Dairy Free Caramel Apple “Donuts”

These dairy free caramel apple “donuts” are a quick and easy snack for fall, Halloween, or anytime! These green apple slices are covered in a no-cook dairy free caramel sauce that’s also peanut free and school safe.

Autumn is nearly in full swing, and I hope you are enjoying the season so far. Fall tends to be a super busy time with school events and sports, it’s always nice to have a quick and super easy snack recipe on hand, like these dairy free caramel apple “donuts”.

We don’t typically go all out for Halloween celebrations, I still enjoy creating fun and allergy friendly fall and Halloween treats that people with food allergies can still enjoy. These caramel apple slices are a fun idea for school-safe Halloween snacks if you don’t mind a little mess from the faux caramel sauce.

If you’re looking for another fun and fruit-based Halloween treat, check out our chocolate fruit “spiders”. That post is due for a revamp soon since it’s from the first years of my website, but it’s still a classic and makes a great Halloween treat.

If you have extra time and are looking for real dairy free caramel apples, don’t forget to check out our recipe for those, they are amazing!

Food allergy notes:

• Peanut free
• Dairy free
• Gluten free/grain free
• Vegan option

Why we love this easy snack recipe

One of my favorite parts about this recipe is that this is so easy to make and the ingredients are probably in your kitchen already, so you don’t need anything fancy to have a great snack in a pinch.

Back when I originally posted this recipe in 2015, this recipe was inspired by a “fauxnuts” apple slice donuts recipe shared on the Lorna Jane Move Nourish Believe blog a few years prior. They have since removed that recipe from their website, but I wanted to give them a nod anyway since they inspired the recipe!

The “caramel” sauce that I made for this recipe is one that I’ve been using in some shape or form for years (my first recipe with it was in 2012), before I figured out how to make real dairy free caramel sauce.

Since this is such a fun recipe that’s super easy to make, I decided to re-write this post and share it again!

How to make faux caramel apple “donuts”

This easy snack recipe takes just a couple of minutes to make, here’s an overview of the steps (the full recipe is at the end of the post):

1. In a small dish, whisk or stir together the Sunbutter, honey, and vanilla extract. Set aside.
2. Wash your large green apples, core out the middle, and cut them into 1/4 to 1/2-inch slices horizontally to make slices with a hole in the middle that resembles a donut.
3. If you want to prevent browning, you can rub a slice of lime over the apples to keep the apples from turning brown.
4. Dry off the tops of the apple slices by dabbing with a paper towel and spread some of the faux caramel sauce on top.
5. Sprinkle with your favorite toppings, such as mini chocolate chips, coconut flakes, or sprinkles.
6. Eat immediately (these won’t keep well in the fridge).

If you want a little spice to your caramel apple donuts, you can try sprinkling a little cinnamon on your apple slices before spreading the caramel, or you can mix a dash of cinnamon into the caramel spread.

You can also adjust the thickness of your caramel spread: if you want your sauce to be a bit thinner for easier drizzling, you can add a little bit more honey.

Can I replace the honey in this recipe?

If you want to replace the honey in this recipe to make this low FODMAP or vegan, you can use maple syrup instead of the honey. It will still taste great but it won’t have the same caramel-y consistency that you get with the Sunbutter and honey combo.

You can also replace the honey with an allulose syrup to make this low sugar as well.

When replacing the honey with other liquid sweeteners, you’ll need to adjust the amount since the honey is thicker. Start with equal amounts (1:1 ratio) and add more maple syrup or allulose from there to adjust to your desired thickness.

I originally published this post in October 2015 and we recently re-wrote this post and took new photos. Here’s one the original photos from this post: