So, playing around with my recipe, I decided to splurge on a donut pan, nonstick. This recipe will make 6 donuts AND an 8×8 pan of brownies, or 12 cupcakes. Whatever you feel like.
Assuming you divide the recipe into 12 servings, this ends up having:
Calories: About 200
Fat: About 16 grams
Total carbs: About 24 grams
Fiber: About 4.5 grams
Sugar: just under a gram
Sugar alcohols: Just over 16.5 grams (Erythritol, which bothers my gut not at all, YMMV)
Net carbs: Just over 2.5 grams.
Protein: Almost 7.5 grams
This means you can eat one at any given meal with negligible effect on blood sugar, but if you binge enough, you’ll spike. Most of the net carbs are in the almond flour. I strongly recommend against subbing splenda, which not only usually contains carbohydrate fillers, but throws my entire ability to cope with any other carbs out of whack. The fat, fiber and protein content buffer the small amount of remaining carbohydrates.
ON to the recipe!
- Blanched, finely ground almond flour, 2.5 cups
- Dutch Process Cocoa, .5 cup
- Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetner (the kind with erythritol) 1 cup, but reserve several tablespoons for dusting the pans
- Double acting baking powder, 1 tablespoon
- scant half teaspoon salt (or a hearty pinch, not strictly necessary if using salted butter)
- 2 eggs, separated (I used pretty large, nonstandard eggs, if your eggs are small, use three. If you want a lighter recipe, add an extra white.)
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (vanilla is fine, coconut is fine, any low carb, unsweetened nut milk is going to do well here.)
- You’re going to need 4 oz or half a Kerrygold brick of butter, total, roughly, but only 6 tablespoons of that go into the mix, melted. The rest gets used to grease the pan, and make topping if you like. Follow the markers on the butter label if using a different brand. Sub coconut oil or a liquid oil if making nondairy. Recipe tested with salted butter, came out only slightly salty but I like that.
- Ground Flax (I use golden): .25 cup
- A little extra cocoa for dusting
This is a “lot of bowls but still pretty easy” recipe.
Start by preheating your oven to 400F
Then grease whatever pans you’re going to use. The rest of the recipe assumes 12 standard cuppins. (Are they muffins because they have lots of fiber and are low carb? Or are they cupcakes because they taste like tender brownies? Muffcakes sounds much, much worse.) Use a nonstick pan and PLENTY of butter or cooking spray. You do not want these to stick or you will be spooning them out of the pan, sadly. Liners aren’t great with these unless silicone, but they won’t brown as well on the edge.
Add a little cocoa and a few spoons of that cup of sweetener to a dish and mix them with a fork, then dust them over the greased pans.
Put 2 cups of almond flour in a large mixing bowl. Plan to add up to a half cup more as needed. Add the cocoa, the rest of the sweetener, baking soda and salt, and mix everything with a whisk or sift or push through a screen until the lumps are gone.
Melt your butter in 15 second bursts until just melted through.
While that’s happening, separate your eggs and put the yolks in one bowl and the whites in a bowl large enough to mix. I used an old-fashioned egg beater with a manual crank and it took, ehhhh 2 minutes of not a lot of work to get soft peaks. A whisk takes me closer to 5 minutes and an electric mixer would take about a minute but then you have to clean the thing. I think a stand mixer would take -5 minutes but then add the 20 minutes of getting my husband to get it from the difficult to get it from place and it’s just not worth it. My kid loves our little old fashioned egg beater.
Anyway, get the whites to soft peaks, and set aside while you mix the almond milk, the ground flax and the egg yolks (you want the almond milk and ground flax together before you lump everything in, for better texture. I tried mixing the ground flax with the dry ingredients and let’s just say it benefits from the extra wet time if you mix it with the wet.
Add the butter to the egg yolk mixture and make sure the whole thing is mixed. A fork will do it, a whisk will do it, this is not a fussy recipe use what you have.
Don’t wait too long to add all that to the dry mix. If it’s too thin, add more almond meal. I think about 2 and 1/3 cups are probably about right, but these things probably vary based on humidity. You want it a nice mud-pie consistency, so that if you, for example, got fancy and used an ice cream scoop to put things into the cupcake tin, they would hold their shape for a bit, but not in the oven.
Give the eggwhites one last beat and then fold them gently in with the rest of the mixture.
If donuts, and a 6 donut tray, put about half the batter into a ziplock bag, cut the corner of the bag off (not too small, an inch opening is not too large) and seal the bag, then pipe the batter into the donut wells.
If muffins, a standard ice cream scoop is pretty convenient except you’ll have to short each one a little to make 12, but they puff up just enough that you won’t mind.
If 8×8 tray, just spread it out, don’t fuss at it to be level, it will mostly level itself. (Later, cut it in the pan and expect that first one to be a cook’s sacrifice until you have enough room to get a spatula under the rest to get them out neatly. They’re pretty tender.)
Bake for at LEAST 20 minutes and probably closer to 25 minutes, or until they test done, or feel reasonably resistant to being poked. Don’t burn your fingers.
Allow to cool.
Top as desired, I just wanted donuts so I didn’t get fancy.
