Today I woke up to gorgeous sunlight in my kitchen. When that sunlight hits the table just right at about 9am on Saturday mornings it's perfect for taking food photography! I'm no expert, but it's a great time to pull out the camera and practice different techniques and angles. I prefer natural morning light to any other type of light for photography. It just works SO well with food. Of course that means you end up baking a lot of breakfast items to take pictures of! :-)
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| Charlie thought they looked pretty dang tasty! |
I asked Michael what he wanted me to make. He said waffles... except... I'm pretty sure I goodwill-ed the waffle iron in a kitchen purge. It didn't have a dual purpose in life... it just made waffles, so out it went! (This logic makes no sense to my husband! lol) But when you have a tiny kitchen and very limited cabinet space... out goes the waffle maker... but I think I'm getting side-tracked...
So then I started thinking donuts. I made vegan powdered sugar donuts last weekend when we had friends come over for dinner. My friend Heather is also gluten-free and hadn't had donuts in years, so we gladly ate donuts and coffee for dessert! The donuts were still on my mind. Even though, technically, a baked "cake-like" donut is basically a muffin in disguise, it just seems a lot more fun because it's round and has a hole in the center! lol... Funny how life plays little tricks on us like that isn't it!
Below is the recipe for the donuts I came up with. I based the recipe loosely from the low glycemic chocolate donut recipe I have in my cookbook, "The Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook." Michael likes chocolate chip anything, so I thought that would be fun to throw in the batter. I also had some bananas that were a bit past their prime, so I used the banana in place of 1 egg and some additional liquids in the original recipe. I also used both almond flour and arrowroot starch, because I think the combination of the two give a great texture for gluten-free baked goods.
Banana Double Chocolate Almond Flour Donuts
--created by Carrie Forbes, author of Gingerlemongirl.com
--adapted from a recipe in "The Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook"
--free of gluten, dairy, soy, and grains
--printer-friendly version
Yields: 6 large donuts
Dry Ingredients:
3/4 cup (81 grams) blanched almond flour
1/2 cup (61 grams) arrowroot starch
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Wet Ingredients:
1 large (98 grams) banana
1 large (49 grams) egg
1/3 cup (56 grams) brown sugar
2 tablespoons light tasting olive oil
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Add In's:
1/3 cup (55 grams) chocolate chips
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spritz a large donut pan with non-stick cooking spray or grease with coconut oil or butter.
- In a large bowl whisk together all the dry ingredients.
- In a smaller bowl mash the banana with a fork until pureed. Stir in remaining wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until you have a wet batter.
- Spoon batter evenly into the donut pan for each donut. You should have exactly enough batter to fill each donut mold/indention about 3/4 full.
- Bake for 10-13 minutes until donuts have doubled in size and are crisp and dark brown around the edges.
- Allow donuts to cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack or plate to cool completely.
- IF DESIRED, you can create a white glaze for the donuts by simply mixing 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons water or almond milk. Dunk each donut in the glaze and allow to rest on the wire rack for an additional 20 minutes or so to let glaze harden. Serve immediately. These donuts are best the day they are made, but will also freeze well.
