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Have I got a gluten-free donut recipe for you today! That’s right, I’m going to share with you a gluten-free donut recipe you are going to make over and over and over again. Did I mention you’re going to love it?

The recipe is for gluten-free chocolate glazed donuts. They bake up so perfectly, I had to pinch myself that these are gluten-free.

This recipe is by Chrystal Carver over at the Gluten-Free Palate. I became familiar with Chrystal’s work after she published her cookbook, Sweet & Simple Gluten-Free Baking. My friend Jennifer McLeland over at Holistic Head to Toe snagged an extra copy of the book at the Food Allergy Blogger’s Conference last year (I missed it, I was in Israel) and she gave it to me. All the recipes in the cookbook are gluten-free and made with 10 ingredients or less. This gluten-free donut recipe is not in her book, it’s online here, but she does have other gluten-free donut recipes, as well as a slew of other fantastic, classic gluten-free recipes you are going to love making.

In order to make this gluten-free donut recipe, you’ll need a donut pan. Don’t worry, you are going to get a lot of use out of this pan, so it’s well worth the investment. I have two donut pans and use them for donuts as well as when I make gluten-free bagels. Pretty cool, right? If I could do it over again, I would have purchased a 12-cavity donut pan instead. Live and learn.

In addition to the donut pan, you’ll also need a good gluten-free flour blend. I really like Bob’s 1-to-1 Gluten-Free Flour Blend. It’s dairy-free (in case you want to make your donuts with dairy substitutes) and it’s also cornstarch-free. It’s hard to find flours these days without cornstarch. While I do eat corn products, I prefer to limit my corn intake because I tested positive for a corn allergy, and one of my really close friends doesn’t eat corn, so I like using a flour that is corn-free. Bob’s gluten-free flour is also soy-free.

Crystal’s original recipe called for an all-purpose gluten-free flour plus xanthan gum. Because Bob’s 1-to-1 Gluten-Free Flour Blend is a gluten-free flour blend, it already has xanthan gum in it, so I omitted the xanthan gum. Additionally, I wanted to make these donuts a little more moist so I added canned pumpkin to the batter. I am so pleased with the pumpkin addition that I only make them with pumpkin now. If you don’t have pumpkin, you can perhaps add 1/4 cup of yogurt, a smashed ripe banana or even 1/4 cup of applesauce. I haven’t tried all those options, but they sound like they would work well too.

A few weeks ago, I made this gluten-free donut recipe for my family. My dad loves donuts. Like seriously LOVES DONUTS!  His favorite donut is the chocolate glazed cake donut at Dunkin’ Donuts. I used to get him that donut when I wanted to butter him up!

With hesitation, my dad took one of my gluten-free chocolate donuts (he’s always willing to try what I make, but he’s a gluten guy). He ate it and RAVED about them. He told me he couldn’t tell they were gluten-free and asked if he could take one home. I only had one left at the end of the night and my dad had dibs on it – so it was his!

I just made this gluten-free donut recipe AGAIN today so we could enjoy them on Yom Kippur, after sundown when we break our day-long fast. I made THREE dozen of them!  (This recipe makes six donuts, so you can imagine the brainpower I had to employ to ensure I didn’t mess up the math!)

A Word About the Chocolate Glaze

When you make the chocolate glaze, you’ll want to first combine the powdered sugar and cocoa, then add the milk as needed. You don’t want your glaze too soupy nor too stiff. Play with it to get the consistency just right. When you glaze the donuts, make sure they are completely cool. Completely. Otherwise the glaze will just melt off of the donuts.

Just look at those beautifully glazed donuts!

I also place the glazed donuts back on my cooling racks to allow any excess glaze to drip off of them onto the counter vs. on my serving dish. Once the glaze hardened, I put them in my fridge to ensure the glaze stays in place and doesn’t melt away.

So the next time you’re craving donuts, I hope you’ll give this gluten-free donut recipe a try. I promise you, it will be one of your go-to dessert (or maybe breakfast) recipes. You’ll wonder how you lived without delicious donuts for so long!

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