all hail the donut goddess!

Erin McKenna, that is. In her new book, Babycakes Covers the Classics she includes a recipe for donuts! Gluten free, vegan donuts. Clearly, I had to buy this for my sister, since she has been bereft of donuts since her diagnosis. I decided to do plain cake donuts with cinnamon sugar topping; she has a chocolate glaze, but I was in the mood for the cinnamonny goodness. The recipe calls for a donut pan; as always, Amazon has quite the selection to cover your donut pan needs, should you need one. However, I had succumbed to the temptation that was mini bundt pans ages ago, and decided those would do quite nicely. I also adjusted the ingredients to suit me- Erin calls for 3/4 cup rice flour; have I mentioned how I am not fond of the flavor of rice flour? So, reduced that(not omitted, because it does add a fine grain to the texture), added other flours and I have to say-these donuts are fabulous! She also gives you substitutions for vegan sugar, agave and even coconut sugar! She points out, correctly, that coconut sugar (palm sugar too, falls victim to this) is hella expensive, and hard to find if you do not live in the vicinity of a Whole Foods or other speciality market. However, I do live near a Whole Foods, so I used coconut sugar in my donuts, but used the vegan sugar for the cinnamon sugar coating. If you are avoiding white sugar altogether, am sure you could use the coconut sugar for both. Then prepare your hot beverage of choice(coffee, tea, cider, etc), sit down and enjoy the hard work of the donut goddess and you, all who make these gluten free delectable treats possible.

submitted to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, of course.
and Allergy Friendly Friday too, for great allergy free recipes.

GF vegan Donuts

1/3 cup melted refined (no smell) coconut oil (Erin steadfastly uses dry ingredient measuring cups for her liquid, so make sure you do as well-or we shall mock you for failing to read directions)
oil of your choice for brushing pans (I actually used spectrum shortening-coconut oil is waaay too expensive in my opinion to be brushing on pans)
1 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup brown rice flour (I like authentic foods)
3/4 cup Bob's Red Mills gf baking mix
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
7 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce (room temp-otherwise it will harden your coconut oil!)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract (Erin used 4 tablespoons, which I didn't have. If you would like to use 4, then reduce the applesauce by 1 and the hot water by 1)
1/2 cup hot water, plus 1 tablespoon of hot water.

Place 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon in a shallow bowl. whisk. set aside.

preheat oven to 325 degreesF. Brush 2 six-mold donut/ mini bundt pans with oil and set aside.
In medium bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients. Add all your wet ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula or use your kitchen aid (I like my kitchen aid mixer, personally) just til the ingredients are combined. Using a tablespoon (yes you want to measure-nothing worse than not getting 12 donuts because you filled your molds overfull), drop 2 1/2 tablespoons of batter into each mold. Using a toothpick, spread the batter around evenly.
Bake for 8 minutes, rotate and continue to bake til donuts are golden brown about another 8 minutes. Oven times vary, etc, so make sure you are checking on these! Don't burn the donuts! Let cool in molds for five minutes, then run a knife carefully around edge and turn out onto cooling racks. Dip in your cinnamon sugar. Eat! Or you know, let cool a little, then eat! makes 12 donuts, if you measured your 2 1/2 tablespoons correctly.