Baked Chocolate Cake Donuts – Gluten Free, Vegan
These gluten free and vegan baked chocolate cake donuts taste amazing! They are one of my favorite gluten free and vegan breakfast recipes!
Yes, you read that title correctly, baked chocolate cake donuts that are gluten free, vegan, refined sugar free and taste amazing! That’s a sentence I never thought I would say.
Before food allergies, I loved donuts (probably a little too much). Cake donuts were always one of my favorites.
I mean you are eating a donut made of cake, how does it get better than that? So you can imagine how excited I was to come across this recipe.
There are very few recipes on this blog that I haven’t had to modify in one way or another to meet my allergy needs, but this donut recipe was perfect as is. Already refined sugar-free and everything (which is hard to come by)!
The other awesome thing about this recipe is that these baked chocolate cake donuts are super easy to make.
I’m also a kitchen gadget nerd and love the fact that I now own donut pans. That sounds silly, but I love being able to make these kinds of things at home.
Here are the donut pans I own if you need some inexpensive ones: Wilton Donut Pans
Cooking with my kiddos is one of my favorite things to do so I’m excited to add these donuts to the list of recipes we get to make together.
The website where I found the donut recipe is called delightfuladventures.com. I highly recommend you check out that website if you haven’t been there before.
Not everything on that website meets all of my specific allergy needs, but there are a lot of delicious looking gluten free and vegan recipes on there that you might enjoy.
I’m so appreciative of other bloggers out there that are allergy conscious.
It is a challenge when you are first figuring out life with food allergies, so it has been a lifesaver to find some of these awesome blogs.
Let’s get cooking!
GLUTEN FREE AND VEGAN BAKED CHOCOLATE DONUT RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
For the Chocolate Cake Donuts:
- 2 tbsp ground flax seed meal*
- 6 tbsp warm water*
- 1 1/2 cup gluten free flour all-purpose flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 or Better Batter)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar, packed (or brown sugar)
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 cup unsweetened dairy free milk of choice (I use So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1/3 cup avocado oil (refined coconut oil works as well)
For the Chocolate Topping:
- 1 cup vegan chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips)
- 1 tsp avocado oil (or coconut oil)
HOW TO MAKE GLUTEN FREE AND VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE DONUTS:
To make these gluten free and vegan baked chocolate cake donuts:
- Preheat your oven: 375°F.
- In a small bowl, add flax seed and warm water and stir to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes to firm up.
- In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and coconut sugar.
- To your flax seed mixture, add maple syrup, milk, vanilla, and avocado oil. Stir to combine.
- Add wet ingredients to the large bowl of dry ingredients and mix well.
- Use a piping bag to add the mixture to the greased donut pan.
- Place the donuts in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
- After a few minutes of cooling, transfer to donuts to a cooling rack.
To make the chocolate topping:
- Once the donuts have cooled completely, add the chocolate chips and avocado oil to a microwave-safe bowl.
- Microwave in 30-second increments, stirring between each time until the chocolate is melted.
- Place a sheet of parchment paper under your cooling rack. Dip each donut into the chocolate and place back on the cooling rack so the chocolate can firm up.
- To make this process go faster, you can put the donuts on a tray or plate and place them in the refrigerator or freezer until the chocolate is firm
What are some of your favorite types of donuts? This is definitely at the top of my list now and I can’t wait to try other donuts recipes.
Now that I know of this great donut recipe base, I feel like the donut possibilities are endless.
I hope you all enjoy these baked chocolate cake donuts as much as my family does and I hope you get a chance to check out other recipes from delightfuladventures.com.
Don’t forget to save this recipe on Pinterest so you can find it later too!
♥ Don’t forget to rate this recipe and leave a comment below if you give this recipe a try! ♥
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Baked Chocolate Cake Donuts – Gluten Free, Vegan, Refined Sugar Free
- Prep Time: 20 min
- Cook Time: 10 min
- Total Time: 30 min
- Yield: 12 1x
Ingredients
For the Donuts:
- 2 tbsp ground flax seed meal*
- 6 tbsp warm water*
- 1 1/2 cup gluten free flour all-purpose flour (I use Better Batter)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar, packed (or brown sugar)
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 cup unsweetened dairy free milk of choice (I use So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1/3 cup avocado oil (refined coconut oil works as well)
For the Chocolate Topping:
- 1 cup vegan chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips*)
- 1 tsp avocado oil (or coconut oil)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- In a small bowl, add flax seed and warm water and stir to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes to firm up.
- In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and coconut sugar.
- To your flax seed mixture, add maple syrup, milk, vanilla, and avocado oil. Stir to combine.
- Add wet ingredients to the large bowl of dry ingredients and mix well.
- Use a piping bag to add the mixture to greased donut pans.
- Bake the donuts for 10 minutes.
- After a few minutes, transfer to donuts to a cooling rack.
To Make the Chocolate Topping:
- Once the donuts have cooled completely, add the chocolate chips and avocado oil to a microwave-safe bowl.
- Microwave in 30-second increments, stirring between each time until the chocolate is melted.
- Place a sheet of parchment paper under your cooling rack. Dip each donut into the chocolate and place back on the cooling rack so the chocolate can firm up.
- To make this process go faster, you can put the donuts on a tray or plate and place them in the refrigerator or freezer until the chocolate is firm
Notes
You can use 2 eggs instead of the flax seed meal and warm water if you do not have an issue with eggs.
This chocolate topping is not refined sugar-free.
LOOKING FOR MORE DELICIOUS GLUTEN-FREE AND VEGAN DONUT RECIPES? CHECK OUT SOME OF MY FAVORITES BELOW!
These are great, but I had previously printed out the recipe, which did not say “all-purpose flour” – and that’s all I had – so I did not think I needed to add the baking soda and baking powder. Not sure if that was bad (I’m a new baker), but they came out fine (I think)! Thanks for this recipe. I’ve never made baked donuts before!
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Hi Lucy! All purpose gluten free flour is correct so you got it right! You do still typically need to add the baking soda and baking powder. I’m happy to hear you had good results and liked them! Great job on your first time making donuts! ?
Those are some fancy and delicious looking doughnuts.
Thank you! They are super easy to make too!
Ooh, these look so chocolate-y and delicious.
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Thank you! They are very chocolaty!
Hi, I don’t have an already mixed flour. Do you know if I could use anything else like oat flour, buckwheat flour, almond flour even spelt?
Hi Abbie, I haven’t tried this recipe with another type of flour, but I had luck with a mix of oat flour and almond flour in other baked recipes. You could definitely give that a try. I would just do half oat flour and half almond flour. I hope that helps!
These are just gorgeous and such a fun thing to bake with children! My grandson is only 9 months old – will I remember this recipe? It seems like a lot of sugar but I’ve learned you have to balance the cocoa powder. These are on my yes-list!
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Thank you, Beth! My daughter really enjoys making them with me! You can definitely cut back on the sugar a bit if desired. ☺
You’ve done it again! Beautiful recipe, it’s hard to believe that you can make such a delicious donut with no eggs, GF and bake them, resulting in such a moist doughnut! Love your bright and cheery photos too, as always! 🙂
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Thank you so much, Angela! ♥
How much is it per batch to make these donuts?
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Hi Jenn, I’m not sure exactly how much it costs to make a batch of these donuts. I buy most of these ingredients in bulk so it would be very hard to say how many batches of donuts I could get out of all of the ingredients. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.
Can I use ground chai seeds instead of flax seeds.
Hi Deb, I haven’t personally tried that for this recipe, but I think it should work just as well. I would love to hear how it goes if you give it a try. 😊
I made these this week. The crew loved the donuts but I was not a fan of the glaze. I have not worked with coconut oil before. The glaze got lumpy and was very bitter. Are there tricks to working with coconut oil?
I made my own glaze using icing sugar, rice milk and cocoa. The guy they were made for said to keep the recipe!
I haven’t had coconut oil make this icing lumpy before. Did you melt it completely? Also, the icing recipe provided is not as sweet as tradition icing with icing sugar. It’s possible that it just wasn’t sweet enough for you. You can always add more maple syrup or make traditional icing if you can have refined sugar. I hope this helps. 😊
Wow. It looks delicious. I love chocolate cake. So, I will try to make it. Your recipe will help me. Thanks for sharing.
★★★★★
Thanks so much! They are some of my favorite donuts. 🙂
Will these work just as well with regular all purpose flour? And also without a donut pan?
Hi Jasmine, I haven’t tried just using regular all-purpose flour so I’m not sure but I would think it should work. You could try making them in a muffin pan or a cake pan, but it may need to cook longer depending on the type of pan.
I just made it. It is delicious but the only mistake I made is using only almond flour. Some fell apart so next time I will combine 2 flours.
★★★★★
I’m so glad you enjoyed them. Yes, most of the time you have to use more than one flour for these types of recipes. The types of flours you use also affect the results. I would recommend a combination of almond flour and oat flour for the best result if you don’t want to use a gluten free all-purpose flour. You also will get a better result if you use a tsp of xanthan gum if none of the flours you are using contain it. I hope this helps!