Easy to make sugar-free donuts will help keep you on track. Lightly spiced and sweetened, these baked gluten free donuts are just enough to satisfy a sweet craving.
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Do you like low carb muffins? If you do, you may want to invest in a donut pan to give them a new shape. I find that any regular quick bread or muffin batter works well as cake donuts.
But sometimes, I create new batters to use just for low carb donuts. Even though I have a great low carb blueberry muffin recipe, I also have a blueberry cake donut recipe. And I don’t use the same batter for those recipes.
Basic Sugar-Free Gluten-Free Donuts
This time I wanted to create a basic recipe for making gluten-free donuts. I ended up using a blend of low carb flours in the mix. Blending almond flour and coconut flour usually gives a better texture than using one or the other.
These sugar free donuts are lightly spiced. I only added 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. This gives just a hint of spice without the taste being overpowering.
The donuts aren’t overly sweet either. So, if not adding a sweet frosting on top, you may want additional sweetener in the batter.
How to Make Gluten-Free Donuts
The batter for the donuts is prepared using only one mixing bowl. To start, the gluten-free flours are mixed with sweetener, baking powder, salt, and xanthan gum. The recipe should work without the xanthan gum, but it does give a bit of elasticity that’s often missing in baked goods without gluten.
Next, the wet ingredients are added: butter, eggs, almond milk, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. An electric mixer is used to blend all the ingredients together. A hand whisk might work, but the batter does get pretty thick when the coconut flour begins to absorb the liquid.
Before adding the batter into the donut molds, you’ll want to make sure it’s greased well. If you want to ensure an easy release, you can always use a silicone donut pan instead. But I find that greasing well with coconut oil usually works.
Then just spread the batter evenly between the donut molds. If you have trouble, try putting it in a plastic bag with a small hole to pipe the batter into the molds.
I got nine donuts from the recipe. But the number of donuts will depend on the size of the molds. You can use a mini donut pan too, especially if you want better portion control. It takes about 20 minutes to bake regular size donuts and less for the mini ones.
Other Low Carb Donut Recipes
Overall, these low carb gluten-free donuts are a good distraction to prevent going for the real thing. And, they can definitely help get you back on track with a low carb diet if you’ve fallen off. So, if you feel you may cheat on the diet, go ahead and make a batch!
If you want to change things up with some other low carb donut recipes, be sure to check out the ones below…
- Coconut Flour Low Carb Donuts with Chocolate Icing
- Easy Gluten-Free Pumpkin Donuts
- Low Carb Krispy Kreme Donuts
Kitchen Tools Used
Here’s the items I used to make the recipe:
- Donut Pan – If you don’t have one of these, you can still make the recipe, but you’ll need to use a muffin pan instead.
- Electric Mixer – You may be able to get away with using a hand whisk to blend the batter, but a power mixer makes it much easier.
- Mixing Bowl – My favorite mixing bowls are made of Pyrex glass, but any large mixing bowl will do.
I hope you enjoy these nearly “guilt-free” donuts. And be sure to let me know how they turned out if you do give them a try by leaving a comment below.
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Sugar-Free Gluten Free Donuts
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Ingredients
Donuts:
- 1 1/3 cups almond flour
- 2/3 cup coconut flour
- 3/4 cup low carb sugar substitute or other low carb sweetener
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum may not be needed
- 1 tablespoon butter melted (coconut oil for dairy-free)
- 4 large eggs beaten
- 3/4 cup almond milk or other low carb milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Frosting:
- 2 tablespoon unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup Swerve Confectioners Powdered Sweetener
- 4 drops stevia glycerite or liquid stevia
Low Carb Sweeteners | Keto Sweetener Conversion Chart
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F. Grease donut pan well.
- In bowl, mix together flours, sweetener, baking powder, salt, and xanthan gum. Add butter, eggs, almond milk, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. Beat until well blended. Fill each donut mold about 2/3 full.
- Bake 18-20 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in pans about 15 minutes then remove from pans to finish cooling on racks.
- Spread frosting on top of each donut. Donuts may also be dipped into a mix of cinnamon and sweetener instead of the frosting.
Notes
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Nutrition
Additional Info
Note on Nutritional Information
Nutritional information for the recipe is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site. Erythritol carbs are not included in carb counts as it has been shown not to impact blood sugar. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber.
Unauthorized use of this material without written permission from Lisa MarcAurele is strictly prohibited unless for personal offline purposes.
Single photos may be used, provided that full credit is given to LowCarbYum.com along with a link back to the original content.
Post updated in February 2019. Originally published September 2012.
Lisa MarcAurele has been creating low carb recipes since 2010. She enjoys experimenting in the kitchen to create low sugar foods that taste like high carb favorites!
Dj says
Do you ever use Carbquick
Lisa MarcAurele says
I used to use Carbquik all the time before going gluten-free. It’s a fantastic low carb baking mix if you aren’t on a gluten-free diet.
Janet says
Should my doughnuts be round like a regular doughnut? I got 12 doughnuts from this recipe.
Lisa MarcAurele says
The donuts should be the size of the mold you are using.
Juliana says
I had to throw the “doughnuts’ away.. Disappointed!!!
Lisa MarcAurele says
Can you provide a reason for why you didn’t care for them? A lot of the taste depends on the specific ingredients used like sweetener.
Juliana says
I followed the recipe exactly and did not like the taste at all. The ingredients were expensive.. Waste of time and money…
Lisa MarcAurele says
Taste depends on many factors including brand of sweetener and flour used. It’s hard to say why yours differed so much from mine.
Edward Zender says
Okay, I guess I messed up. First of all, in the ingredients it said 3/4 cup milk, In the instructions, it said Almond milk, I used whole milk, I don’t know if that was the problem but it just didn’t work right. The instructions say to bake them for 18 to 20 minutes @ 325′ I took baked them for 30 minutes. Waited to let cool for 20 minutes and tried to take them out of the silicone donut pans that I purchased just for this recipe, Maybe I should have greased the silicone pans because they stuck big time, They were done and they tasted fine but you needed to eat them with a spoon to get the cake out of the silicone pans. If I do this again I think I will just use foil muffin cups in a standard cupcake pan.
Lisa MarcAurele says
Fixed the ingredient list. The original recipe did state that the pan should be sprayed with oil, but I changed that to say well greased. I’ve found that even with silicone pans, I need to grease well before using.
Lynda says
Can I make these without the donut mold?
Lisa MarcAurele says
Yes. A muffin pan works well too.
Jennifer says
I’ve tried many low carb sweet recipes and they either fell apart or tasted like garbage but these were so good. I’m impressed, thank you for sharing.
Lisa MarcAurele says
You’re welcome! I’m so happy they worked out for you after the other failures. 🙂
Kathy says
Oh my gosh! These donuts are the best! They are so tasty and moist I don’t even need to frost them.
I used Splenda brown sugar (since that’s what I had) and 1Tbls. ground psyllium husk instead of the xanthan gum. My family loves them!
Lisa says
Thanks for the tip! Good to know psyllium is a good sub for the xanthan gum.
Allison Bennick says
What kind of milk are you using?
Lisa says
I use either almond or coconut milk from a carton in this recipe.
Rosemary Steers says
Where is the recipe for the frosting?
Lisa says
You just stir the frosting ingredients together and spread on.
Deanna says
Can I use stevia sweetleaf drops instead of stevia glycerite? I am assuming it is basically the same?
Thank you!
Lisa says
The sweetness is pretty close so you could use in this recipe. May want to test sweetness, though.
Ida says
Hi. Just wondering if you will ever return? Love your blog!
Lisa says
I plan to return to the blog after the holidays.
Ida says
Okay, just curious 🙂 I will keep checking in then!
Jenny says
These look really good. Would it be absolutely necessary to use the Xanthan gum? I don’t have any of that. Have everything else.
Thanks
Jenny
Lisa says
Xanthan gum makes up for lack of gluten. It can be left out, but texture is better with.
Debby Pucci says
They look like a tasty treat!