Gingerbread Carrot Cake Donuts
Christmas time means we are allowed to indulge. But this doesn‘t mean that eating sweet treats must be unhealthy. In fact, these baked Gingerbread Carrot Cake Donuts are much healthier than most donut recipes. They contain a fair amount of healthy carrots which are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. The recipe is vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, oil-free, and easy to make.
Gingerbread
Who doesn’t love the taste and smell of Gingerbread?! It’s spicy, sweet, and reminds of Christmas. Combined with carrots this combo is actually a dream and perfect for the holiday season. That‘s why I created the recipe of these healthy Gingerbread Carrot Cake Donuts which will make your kitchen smell like heaven.
Refined sugar-free recipe
These donuts are sweetened with Xylitol and molasses only. Xylitol is teeth-friendly and can actually prevent caries. Awesome right? The recipe has no refined sugar and no agave syrup. I like using molasses as it contains lots of minerals. The glaze is refined sugar-free as well and contains Erythritol, nut butter (I’ve used cashew butter but you can use any nut butter or seed butter of choice), and plant-based milk.
Gluten-free flour blend
To make the donuts gluten-free, I’ve used rice flour, almond flour, and tapioca flour. Instead of almond flour, you can use any other nut-based flour. For example, hazelnut flour or even ground shredded coconut (for a nut-free version). A grain-free alternative to rice flour would be buckwheat flour or quinoa flour. You can also use a store-bought gluten-free flour blend. If you don’t mind a gluten-free recipe you could use spelt flour (or even wheat flour) instead of rice flour and tapioca flour!
These Gingerbread Carrot Cake Donuts are:
- Vegan (egg-free, dairy-free)
- Gluten-free
- Baked, not deep fried
- Healthy
- Oil-free
- Perfect for fall and the holiday season
- Refined sugar-free
- Easy to make
- Delicious
- Soft and moist
- Great for dessert or breakfast
You can vary this recipe
The recipe is perfect for breakfast or as a dessert. You can also vary it as per your liking. For example, you could use sweet potatoes instead of carrots. Both tastes amazing. And if you don’t have a donut mold, you could use a muffin mold instead. The cooking time will be slightly longer though.
Should you recreate these delicious baked Carrot Cake Donuts, please leave a comment below and don’t forget to tag me in your Instagram or Facebook post with @elavegan and #elavegan because I love to see your recreations. If you are looking for more carrot desserts, then definitely also try out my vegan carrot cake.
Gingerbread Carrot Cake Donuts
Ingredients
Dry ingredients:
- 3/4 cup (120 g) rice flour
- 1/4 cup (30 g) tapioca flour or cornstarch
- 1/2 cup (60 g) almond flour (*see notes)
- 7 tbsp (60 g) Xylitol or Erythritol or regular sugar (*see notes)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/3 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp allspice
Wet ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups (150 g) carrot finely grated (1 medium-sized)
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) coconut milk canned (*see notes)
- 1 chia egg (1 tbsp ground chia seeds + 3 tbsp water)
- 1/2 tbsp lime juice or lemon juice
- 1 tsp molasses
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Frosting:
- 5-6 tbsp (50 g) Erythritol or icing sugar
- 2 tbsp (30 g) nut butter or seed butter of choice (*see notes)
- 1-2 tbsp plant-based milk or cream
- crushed nuts or seeds (optional)
Instructions
- In a small bowl, mix the ground chia seeds and water with a whisk, set aside for 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, put all dry ingredients in a big bowl and stir until there are no clumps.
- Add all wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir with either a whisk or an electric hand mixer until the mixture is combined.
- Grease a donut mold with oil or vegan butter and fill in the batter.
- Bake in the oven at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 15-18 minutes and let the donuts cool.
- Put the Erythritol in a food processor or electric coffee/spice grinder and blend until it's a fine powder. You can use icing sugar instead of Erythritol. Put it into a small bowl, add the nut butter (or seed butter of choice) and plant-based milk and mix with a whisk. If the frosting is too thick add more milk. If it's too thin add more of the Erythritol/icing sugar.
- Frost the donuts and top them with crushed nuts or seeds of choice. Enjoy! Store leftovers in the fridge.
Notes
- You can use ground shredded coconut instead of almond flour for a nut-free version.
- You can use any other plant-based milk or cream instead of coconut milk. The higher the fat content of the milk is, the better the donuts will taste.
- Any nut butter or seed butter is fine, for example, almond butter, cashew butter, coconut butter, sunflower seed butter etc.
- You can use regular sugar instead of Xylitol. Desserts with Xylitol should be never given to dogs.
- Recipe makes 6 donuts. Nutrition facts are for one donut.
Nutrition information is an estimate and has been calculated automatically
Lorena
Hi can i use almond or coconut flour ?
Lorena
Instead of the rice flour can i use coconut flour or just the almond ?
Ela
Hi Lorena! I wouldn’t recommend coconut flour. I think the result won’t be good at all. I think sorghum flour, quinoa flour, or maybe oat flour would work much better as a replacement for rice flour. 🙂
Lisa
Can I substitute rice Flour with shorgum Flour? I try tO eliminasi grains cz i have A Sensitivity.
Ela
I never tried it, but it might work.
Mart
These look great! I don’t have a donut mold. What would you suggest? By the way, I love how you offer other options to suit the various dietary restrictions.
Ela
Thanks so much, Mart! 🙂 I would suggest using a muffin pan if you have one. Muffins would need to bake for about 25 minutes (make a toothpick test to make sure they are cooked). Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂
Coletha
I’ve been looking for a good vegan donut and this one was excellent. I, strangely enough, am allergic to almonds but can tolerate most other nuts. I am not a huge fan of coconut so I ground up pecans in the place of almonds and the donuts came out perfect. I use a silicone baking sheet too so I had to bake them just over 20 minutes. Silicone tends to make cakes a tiny bit denser and for whatever reason, it won’t cook all the way through (slightly raw in the middle) if I don’t add a few minutes extra on the cooking time. We are trying very hard in my household to cut oil as much as possible. I didn’t have to oil the silicone and the donuts slipped right out. I let them cool all the way in order to make sure they were cooked in the middle since I also learned that cooling is part of the cooking process. I have to admit too thought after I refrigerated them they were crazy good because the frosting got a little firmer, although I thought it was fine…I didn’t expect they would be even more delicious the next day. As always Ela this was perfect. Thank you from a loyal fan
Ela
Wow, thanks so much for your thorough and very helpful feedback dear Coletha. I really appreciate it a lot, and I am so glad the donuts turned out amazing. 🙂
Bernie
Can you use sorghum flour ?
Ela
That should work just fine! Please report if you try it out! 🙂
Eva
Hi Ela! Those look great!! I have a doughnut maker, (like a waffle maker), can I use that instead of the oven? Thank you!
Ela
Never tried it but I think it should work! Let me know if you give it a try. 🙂
Christiane
Hi
I bought a donut tray and so ready for this!
Can i replace xylitol with coco sugar?
And what about the carrots? … mayb ommit for a more vanilla flavor? My kids would prefer that…
Thank you always for your brillant recipes
Ela
Hey! Yes, you can use coco sugar. However, I wouldn’t omit the carrots as they make the donuts moist and soft. I am afraid they might end up a bit dry without the carrots but you can give it a try. 🙂
Jagna
I don’t know why, but my batter came out very dry… I had to add double the amount of coconut milk… so I played with the recipe and changed: skipped the chia egg and subbed it with 50ml aquafaba, added 80ml of coconut milk plus 80ml of soy milk, and blended that with grated carrot to get a puree…. The batter came out rather runny but when baked the donuts had nice almost round dome on both sides 🙂
Ela
Interesting! Thanks for your feedback, Jagna! 🙂
Shelly
Can I use spelt flower instead of riceflower or will this make them dry too? And does the icing get hard or does it stays soft?
Cant wait to try these tonight ???? how long can I store them in a box? Inside or outside of the fridge?
Ela
Hey Shelly! Spelt flour should work fine, however, I didn’t try it. The icing gets hard when you use Erythritol and put the donuts in the fridge. 🙂 I always store everything in the fridge since I live in a hot climate. 🙂
natalia
I just baked AND eaten this cookie! I say ‘cookie’ because I skipped the frosting and I spread the dough in a round shape as it were a pizza. When it was all cooked I sliced it. I used dates as a sweetener. A dairy-, sugar- and gluten-free desert. Thanks a looooot!!!
Ela
That’s awesome! Thanks for your feedback, Natalia! 🙂
Maja
I just made these and were delicious! Thanks so much for the recipe Ela! Do they freeze well? I was thinking of making a big batch and freezing them ready for school lunchboxes.
Ela
Thank you, Maja! Yes, they freeze well! 🙂
Kirsten
They look sooooo good on your page, but when i made them (i followed the whole recipe only i used coconut flour and buckwheat flour instead of almond flour and rice flour) and they came out sooo dry. Can i just add more milk when the batter is still dry? It looked more like dough than a batter….
Thank you in advance!
Ela
Hi Kirsten, following the recipe means to use the same flours as indicated in the recipe. When you change two out of three flours, you change the whole recipe. Especially when you use coconut flour! Coconut flour cannot be substituted for any other flour since it’s VERY absorbent. No wonder the batter was dry… Hope this helps!
Kirsten
Ah, thank you for your quick reply! I thought it wouldnt matter because you gave a couple of options in your explanation above the recipe. I will try again soon with the right flours 🙂
Ela
No worries, Kirsten! I hope they will turn out much better next time. 🙂
Wiedźma przy garach
Looks great ???? but how you do this chia egg? I must do that with warm or cold water? Waiting for that ? I new on that…
Sorry for my English????
Ela
Hi, I always use cold water. Yes, mix it in a bowl with a whisk and then let it sit for 3-5 minutes. 🙂
George
Ela, in the descriptive text above, you misspelled “cavities”.
(Xylitol is teeth-friendly and can actually prevent caries.)
I’ll definitely be making these soon. I love molasses.
Ela
Hey George, I didn’t want to write the word “cavities”. But you can actually write both, cavities or caries. Both are correct. 🙂
Best wishes, Ela
Karen
Hi Ela! Can l use plain flour to make these delicious looking doughnuts?
Thanks for sharing such great recipes. ????
Ela
Yes, that should work as well. 🙂
Dee | Green Smoothie Gourmet
OOh these donuts seem so cakey and delicious Ela! And I love the color and texture of the frosting. Thank you for creating this recipe! Dee xx
Ela
Thank you so much, Dee! I would love to share them with you.
Much love, Ela ❤️
Bianca Zapatka
These donuts look so beautiful and delicious!????
Love that you made them healthier by adding carrots!
Lots of love,
Bianca ????❤️
Ela
Thank you, Bianca! I hope you will give them a try. 🙂
Much love, Ela ❤️
Jess @choosingchia
I love both carrot cake and gingerbread so these are perfect!! <3
Ela
Thank you, Jess! Yes, the combo is pretty amazing. 😀
Christina
What can I use in place of xylitol? It gives me headaches
Ela
Regular sugar (like mentioned in the recipe) or coconut sugar or any other granulated sweetener. 🙂