Baked Coconut Donuts

While I love the triple whammy of coconut here, you can make some substitutions and your donuts will turn out just fine. Feel free to swap in melted butter instead of coconut oil if you’d like and use a turbinado or unrefined sugar instead of coconut sugar if you have a tough time finding the latter. If you’re not a fan of spelt flour, you could use a whole wheat pastry flour or even an all-purpose flour. Do know that when you open your can of coconut milk, spoon off the coconut cream at the top and just use the liquid milk for this recipe; the cream is wonderful in smoothies or folded into soups to add a little thickness. Like most baked donuts, these are best eaten the day they’re made. That said, they’re just fine the next day if stored at room temperature and covered.

Ingredients

Donuts:

1 1/4 cup (150g) spelt flour

1 cup (100g) super-fine almond flour

1/2 cup (75g) coconut sugar (or turbinado sugar)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 large egg, beaten

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted but slightly cooled

3/4 cup coconut milk (or regular whole milk or choice of non-dairy milks)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Coconut Glaze

1 cup (115g) powdered sugar, sifted

2-3 tablespoons coconut milk (or regular whole milk or choice of non-dairy milks)

Pinch of salt

3/4 cups (55g) unsweetened shredded coconut

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a donut pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, almond flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In a small bowl whisk together the egg, coconut oil, coconut milk, and vanilla extract.

Fold the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir to combine. Let dough sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.

Use a kitchen spoon to scoop the dough into the wells of the donut pan, stopping when each is almost full (these donuts don’t rise a ton, so I fill the indents almost to the top). The dough will be thick and sticky, so use your fingers or the back of a spoon to gently press it into the indentation.

Place the pan in the oven and bake for 9 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan before inverting onto a wire rack to cool down until you can handle them.

Make the glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, coconut milk and salt. You’re looking for a smooth, pourable glaze. If your glaze is too thick, add additional non-dairy milk one tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Similarly, if your glaze becomes too thin, simply add a little more sugar.

Glaze the donuts: Cut a piece of parchment paper the same size (or slightly larger) as your wire cooling rack and place under your cooling rack to catch drips. Dip one side of each doughnut in the glaze and place glaze-side up on the cooling rack. Allow any excess to drip off. Allow the glaze to set and firm up before enjoying a donut, about 20 minutes (if you can wait!)