One day recently, the kids and I walked past Donut King and being kids, they do what kids do. They asked me “mum, can we get donuts?”. They know the answer but they are try hards so give it a go anyway. I gave them my normal response, “do you think these ones will add to your health?”. I got the usual “no, mum”. Our daughter then went on to reminisce with her brother about when she was little, how I use to buy her pink donuts when we went shopping (about 7 years ago) and how she use to vomit all the time. Lol, what a story! I don’t know why it took me so long to work out it was the donuts, and not teething which I thought it was. Anyways, that’s another story.
After she was finished recalling the story, I said shall we try to make our own donuts today? The answer was a resounding yes. When we got home, our daughter went on the hunt for gluten free donuts recipes and found this one on food.com. I used this as a starting point for our experiment. I had no idea how they would work out but I knew we would have fun mixing it all up anyway.
I should say right up front, these were not made with school lunchboxes in mind, but rather for a bit of fun and to show the kids how you can always make a healthier version of ‘food’ yourself.
Gluten free baking as I am discovering is a bit of an artform and it requires a few different flours, so as to not come out like rock cakes (and trust me, I’ve made plenty of those since going Gluten Free). This recipe uses a variety of different flours which you can get from Coles and Woolworths supermarkets. If you’re interested in learning more about making up your own gluten free flours and what each one does, here’s a great post by the amazing Jo from Quirky Cooking.
The recipe also has quite a few ingredients and steps, but it is well worth it. The donuts were delicious when warm, and I even tested freezing them overnight, then warming them up again the next day. Again delicious (but they do need to be warmed).
I think these would be great to make as a kids party activity – make the dough before the party, then get the kids to make their own donut. Yummo!
Ingredients for donut
- 1 1/4 cups brown rice flour
- 1/4 cup LSA meal
- 1/2 cup quinoa flour
- 3/4 cup potato starch
- 1/2 cup corn flour
- 3 tspn xanthum gum
(all of the above makes 4 cups of a gluten free flour mix – you can use this in other gluten free baking too)
- 1/2 tspn cinnamon
- 1 tspn baking powder
- 1 tspn bicarb soda
- 1/4 tspn salt
- 20g butter
- 1/2 cup rice malt syrup
- 1 egg
- 1 cup buttermilk (see tip below for making buttermilk)
- Coconut oil for shallow frying
Method for donuts
With this recipe, I created a refined sugar free coating (recipe below) but you could easily use just sugar with cinnamon as your donut coating. If you want to make the refined sugar free coating, make this whilst your dough is resting (step 11).
- Measure out all the flours and xantham gum. Place in a big bowl, and mix really well (this is a great activity for the kids)
- Take out 1/2 cup of the flour mixture and set aside – we’ll need this when shaping the donuts
- Add the cinnamon, baking powder and bicarb soda to the flours, and mix really well again
- Over medium heat, melt the butter
- Add the rice malt syrup and stir until it melts in and starts to bubble. Remove from heat and set aside
- In a separate bowl, whisk the egg
- Add the buttermilk to the egg, and whisk until frothy
- Add the rice malt syrup butter mixture to the egg and buttermilk mixture and whisk until well mixed
- Pour 1/4 of the sweet buttery eggy milk mixture slowly to the bowl of flour. Fold in with a wooden spoon. Keep adding in a 1/4 cup at a time and folding in
- The mixture will be a bit sticky but you should be able to turn it over in the bowl with your hands, and give it a gentle knead to ensure all the flour is mixed through. If it’s too sticky, add some of the reserved flour and mix again
- Cover your dough in the bowl with a tea towel and leave it to sit for 30 – 45 minutes
- Add some of the reserved flour to a board or your benchtop
- Pull off a piece of your dough and use your palms to flatten it so it’s about 1.5 cm thick
- Grab a glass (with the rim about the size of a donut), rub some flour around the rim, then use it to cut circles out of the dough
- Now use a smaller glass (I used a small rimmed shot glass), rub some flour around the rim, then use it to cut the centre circles out of the dough. You can either keep the centre circles for donut rounds or add it back into the rest of the dough and knead it gently
- Continue above until you’ve used all the dough
- Heat some coconut oil over medium heat – needs to be enough to cover the base of your pan with about 1/2 cm up the side.
- Add donuts to your pan (this will depend on the size of your pan – I did 4 at a time). Cook one side for about 1 minute, then turn and cook for another minute. Then use a set of tongs to pick up the donut, and roll the side edges of the donut in the oil – this can be done fairly quickly
- Let them cool slightly on a plate, then toss the donut in your coating (see below)
Ingredients for refined sugar free coating
I used these ingredients to make a toffee, then ground it up and mixed it with cinnamon to make my coating. You don’t have to do this – if you wish, just mix sugar with some cinnamon would have been easier but it was a fun, and it gave the kids a taste of toffee too.
- 25g butter
- 100g rice malt syrup
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (not cinnamon sugar)
Method for refined sugar free coating
- Prepare a baking tray with baking paper, and place it in the fridge to get it really cold
- Melt butter over low heat
- Stir in rice malt syrup over low heat
- It will start to froth up and bubble – keep stirring for about 4-5 minutes
- It will start to change colour from a light butter colour to a more golden colour – at this point, take it off the heat
- Pour mixture onto prepared baking tray and spread out – the thickness doesn’t really matter at this point but the thinner it is, the quicker it will turn into toffee
- Once it’s hard, break it into shards, then put it in a food processor and blitz/pulse until it resembles sugar or powder
- Add in the cinnamon and pulse again to mix in the cinnamon
- Pour out onto a plate or bowl to roll your donuts in
Tip
- If you don’t have buttermilk, make your own by mixing 1 cup of full cream milk with 1 tblspn of lemon juice or white vinegar and let it sit for 10 minutes. It will be curdled and ready to use after the 10 minutes.