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Doughnuts are one of those foods that are almost impossible to find in a gluten-free vegan variety. I’ve actually never found a commercial gluten-free vegan doughnut, but I’m saying “almost impossible” to be optimistic. Adding “low-carb” or “keto” to the list of doughnut qualifiers makes them even more challenging to track down. So, after realizing that this was another thing I’d have to just make myself, I bought a doughnut pan and started off to make a low carb vegan doughnut.
These vegan keto peanut butter doughnuts turned out so well that I’m definitely going to be adding them to my regular dessert rotation. I’ll also be making other doughnut varieties for sure. Now that I have a larger-sized doughnut pan (I’ve made mini vegan keto doughnuts before), I’m in the doughnut zone. I can’t wait to play around and come up with more!
I used peanut butter here, but you can use almond butter and it will actually lower the overall carbs (see the recipe notes!), you can also use sunflower seed butter to make these nut-free. They’re already gluten-free, sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free and soy-free, which is pretty impressive considering they’re low carb. I like to make recipes that are as accessible to everyone as possible since it’s so hard to find allergy-friendly recipes! If you have a question about substituting an ingredient that I haven’t mentioned, feel free to ask in the comments!
As with every recipe, I LOVE it when you guys share your pics with me on social media. It brightens my day when you guys make these recipes, so don’t hesitate to tag me on Instagram or let me know in the comments!
Notes on Making Vegan Keto Peanut Butter Doughnuts
- Yes, almond butter is lower in carbs – if you want to use almond butter in this recipe, the macros will be as follows: 206 calories | 5.5g protein | 18.2g fat | 2.5g of net carbs
- To make extra thick doughnuts, you can double the recipe and still use the same pan. Just bake them for about 35 minutes. You won’t need to double the glaze recipe, though. The normal amount should be fine. 🙂
- Make sure the liquids sit for at least five minutes so the flax seeds gel up. Otherwise, the final doughnuts will be crumbly!
- If you want to make these nut-free, you could use sunflower seed butter in place of the peanut butter!
- You could also use liquid stevia for the glaze to make it a little smoother, or a powdered sweetener. I use the granulated, though, and it works fine for me!
- Keep in mind that different brands of ingredients will yield different nutritional amounts! I use the USDA values for most ingredients, but if you use a specific brand of nut butter or coconut flour, then you will have different values.
- I like to sprinkle freeze-dried strawberries on top of these, for both color and a little extra flavor. It makes them PB&J doughnuts! I literally just crumbled one strawberry slice per doughnut.
- Be sure to subtract the carbs from the sweetener from the net carbs! MyFitnessPal doesn’t do this, so you have to remember to do it while tracking. 🙂
Vegan Keto Peanut Butter Doughnuts
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1/4 cup 28g coconut flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
Wet Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseed yes, really!
- 6 tbsp 90ml/96g peanut butter (I used a salted)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1/2 cup 120ml warm water or nondairy milk of choice
- 2 tbsp granulated sweetener
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Glaze
- 2 tbsp peanut butter
- 1 tbsp granulated sweetener
- 2 tbsp nondairy milk of choice
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (177°C) and have on hand a standard doughnut pan.
- Whisk dry ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, mash together peanut butter and coconut oil. This doesn't have to be too perfect, because the warm water/nondairy milk should help to mix everything better. Stir in the rest of the wet ingredients and keep mixing until everything is totally combined. Let this sit for about five minutes so the flax has time to gel up.
- Stir the dry ingredients in until a thick batter forms.
- Evenly distribute batter into the doughnut pan, making sure to smooth over any large peaks.
- Bake for 25 minutes, until the tops are firm and golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing, so the doughnuts can set up.
- Remove from the doughnut pan (I had to whack the back of the pan upside down over the cooling rack, which I'm sure looked ridiculous).
- Mix together glaze ingredients and dip the doughnuts into the glaze, or spread it using a butter knife.
- Enjoy!
What can I use if I want it oil-free?
Hi Bunny, this is a great question! You could use another 2 tbsp of peanut butter instead. You may need to add another tbsp of water/nondairy milk though, depending on how thick the peanut butter you use is (the stuff I have is basically cement). 🙂
Is there a step left out? I whisked together the dry ingredients, including the flax. Now that I’ve read you the recipe I’m guessing the flax has water added to it and it is not next year with the dry ingredients. For flax egg are usually use 3 tablespoons water to 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed. That’s how I will try it here. Hopefully it will work out I’m craving is terribly. Let me know how I’ve missed the directions so I can make them perfectly next time
I voice texted the above. Lol. I hope you can decipher my question. In a nutshell, I’m wondering how to use the flax.
Hi Debbie! Your voice text worked perfectly – I totally understood what you were saying. I am so sorry about this! You are right – the flax should actually be with the wet ingredients (hence the note about letting it gel with the rest of them). I don’t know where my brain was when I wrote the flax into the dry. Basically, all the wet ingredients need to sit for a few minutes so the flax does its thing and forms that gel so that everything sticks together, otherwise it’s all crumbly.
Hi this sounds great since I just started the vegan keto diet! I do not have monkfruit. Can I use coconut sugar instead? I appreciate any other suggestions!
Hi Marcia, welcome to vegan keto! 🙂
Coconut sugar will work as a replacement in regards to sweetening and binding the recipe. It is high in sugar though. Erythritol or xylitol can be used to make it lower carb if you are concerned about that. If you aren’t super worried about carb counts, then coconut sugar will be super tasty!
Could you swap the flax? Love the idea but my fiancé is allergic
Absolutely you can sub out the flax! Chia seeds should work just as well. I’d recommend grinding them so the texture isn’t so weird. 🙂
I am doing the happy dance. I have been off again on again with keto because I really do NOT like eggs or meat. I have better control of my migraines and seizures when I stay in ketosis so I have been looking for a way to make keto work for me. Just today someone mentioned to me they were using a LCHF vegan diet. I can not wait to try out some of your recipes. Thank you!
Hi Carrie! Thank you so much for commenting. I hope you enjoy the recipes! And I’m so happy to hear that ketosis has been so helpful for you, and that you now have an egg-free, meat-free resource!
FYI I used sunflower seed butter and mine turned green! Apparently sunflower seeds have chlorogenic acid. When that meets baking soda, it turns green.
So if you use sunflower seed butter, your donuts will turn green.
Thank you for the warning, Karen! I always forget this until I pull something with sunflower seeds out of the oven. Quite a few surprises have been had… I’ll be sure to make a note in the recipe, so others aren’t startled by this! 🙂
Hi Liz,
These look amazing. My question for you is whether these could be adapted to make them chocolate with chocolate glaze, and if so would you use something like pili nut flour instead pf peanut?
I’ve actually never used pili nut flour! I think you could definitely adapt them to be chocolate. I can get working on this for sure 😀
Ahhh! So freaking excited! Made these last night and they are quite DIViNE!! Thank you !! I CANNOT wait for your cookbook to come out !!
P.S. I did half PB half AB and also added 1/8 cup almond flour and a few more TBS of nut milk. Yummmmy! Next thing my husband asked after complimenting them was “can you make it with a chocolate sauce?” Haha
Ooooh, they’d be SO GOOD with a chocolate sauce! I’m so glad you like them and I’m so excited, too! 😀
Thanks for a great recipe! I made them yesterday and my whole family (husband, teenage son and 10 year old) loved them : )
Thank you for sharing, Chris – that makes me so happy! 🙂
Has anyone tried these in the BABYCAKES cake pop maker?
I made these tonight as a small sweet treat to go with my (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner, and they are so delicious – the texture of the doughnut itself is so light and fluffy and I could pretty much drink the glaze. 🙂 My 8-year-old also loved them. Thank you so much for this amazing recipe – I know that we will be making these again and again!
Hi Lana, I’m so happy they worked for you an d your family! 😀
I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful!
Could you do this in some other kind of pan? I don’t have a doughnut pan…. and want these to happen in my kitchen ASAP.
Thanks!
Melanie
Hi Melanie! They can be made in a muffin pan as well! You may need to bake them for a few minutes longer, but they’re just as delicious! 😀
Can I use almond flour in place of the coconut flour and olive oil in place of the coconut oil?
Thanks!
Hi Kaylah! You can replace the coconut oil for sure in a one to one ratio. As for the coconut flour, typically the conversion is 1 part of coconut flour can be subbed out for 4 parts of almond flour. But, I’m not an expert (I actually can’t eat almonds!) so I’m not totally sure how this would work in practice. 🙂
I do have 2 questions, but I first want to ¡Thank You!
You have really made it easier for me to stay KV with all your delicious recipes and nutritional info. I think this is my favorite KV dessert ever so far!
I’m totally addicted to quite a few of your other recipes in your book, which I stopped using bookmark tabs in, because almost every page was marked!
Now to my questions, how and for how long can I store these?
Also, I only recently found out about how ground flax meal and almond flour are supposed to be refrigerated. Any other cautionary tales on things like this? I try to buy in bulk to cut down on waste and am hesitant to throw out my flax meal.
Thank you, Liz!
Janine
Hi Janine, good question! I have successfully stored these in the fridge for five days, but haven’t tried longer than that.
As for flax and the like – pretty much all ground nuts or seeds should be stored in a sealed container in the fridge. Whole nuts or seeds can be as well, but can also be stored in a cool, dark place. The key is to minimize oxidation via reducing exposure to light and heat, as well as temperature swings. 🙂
I made these using almond butter and added 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. I was so pleased that they held together nicely and were very delicious. Thanks for sharing!
This sounds like a delicious variation! Thank you for sharing it 😀
These look awesome and I can’t wait to make them. Having put them in the diet app I use, however, I can only get a net carb number of 5.5 with Meridian peanut butter and 4.5 with almond, despite using carb free sweetener and plant milk. In the UK, net carbs is already shown on foods. Guess I will have to eat fewer doughnuts! Thanks for so many amazing ideas- I have to do keto because of a neurological disease, so am incredibly grateful for your tasty ideas!
The first time I made these they came out great! The second time it looks like they’re deflated :'(. This happened to a different donut recipe I tried as well. Any ideas or advice?
Hi Alyssa, how old is your baking powder? Usually if things deflate, it’s because of expired leaveners. 🙂
Hi! I’m planning on making these but I’m worried if you’ll taste the flaxseed because I don’t want to feel any grittiness once I eat it.
Hey Julianna! As long as you grind the flaxseed finely, you shouldn’t notice it at all! If you have pre-ground flaxmeal from the store, this is usually already fine enough. 🙂