Egg Free Gluten Free Chocolate Chocolate Glazed Mini Donuts

Yesterday Paul said he was craving Dunkin's chocolate glazed munchkins. 

These delightful little morsels of chocolatey goodness are packed full of gluten and, I'm assuming, eggs.

So I decided to make my own, using the nifty mini donut maker Paul gave me for my birthday last year, which I have used exactly once.

The donut maker came with a recipe for "Baked French Breakfast Donuts" from The Original Donut Factory. This recipe is also chock full of gluten and egg, but with a few substitutions it can be adapted to accommodate our eating needs.

The original ingredients:

5 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 cup flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup milk

I have been able to find a lot of amazing gluten free resources online since Paul went gluten free. In particular, the flour blends suggested by the gluten free goddess have been an invaluable tool in learning how to keep us fed.

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2008/12/baking-cooking-substitutions-for-gluten.html

For this recipe I used her suggested flour blend # 1, but feel free to use your own mix/a store-bought mix/regular wheat flour if you are not gluten free.

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering, how does one bake without eggs? There are several possibilities, here's the one I chose

That's right, the spotty banana on your shelf is an excellent egg substitute! This also helps when you're trying to convince yourself that whatever yummy snack you've baked up is actually good for you.

My ingredients:
5 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 banana, mashed
1 1/4 cup gluten free flour* (I used 1/2 cup sorghum flour, 1/2 cup tapioca flour. 1/4 cup almond flour, 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup almond milk

A picture of the tools and ingredients used (please ignore the coffee maker, kettle and knife block).

First I mixed my flour blend, then mixed it with my cocoa powder and my other dry ingredients (remember, in baking sugar is a wet ingredient!)

Next, I thoroughly blended my sugar and my butter. My butter was a little soft when I did this, which helped, but it would have been even easier if I had let it get really soft.

I mashed my banana.

Then mixed that in with the butter/sugar mixture.

Then I alternated pouring in the dry ingredients with the almond milk.

Yummies.

You can proceed to cook your donuts any way you choose. I'm sure you could fry donut balls, or bake them, and I know there are donut shaped baking dishes you can buy.

The loaded donut maker.

Finished donuts, about 3-4 minutes later.

I wanted these to be chocolate donuts with chocolate icing on them, so I very lazily googled for a recipe and went with the recipe found here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111122133340AAyNITS

The final product!! (Boyfriend approved :P)

*To convert the gluten-free goddess's flour recipe to the quantity required for this recipe, I cut the recipe in half, leaving 1/4 cup of flour missing, which worked well for adding in 1/4 cup of cocoa powder, filling in the missing dry ingredients and making the recipe into a chocolate donut recipe instead.

I didn't have any nutmeg, so I used 1/4 tsp of cinnamon instead, because I thought it would give the chocolate an extra boost.

I used almond milk because it is what I keep on hand. Feel free to use whatever milk/milk substitute you prefer. Also, by substituting the butter for margarine or any plant-derived oil, this recipe instantly becomes vegan!