Oven Baked Sweet Potato Doughnuts
Here is a recipe for juicy sweet potato doughnuts that will surely break some stereotypes about healthy sweets. These delicious oven-baked doughnuts are made with sweet potatoes, spelt flour and other nutritious ingredients. They are vegan and oil-free, and don’t require any frying.
A couple of years into oven-baked doughnut experiments, I have to say that I’ve preferred them over regular doughnuts in every batch that I baked so far. That level of tasty, fulfilling and juicy is something that an old-school doughnut always lacked in my opinion.
To be fair, these don’t have that much in common with a “real doughnut” anyway – no oil, no frying and a soda bread type of dough instead of leavened one. Still, I think the shape makes them more fun than a cake made from the same batter. You do feel like you are eating a doughnut!
Ingredients for the spelt flour sweet potato doughnuts
To make these amazing doughnuts, you will need the following ingredients:
- sweet potatoes
- spelt flour
- oat flour
- ground almonds
- flax seeds
- plant milk – I like to use my homemade hemp and almond milk, but plain, natural soy or oat milk will work too
- coconut blossom sugar
- winter spices – ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom and cloves
- apple cider vinegar
- bicarbonate of soda (baking soda).
For the chocolate frosting, you will need:
- cacao paste (cacao mass) – you can learn how to make your own homemade cacao paste from cacao beans in this article.
- maple or date syrup
- full-fat coconut milk
- cacao nibs (crushed cacao beans) for decoration.
For this type of doughnuts that are baked without oil, you will also need doughnut moulds. I love to use silicone moulds and I think nowadays they are available in many stores (back in the days I ordered some online and they still work great).
These vegan sweet potato will be a nice sweet addition to any holiday table, or an amazing party snack. They are nutritious and flavourful, but also easy and fun to make. In my opinion, they require much less effort than the leaven doughnuts.
Some years ago I wrote a recipe for super tasty oven-baked doughnuts with pumpkin – if you haven’t already, you should definitely check it out. Those are a bit simpler to make and contain less ingredients.
But, if you are in for a real holiday treat and happen to have a sweet potato waiting around to be cooked, then keep on reading because these delicious doughnuts might be a thing you don’t want to miss out on!
Oven Baked Sweet Potato Doughnuts
Ingredients
- 1 + 1/4 cup orange sweet potato, cut into small cubes
- 3/4 cup water
- 2 tsp ground golden flax seeds
- 6 tbsp home-made apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup plant milk
- 4 tbsp coconut blossom sugar
- 1 + 1/3 cup spelt flour T 630
- 1/4 cup oat flour
- 1/3 cup finely ground almonds
- 2 pinches bicarbonate of soda
- 2 pinches ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground Ceylon cinnamon
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- 1 pinch ground cardamom
- 1 pinch ground vanilla
- 80 g cacao mass
- 1/3 cup date syrup
- 1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk
Instructions
Mix spelt flour, ground almonds, oat flour, coconut sugar, spices and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
Cook the sweet potatoes in 3/4 cup of water, in a covered pot, for about 5 minutes or until it softens (check it with a fork).
Transfer the cooked sweet potatoes into a blender, together with the water they were cooked in.
Add oat milk, apple cider vinegar and ground flax seeds.
Blend until you get a smooth mass.
Pour this mixture into the bowl with dry ingredients and mix everything well.
Transfer the batter into moulds and bake on 175 °C for 35-40 minutes.
Let the doughnuts cool down while you prepare the chocolate.
Melt the cacao mass over a double boiler, add the date syrup and warmed-up coconut milk, and whisk to combine.
Dip the doughnuts in the chocolate frosting and let it cool at the room temperature.
Optionally, garnish with cacao nibs.
Notes
*this amount of batter will be enough for 12 doughnuts if you use a regular size mould.
* instead of cacao mass, you can use a dark chocolate of your choice. I prefer the cacao mass because I can choose how much I will sweeten it, and which sweetener to use.
Bon appétit!
