
1 heaped cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Pinch Himalayan salt
1/3 cup Biona coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup almond milk
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and lightly grease the holes of the donut tin with coconut oil.

First, make the flax ‘egg’ by mixing the flax seeds with the water in a very small bowl and set aside.

Now mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl: buckwheat, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

In another bowl mix the coconut palm sugar, pumpkin puree, almond milk, maple, coconut oil, vanilla and then add the flax ‘egg’. Whisk with a fork or balloon whisk until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula until totally incorporated.

Put the mixture into the prepared holes in the tin using your hands and smoothing them out on the top.

Place in oven and bake for about 7 minutes or until a fork comes out clean. They should still be moist.

Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool fully before adding the toppings.

Topping choices:
Cinnamon vanilla glaze: In a small bowl mix 3 tbsp Natvia icing sugar, 1 tbsp warm water, quarter tsp vanilla extract. Spoon unevenly over the top of the donuts, then sprinkle with cinnamon.
Cashew cream: In a small bowl mix 2 tbsp cashew butter, 1 tsp melted coconut oil, half tsp vanilla, half tsp maple syrup. Spoon all over the tops and sides of donut and top with crushed cashews.
Chocolate: 1 tbsp cacao butter, 1 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp cacao powder, 1 tsp maple. Heat gently in a saucepan and once ready, add to the top of the donuts. You can cover it then top with pistachios or almonds or you could drizzle it with a spoon.

Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

Love & health,
Lauren