Craving donuts? Make this healthier version instead! These Gluten Free Mini Maple Donuts are dairy free, nut free, and vegan
Hi, friends, I hope your Spring is shaping up nicely! Things are going great here except for seasonal allergies and WIND. Lots of wind. Especially this past week. Instead of “April showers bring May flowers” it’s more like “April wind brings May wind”.
It’s my east favorite part of spring in Wyoming and the past 2 days have been quite windy. It’s the perfect reason to stay inside and bake. I made these Gluten-Free Maple Donuts for a nice treat and the kids love them!
Maple might seem like more of a fall flavor, but since maple syrup is low-FODMAP and I have been cooking a lot with it, I use maple all year round. When I was a kid, the taste of true maple syrup didn’t appeal to me much but I have grown to enjoy it more now that I can’t eat much honey.
This recipe is a remake of my mom’s banana bread recipe that she made when we were growing up. I don’t know exactly where she got the original recipe, but since I have made so many changes to the recipe, it’s nothing close to the original at all! I have made this recipe several times but changed a few things each time, changing from a loaf to a cake, then to donuts and changing ingredients every time I made them.
Since I’ve made this recipe several ways, I can tell you for certain that this recipe works baked as a loaf of banana bread, a cake, donuts, and mini muffins (and probably full-sized muffins, too), so you have tons of cooking options here!
At first I was a little worried about these donuts coming out of the donut pan, but they released from the pan with no problems once they were cooled. I used a non-stick pan and sprayed half with oil and left the other half without oil but they all came out of the pan just fine, so spraying oil on your non-stick pan for this recipe is optional.
You can also cook this batter in an 8×8-inch pan for 30 minutes to make a snack cake. If you want to make a banana bread loaf with this recipe, cook it for about 45-50 minutes.
Make sure that you don’t glaze these until you are ready to eat them. I glazed some for the photos and stored them in a container and they got a bit soggy. The glaze was thick but it will still soak into your donuts, so if you’re making them ahead, don’t glaze until right before you serve.
Gluten Free Mini Maple Donuts (Vegan)
Ingredients
Mini Donuts:
- ¾ cup gluten-free quick oats
- ¾ cup whole sorghum flour
- ¼ cup ground flax seeds
- 2 teaspoons baking power
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 medium-size bananas very ripe
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoon light tasting olive oil
- ¼ cup rice milk or other non-dairy milk of choice
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Maple Glaze:
- ½ cup powdered cane sugar
- 3 Tablespoons pure maple syrup depending on how thick or thin you want the glaze
- ½ teaspoon maple extract
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- In another medium bowl, mash the bananas very well, then stir in the maple syrup, oil, rice milk, and vanilla.
- Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and stir until well combined.
- Scoop the batter into a non-stick mini donut pan and fill to 3/4 full with batter. If you don't have a mini donut pan, you can make mini muffins instead
- Bake for 12 minutes until donuts spring back when gently pressed
- Remove the donuts from the oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing from the pan
- While the donuts are cooling, mix together the glaze: stir together the powdered sugar, maple syrup, and maple extract well until smooth. You can add 1-2 more Tablespoons of powdered sugar to make it thicker. I made the glaze thicker for the photos
- Drizzle each donut with glaze immediately before serving
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and allergy friendly food blogger of 12 years based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
great. amazing recipe dear thanks for sharing .
This Looks simply amazing. Thank you for recipe.
I bake with maple syrup constantly! It’s especially good in banana bread 😉 I look forward to trying this recipe! My daughter has a severe peanut allergy, so we can’t buy donuts from places that uses peanuts (which is a lot of them). She loves donuts though, and maple is one of her favourites!
For folks who aren’t gluten free, would it work with regular flour?
Hi Margaret! I haven’t tried this recipe with regular flour, but it might work, you might just have to adjust the amount of flour a bit. You can give it a try and let me know how it goes for you!
Making these right now!!! these looks so amazing. thanks for the recipe.
Great! Let me know how they turn out for you 🙂