Pumpkin Donuts & Pumpkin Protein Donuts

These donuts are amazing. My kids, my friend’s kids, my boyfriend, and I all love them. I made this recipe successfully three different ways. I’ve seen donut tins online and in stores but it felt silly and frivolously to buy one. Sure, I haven’t eaten a donut since the fall of 2018 ( I know, crazy, right? That’s when I learned that sugar was a huge trigger for me and essentially a food allergy.); but, I had kind of just accepted this fact. So when I learned that my boyfriend had a donut pan and was wanting a good pumpkin donut recipe I was all-in. 

Since I hadn’t made donuts before, I decided to start with a basic recipe first using regular flour, vanilla extract and coconut palm sugar for the sweetener. When that worked, I decided to replace the flour with a gluten-free flour blend and everyone actually liked it just as much or more! So, then I decided I would try adding protein powder to the mix. This adds a little bit more of a nutritional benefit to what would otherwise just be a carb breakfast treat. Again, everyone loved it just as much or more than the last! All three recipes seem to be winners. So that’s what my family loves, the gluten-free donuts with added vanilla protein powder. They did the taste testing blind and were surprised at which one they ended up liking the best, but I’m glad that they did. Which version of the recipe will you choose?

Whatever you pick, I hope you enjoy it and say YES to health and happiness with The Yes Lifestyle!

Recipe Yields 6 Donuts

Ingredients:

⅔ Flour or Gluten-Free flour

¾ tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

¾ tsp Baking Powder

¼ tsp Salt

½ C Coconut Palm Sugar

½ tsp Vanilla extract OR 1 Scoop Vanilla Protein

¼ C + 1 TB Pumpkin Puree

1/ ½ TB Vegetable Oil

1 ⅓ TB Butter - Melted

1 Egg

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Whisk together the dry ingredients.

3. Beat pumpkin and liquid ingredients together.

4. Combine the flour mixture with the pumpkin mixture

5. Divide the batter evenly between the pans. The pans should be most of the way full. Smooth the top of the batter out with a moistened finger so that the batter doesn’t stick to you.

6. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. About 12-15 minutes.

7. Cool on a wire rack.

Topping:

1. Melt 1 TB butter and brush the tops of the donuts one at a time. Sprinkle it with cinnamon Sugar.

To make cinnamon sugar combine 2 TB sugar (monk fruit sweetener) and ¾ tsp cinnamon.