Healthy Chocolate Sprinkle Donuts

It’s back to school time!!

Moms everywhere are raising their coffee cups in solidarity because IT. IS. TIME.

While I definitely had some fun with my kiddos over the summer break, they unfortunately did not find Costco runs, dry cleaning stops and nail salon sits entertaining. In fact they found it, hmmmmm what’s the word/phrase they liked to use, “Bored! This is boring!” 🙄

Trust me little humans… it was FAR less fun for MOM than for you! The amount of energy it takes to buckle and unbuckle their car seats, tell them seventy-five times to “Hurry up!” as they walk at a snails pace through 100 degree parking lots, THEN have them complain once inside a store, only to ascend into a full blown meltdown because they suddenly “gotta pee” just when we get to the very back of the store and the bathrooms are conveniently located at the FRONT! For the love of all things holy… I’m exhausted just reliving this in writing!

At any rate, not all of summer was super-fun or easy for us, but I still LOVE my time with them AND hey, we all survived!

Now, it’s back to school, back to schedules and back to food prepping starting with… breakfast.

This year… I made sure to give my kids a very special send-off by filling them up with these fun, yummy, HEALTHY donuts!

I actually made donuts a few times over the summer break, but had trouble with the consistency, either they were too dry, or too crumbly (note the odd amount of coconut oil you’ll need to add under the ingredients list).

I googled healthy donut recipes for some guidance and ended up swapping out the oil for healthy coconut oil, the flour choice for gluten-free flour and milk for dairy-free almond milk.

I took bits and pieces from a few recipes, and even tested out some superfoods (chia and hemp seeds). I found the superfoods impacted the batter and cooking time and more adjustments needed to be made, so for this recipe I kept it superfood-free.

For the frosting I simply referred to a chocolate syrup recipe I learned in my raw foods certification: cacao powder, maple syrup and coconut oil.

I used my own formula to try and make it thicker and it actually worked! I also added a little vanilla for some richness. (The above picture is where I tested out a thinner glaze, the thicker frosting is below.)

This thicker frosting turned out sweet, creamy and had great consistency… very similar to store-bought icing but with wholesome ingredients.

Alternatively, when you store and serve these donuts from the fridge, the icing gets a little hard, so when you take them out, they almost resemble those chocolate Little Gems packaged donuts (that’s what I grew up on. If only we knew better! 😉

To top it off, I found some fancy little VEGAN sprinkles online through “Fancy Sprinkles.” It’s a good buy, plus they taste SO much better than those waxy store-bought sprinkles.

In the end we had ourselves a soft, chocolaty, not overly sweet donut that certainly tasted like a treat!

The chocolate frosting and the sprinkles are definitely sweet and beyond making them look cute, the sprinkles really added some crunchy sweetness to the donuts.

These donuts are gluten-free, dairy-free and animal-free. With the added flax egg you also get a nice dose of fiber and omega 3’s… great fuel for little ones heading off to school (and for the parents sending them off)!

Here’s what you’ll need for these Healthy Sprinkle Donuts!

Healthy Sprinkle Donuts:

•1 flax “egg”- (1 tbsp ground flax seeds + 3 tbsp hot water)
•3/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill gluten free flour
•1/4 cup Fancy Sprinkles (optional)
•1/4 cup cacao powder (or unsweetened cocoa powder)
•1/2 tsp baking powder
•1/4 tsp baking soda
•1/4 tsp pink sea salt
•1/4 cup coconut sugar
•1/2 cup almond milk
•3 & 1/2 Tbsp + 1 tsp + 1/2 tsp melted coconut oil
•1 tsp alcohol free vanilla

Chocolate Frosting:

•3/4 cup cacao powder
•1/4 cup melted coconut oil
•1/4 cup + 2 tsp. grade A maple syrup (or grade B)
•1 tsp alcohol free vanilla

~Bake 350 degrees, 8-10 min.

~Yields 10-12 donuts (*will have enough icing  for two batches of donuts)

Directions:

1. Grease donut pan with coconut oil spray or lightly grease with coconut oil.
2. Make flax egg. Place 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed into a bowl, add 3 tablespoons hot water, stir, let sit for five minutes.
3. Combine all the dry ingredients (the first 7 ingredients EXCEPT the flax egg and sprinkles) in a medium mixing bowl and whisk.
4. Whisk in milk, vanilla, flax egg and coconut oil. Switch to a spoon and stir until ingredients are combined and a thicker batter forms.
5. Fill donut molds. You can do this by using a piping bag, make your own piping bag by cutting the corner off of a large ziplock bag, spoon batter into bag then pipe batter into donut molds, OR you can just use a small spoon to evenly distribute batter into molds, and use a butter knife to help spread batter around evenly (that’s what I did here) filling mold half way.
6. Bake 350 degrees, 8-10 minutes, don’t over cook.
7. While donuts bake, make frosting. Combine ingredients into a small blender and blend, pour frosting into a small bowl. (You can blend frosting by hand, just place ingredients in a bowl and stir briskly until it’s smooth. I just find it’s much smoother blended.)
8. Once donuts cook and COOL, use a butter knife or offset spatula to frost donut, place donut onto tray and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of sprinkles. Repeat until all the donuts are frosted. *you will have leftover icing.
9. Store and serve donuts from fridge. (Will last several days in a sealed container.)

NOTES:

*Here’s what a flax egg looks like: