Pillowy-soft, ultra chocolatey, and incredibly moist! Count on these glazed gluten free and keto chocolate donuts to become a favorite treat (at just 2g net carbs a piece!).
Gluten Free & Keto Chocolate Donuts
Glazed & Suuuuper Soft!
These guys are the chocolate version of our pillowy-soft keto donuts. They’re definitely just as good, and if anything a little easier (courtesy of the added cocoa).
Turns out the secret lies in making an easy keto choux pastry, which I first used for our keto churros. And with a couple small modifications, you’ve got some truly amazing baked donuts at your disposal!
You can also pretty much do your topping of choice. I love a good classic glaze, but brushing them with melted butter and sprinkling with cinnamon ‘sugar’ is sooo delicious too.
The Method
The batter for these keto donuts is essentially a choux pastry (used to make anything from eclairs to gougeres). But this is just a fancy way of saying that you first boil together water with sugar, butter (or coconut oil) and salt. Adding in the flour and cooking it until it forms into a ball. And step three, mixing in the eggs off the stove. We also add a bit of baking powder at the end for extra rise.
Now when you mix in the eggs the dough will be very stiff, and given that we’re also adding in baking powder, the job is best done with a hand-mixer here. The final dough should be very elastic (courtesy of the eggs and xanthan gum).
For the shaping you’ll need a pastry bag (disposable ones are terrific) or simply use a thick plastic bag. You don’t need a tip here, just to pipe it out onto a donut pan as smoothly as you can (so they rise evenly).
The Chocolate
You’ll want to use a Dutch-processed alkaline cocoa here. As there’s baking powder involved, using cacao won’t give the same results (at all!).
In terms of brands, my favorite will forever be Valrhona, known to be one of (if not the) best cocoas in the world.
The Flours
I like a mixture of super fine almond flour and coconut flour best. Add a touch of psyllium husk and xanthan gum, and we’re golden.
And don’t skip the psyllium husk. It helps retain moisture, create structure (i.e. it’s highly responsible for the killer crumb). And it just so happens to be a killer source of fiber.
Borrowed from molecular cooking, xanthan gum is the binding agent which makes your toothpaste jelly-like (and your cream cheese, well cream cheese-like). And it’s also the most common gluten-replacer in gluten free baking. And there’s absolutely no skipping it here!
In all honesty, no substituting anything here. You really do need the full combo of grain free flours to get the choux just right.
In terms of brands, for the almond either Anthony’s or WellBees work great. Both are super fine grinds. And for the coconut, we always favor Anthony’s.
The Sweetener
This choux pastry to make the donuts is very lightly sweetened (and fairly bland solo), think just a couple tablespoons. But this is really to accommodate for the glaze or topping of choice. So to sweeten the keto choux pastry itself you can use erythritol (Lakanto or Swerve), xylitol or allulose.
And if just grain free, coconut sugar is your best bet here. And of course, raw sugar works great too.
If you’re opting for the glaze, which comes highly recommended, your best options for no aftertaste are allulose or xylitol. But they must be powdered.
So get your blender out, make sure it’s completely dry, and process your sweetener of choice until powdered. Just make sure you wait a few moments for the dust to settle before opening the blender or food processor.
Or you can always grab a bag of powdered erythritol (Lakanto or Swerve).
And if using xylitol, make sure to be careful if you have a pup around the house, as it’s highly toxic to the little guys! 🐕
Glazed!) Gluten Free & Keto Chocolate Donuts
Ingredients
For the keto donuts
- 64 g almond flour
- 28 g coconut flour
- 1 tablespoon psyllium husk ground
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 240 ml water
- 57 g grass-fed unsalted butter or coconut oil
- 3 tablespoons erythritol or xylitol*
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 eggs lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 30 g cocoa powder
For the glaze
- 50 g xylitol powdered
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 42 g grass-fed unsalted butter melted (or 2 TBSP coconut oil/ghee)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2-3 tablespoons heavy, sour or coconut cream at room temperature
- 1-3 teaspoons hot water optional, as needed
Special equipment
- pastry bag or plastic bag
- donut pan **
Instructions
- See recipe video below for guidance! You'll be adding in the cocoa powder along with the baking powder.
- Preheat oven to 390°F/200°C. Grease and dust with cocoa powder a donut pan.
- Whisk together in a medium bowl almond flour, coconut flour, psyllium husk and xanthan gum. Set aside.
- Heat up water, butter, sweetener and salt in medium pot (or Dutch oven) until it just begins to simmer. Lower heat to low and add in flour mixture, mixing constantly to incorporate. Continue to cook and stir until the dough pulls away from the pan and forms into a ball, 1-3 minutes.
- Transfer dough back to the bowl and allow to cool for 5 minutes. The dough should still be warm, but not hot enough to scramble the eggs.
- Add in one egg at a time, mixing with an electric mixer until fully incorporated. Mix in vanilla extract, baking powder and cocoa. The final dough should be very elastic.
- Spoon dough into a piping bag or plastic bag (no tip needed). Cut out bottom of piping bag 2 cm (3/4 inch) wide. Pipe out dough onto donut pan. Wet your finger tip and smooth out where the ends meet (for a more even rise). Bake for 20-25 minutes, checking in on them at minute 15 for over-browning and covering with a foil dome if need be (we didn't find it necessary!). Allow to rest in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and cooling on a rack before glazing. However, if you're doing a coating rather than a glaze, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon 'sugar' right out of the oven.
- For the glaze, sift powdered sweetener onto a bowl and whisk in the salt. Mix in the melted butter, vanilla extract and cream of choice (I love sour cream!) a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. You can thin it out even further with a little hot water and dunk the entire donuts in it. Use your fingertip here to test for thickness! Oh, and if you're glaze splits (usually the result of a cold cream), use an immersion blender to get it silky-smooth. Glaze donuts by dunking them onto the glaze (if your tops came out a bit wonky, you can always use the rounder bottoms as your new 'tops'!).
- These are best enjoyed still warm and freshly glazed, but they keep quite well for a day or two stored in an airtight container in the fridge if they're glazed, or at room temp without it.
By far the best keto donut recipe ever! Once you’ve got the ingredients on hand, you’ll understand why it’s worth the extra cost when you compare this recipe to others. Last time i added a little bit of melted chocolate (100%) and it was even richer in flavor. My boyfriend loves powdered donuts so I blend xylitol and coat the donuts in it.
Today I’m going to skip the chocolate and add cinnamon and try a low carb apple cinnamon version. 🙂
Everyone who is craving donuts should try this recipe. I cooked mine for 20 min and they were perfect . I didn’t have coco powder so left mine plain and dipped them in a chocolate sauce. Using 100%dark chocolate and some sweetener. I was so satisfied with the donut after I eat it.
I used cocoa!!! Oh nooo!!! They’re in the oven right now and I hadn’t noticed you said to only use Dutch process alkaline. Shoot! Will they be ok? What happens to it when you use baking powder? Thought I was making them healthier?
Is it possible to fry these? I fry with coconut oil.
Yes! I would check out the churro recipe instead though (think donut bites!) xo!
Made these today. Wasn’t expecting much. I was blown away! They are outstanding!! I put cinnamon and “sugar” on some chocolate and vanilla glaze on the others. The recipe comes together very fast and has incredible taste and texture. Thank you for sharing.
Super awesome to hear Ellen! Thank you for your detailed comment! 😘
Could oat fibre be used instead of psyllium powder? I don’t have psyllium powder on hand.
Hi Denise! Did you ask this same question yesterday? Unfortunately I don’t bake with oat fibre so I can’t tell you for sure (I can’t do grains xo!_
Hi Paola,
I just found out that I’m egg intolerant. Do you think I could use a Chia seed and water mixture instead of eggs?
Hi Stephanie! Unfortunately I’m fairly certain that you need eggs for these, as they complete the ‘choux’ dough 🙁
Could oat fibre be used instead of psyllium powder?
Maybe? Unfortunately that’s an ingredient that I haven’t been able to experiment with as I’ve had to cut out grains xo!
Could oat fibre be used in place of psyllium powder?
Uhm, these look AMAZING!! I pinned these and can’t wait to try them!!!
I have one of those electric mini doughnut makers that I got from a thrift store. Do you think this recipe would work in it? It seems similar to your keto waffle recipe (which ROCKS!) and is similar to a waffle iron. Interested to see if anyone else has tried it yet? Would be great not having to heat up the oven. Your recipes are the BEST! Thank you for your hard work….and I don’t have to adapt them for high altitude because you have already done that for us!
Have you heard of the new sweetener Allulose? It has absolutely no aftertaste and has good health benefits.
Do you think you can make the dough the day before???
It won’t rise as high unfortunately 🙁
Two of my favorite of your recipes are the donut ones 🙂 Always a success when I make them!
Mine deflated when they came out of the oven. Do you think they were undercooked?
Same thing just happened to me. They were awesome when I pulled them out, 5 min of resting and they’re deflated 🙁 Not sure why
Mine also deflated but tasted great. Definitely worth the extra work to make them. They were light and airing. Far above any other low carb donut have made. My daughter has type 1 diabetes and I made them for her today while she is home from college in spring break. She loved. Thank you.
We’re trying these today. Can’t wait!
Hope you love them! xo!
Can you prepare the dough ahead of time and store in fridge or freezer?
In all honesty it doesn’t rise as much if you refrigerate it 🙁
You’re my food hero!!! Thanks for all these delicious recipes! I hope you know how much of a difference you make for people trying to succeed at low carb/Keto!
These were my absolute favorite! The texture is amazing. I made them last night and packed one for my lunch today and it was even better today. I also used xylitol for the first time instead of erythritol like I usually do – I definitely like the xylitol better and will continue to use it. Is there anything erythritol is better for?
Wow these are delicious thank you!! They have the actual mouthfeel of donuts it’s crazy!!
I was wondering if you calculate sweeteners in the nutrition facts…in the case of this last recipe in aprticular, but also as a general rule. Could you please confirm it or explain your way of calculate them? I mean: somebody count half the amount of carbs they add, somebody doesn’t ount them at all “because they’re not digested”-I find this point too personal, it may vary and I don’t consider it a good method in a public resources: it’s far better to calculate total carbs, with the separated voices of sugars/fibres/polialcohols so that everyone that knows how these sweeteners affect him/her personally can make his/her own counts and see if the recipe can be ok without variations… Thank you!
Hi Roberta! You are right, whether you count them or not is a personal choice. Which is the reason why we (and most other keto blogs) also omit them from our counts. The other reason why I choose to omit them when calculating facts for you guys, is that many of you use varying sweeteners with varying counts (thing erythritol and xylitol). xo!
These are in the oven right now. Smells so good and they look great. I’m going to try out a peanut butter glaze, at my husband’s request.
Ooooh that sounds delicious Sarah! Hope you guys enjoy them 🙂
Where the heck can I find Dutch Processed Alkaline Cocoa?
Hi Carlos! In pretty much every single supermarket, amazon, etc. It’s a VERY common baking product, probably as common as flour and sugar itself. There are simply different types of cocoa, and when you use baking powder for this recipe you want to use the Dutch processed one 😉 xo!
Terrific recipe! Thank you!
My son has celiac and love the fact that you posted the recipe, but do u sell them. I burn what i bake…lol
Lol unfortunately I don’t sell them! But trust me that when I first started baking in college I used to burn everything too 😉
Amazing per usual Paola! And that glaze…. my goodness it’s SO GOOD!
Lol Jennifer that’s awesome to hear! And DEF on the glaze, it’s addictive 😉 xo!
This sounds delicious. Has anyone tried freezing and defrosting for a one donut meal? I am afraid that they would get stale before I could eat them. Single person household here. Thanks.
Autsch! I read too fast and managed not to notice the eggs.
I’ll check iHerb for the superfine almond flour. It’s just that they take forever to deliver…
Since this doughnut recipe does not contain any eggs could I just leave out the almond flour and go coconut all the way? Superfine almond flour is not even heard of here in Spain.
Hi Kari! Unfortunately the recipe does contain 3 eggs, so all coconut comes out weird. You can buy the almond flour online? Sites like iherb.com are great xo!
Im n germany & we are just starting to get it here. Check the organic stores. I was getting the finely ground almonds & blitzing it in my food processor. Usually works ok
If you’re doing it yourself make sure to sieve it (I’ve never been able to manage to get properly finely ground almond flour this way though)
On a serious note how do I make the Gougères with the dough? Omit sugar add cheese?
Pretty much yeah! But search the site for gougeres (or cheese puffs), there’s a full recipe for those xo enjoy! 🙂
Did I ever tell you I love you?!?!?! 😍😍😍
😉
LOL! 😉