Carrot Cake Donuts

Oh my we have been on a roll of late making donuts! These are such a great quick, healthy and easy dessert when all the kids and partners are over for dinner. And, they love them. Last time we made Lime and Chia donuts and they were gobbled up pretty quickly. A week or so ago we made these carrot cake donuts and well to my surprise they were devoured just as quickly.

These were super easy to put together and if you have little ones (or big ones!) they would make a great snack at play time or pop one in a lunch box for a post weekend game treat. Either way kids big or small will love them!

Ideally you will need a donut pan for this recipe which you can get from any good local kitchen store. Otherwise you could make them as muffins however you may need to alter the cooking time.

Here’s what you need to make the donuts:

• ½ cup raisins, plus more for garnish
• 2 large organic eggs
• 1 tbsp of unprocessed and unrefined honey (we enjoy Manuka Honey)
• ¼ cup melted coconut oil
• ½ cup carrots, grated
• 1 cup almond meal
• 2 tbsp coconut flour
• ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut flakes, plus more for garnish
• ½ tsp gluten free baking soda
• ½ tsp organic cinnamon
• ½ tsp organic ginger powder
• ¼ tsp Himalayan salt or All Natural liquid magnesium

Here’s how you put the donuts together:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Grease the donut pan lightly with coconut oil.
3. Add the raisins to a small bowl with lukewarm water just enough to cover them. Set them aside to soak for 10 mins.
4. In a larger bowl whisk together the eggs, honey, coconut oil and carrots.
5. In a different bowl add the almond meal, coconut flour, shredded coconut, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt and mix to combine.
6. Drain the water from the raisins then add the raisins to the egg mixture.
7. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients but don’t over mix!
8. Pour or spoon the batter evenly into the donut holes and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Cool for around 5 minutes and then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool further before applying the buttercream icing.

Note on the buttercream icing: To make this as the name suggests you will need butter. Yes, we love butter but for this icing you will want to get a good quality butter and we always use organic. It’s nicer to eat, better for you and the richness of the butter makes it taste divine! You wont be disappointed.

Here’s what you need for the buttercream icing:

• 1/2 cup powdered organic icing sugar
• 1/4 cup butter at room temperature (or slightly cool)
• 1/2 tbsp filtered water
• 1 tsp organic vanilla extract

Here’s how to put the icing together:

1. In a bowl or Thermomix combine all the ingredients and blitz until well combined.
2. Place in the refrigerator to keep cool.
3. Once the donuts are cool enough spoon the icing over the donuts then eat immediately or later that night and enjoy!

NOTES:

1.  You could use almond flour for a more refined finish. We didn’t have any in the pantry so we just used almond meal.
2. Add some all spice to the dry ingredients (step 5) for a seasonal Christmas smell and taste.
3. We cooked for 15 mins but you could do slightly less so they stay moist for longer.
4. You could use vanilla paste instead of pure vanilla extract. But it will be strong so adjust accordingly to your taste buds.