How to Make Secretly Healthy Chocolate Donuts
Let’s face it, donuts are not exactly a health food. But they are also delicious.
When it comes to baked goods, while I love a good cake or something a little more complex and sophisticated every now and then, most of the time I’m looking for something yummy I can make that ticks three boxes: low prep, low sugar, minimal washing up. Usually muffins or donuts because they are easy to make and hard to mess up.
Which is why many of my dessert recipes are one-bowl or “stick it all in a blender and bake” recipes. Because while I appreciate the lightness and texture of a great complex bake, and I do make the effort when I have the energy or want to “do it properly”, who really has the time to cream butter and sugar, stop eggs from curdling a mixture, beat whites to stiff peaks and then have to find the time and energy to wash up six bowls, three spatulas, and a dariole mould?!
Certainly not me.
So when I was craving my banana chocolate chip doughnuts the other day (I have an English degree and even I can’t decide whether donuts or doughnuts is a preferable spelling so I’ve decided to use both, consistency be damned), I was somewhat frustrated to discover that the fruit bowl was empty except for a few questionable apples.
Because, hey, I want donuts (or do I want doughnuts?). Now.
Fortunately, off the back of my discovery that you can make veggie-loaded applesauce in 5 minutes in the microwave, and having extra sweet potatoes left over that I could stick in the microwave to make extra sweet potato puree since my freezer stash of the stuff had run out, I had a “Eureka” moment.
I could make a simple “stick it in a blender and bake” recipe that would tick my low prep, low sugar and minimal washing up boxes, and… AND even contain veg. And chocolate.
Jackpot.
These healthy chocolate donuts (let’s compromise and call them dounuts?) are:
- light and soft but flourless
- super chocolate-y but healthy
- sweet but low in sugar
- more-ish (noooo kids, I definitely only made 7… I mean, ahem, 6…)
- can be made as muffins if you don’t own doenutz (who even cares anymore?) moulds – although even me, the “I hate owning single-use items because they clog up my precious cupboard space” girl, owns some because… well… donuts/doughnuts/do-not-z/delicious round baked goods
So while these may still not be called “health food” exactly, they are pretty darn close, being packed with key minerals from the raw cacao powder, protein from the nut butter, and vitamins and fibre from the sweet potato and apple. And they still taste delicious.
Now please excuse me while I go and consult a dictionary about the etymology of the word for round hole-y baked goods while I munch on my third one.
These chocolate donuts are practically virtuous, packed with minerals, fibre, protein and vitamins. They contain no flour, are refined sugar free, and even have some sneaky veg chucked in for good measure. But don't worry, they still taste delicious!
- 70 g (½ cup) cacao powder (you can use cocoa powder but raw cacao is more mineral-packed)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 125 g (½ cup) almond butter* (or other unsweetened nut butter)
- 3 tablespoons rice syrup or xylitol or coconut sugar**
- 3-5 drops liquid stevia
- 3 eggs
- 150 g (¾ cup) sweet potato puree***
- 50 g (¼ cup) unsweetened applesauce***
- handful of chopped dark 85-90% chocolate or super dark/unsweetened chocolate chips, optional
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Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas 5. Blitz everything except the chocolate chips in a food processor or blender until smooth. Stir through the chopped chocolate, if using. Pour into doughnut moulds (or use a lined muffin tin if you don't have one) and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into a doughnut comes out clean. Allow to cool then serve. If you want to, these are great dipped into Greek yogurt as a glaze. For a more decadent treat with a little more sugar in it, dip into melted 85-90% dark chocolate for a chocolate glaze to make these triple-chocolate doughnuts!
*I like using homemade almond & sunflower seed butter or pure almond butter (I just replace the sunflower seeds with more almonds), but you can definitely use shop-bought, just check it’s unsweetened like this one
**all of these options are refined sugar free, but if you want it to be totally sugar free, opt for xylitol, which is the only one not classed as a free sugar by the World Healthy Organisation (for fructose free, use xylitol or rice syrup)
***you can find my 5-minute veggie-loaded applesauce recipe here – I like to batch prep it, along with batch-baking plenty of sweet potatoes and peeling then pureeing them so I have plenty on hand, both freeze really well in ice cube trays so you can defrost them in seconds. If you are making it especially for this recipe, I recommend making plenty more so it takes you far less time to make this or other applesauce/sweet potato puree recipe next time! 🙂
