Get two new free healthy recipes each week. Sign Up

Red Velvet Donuts–Refined Sugar Free!

Soft, light, & decadently healthy red velvet donuts – with a secret ingredient and NO food coloring!

red velvet donuts

Did you notice the theme with my most recent recipes?

I’ve been having fun trying healthier alternatives to food coloring, first with my Magical Rainbow Unicorn Dip, and now with these vibrant red velvet donuts. They are baked instead of fried, are free of refined sugars and food dye, and they are also safe for vegans. The homemade donuts come together with just a few minutes of work and are healthy enough to eat for breakfast.

♥ You won’t miss the food coloring and refined sugar!

donut batter

When I think of red velvet, I immediately think of Sprinkles’ red velvet cupcakes, complete with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting.

But these donuts are so much better than that… mostly because donuts are so much better than cupcakes. You can eat them plain, or with chocolate glaze, or topped with melted coconut butter or my Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting.

If you want to do the chocolate glaze, either dip the finished donuts in melted chocolate (mixed with a little oil if desired for a smoother sauce) OR mix together 2 tbsp pure maple syrup, 2 tbsp melted coconut oil, and scant 3 tbsp cocoa powder and gently heat until it becomes a thin sauce.

Refrigerate to “set” the chocolate glaze. If you use the coconut-oil version, it’s best to store the donuts in the fridge because coconut oil melts at room temperature.

 

More Healthy Donut Recipes:

powder sugar donuts
Mini Homemade Snowball Donuts

 

vegan donuts
Homemade Blueberry Baked Donuts

 

banana bread donuts
Banana Breakfast Donuts

 

P.S. These healthy red velvet donuts would be perfect for Valentine’s Day breakfast!

A good-for-you alternative to Dunkin Donuts, they are baked instead of fried and have no food coloring or refined sugars!

Healthy Red Velvet Donuts

Adapted from Blueberry Baked Donuts

Red Velvet Donuts–Refined Sugar Free!

Total Time: 10m
Yield: 6-7 donuts
Print This Recipe [mrp_rating_result show_count="false" show_rich_snippets="false"]

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp milk of choice
  • 1 tsp white or apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup pure maple syrup or agave or honey
  • 3 tbsp beet juice – or see substitution note below
  • 3 1/2 tbsp oil – If you don’t mind fat-free texture, you can use applesauce (35g)
  • 1 cup flour, loosely packed (works with all-purpose, spelt, or gf all-purpose) (125g)
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder

Instructions

*If you don’t have beet juice, you can omit and increase the milk of choice to 1/4 cup and add natural red food coloring to achieve the red velvet color if desired. (They taste just as delicious without the food coloring too!)

Combine first 6 ingredients, and set aside. Grease a donut pan OR mini muffin pan, and preheat oven to 350 F. Stir together remaining ingredients, then pour wet into dry once oven is preheated, and stir until just evenly mixed. Don’t overmix. Bake 10-12 minutes (depending on flour used), or until donuts have risen and batter is no longer wet. Let sit 5 minutes before removing from the pan. Frost with a basic glaze (a chocolate glaze recipe is listed earlier in this post) or even straight-up coconut butter, which is my favorite!

View Nutrition Facts

 

hello-breakfast-recipes.png

More About The Cookbook

Link Of The Day:

cauliflower pizza crust recipe

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

 

Published on February 9, 2017

Meet Katie

Chocolate Covered Katie is one of the top 25 food websites in America, and Katie has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, Fox, The Huffington Post, and ABC's 5 O'clock News. Her favorite food is chocolate, and she believes in eating dessert every single day.

Learn more about Katie

Get Free Recipes

Don’t Miss Out On The NEW Free Healthy Recipes

Sign up below to receive exclusive & always free healthy recipes right in your inbox:

Chocolate Covered Katie The Healthy Dessert Blog Recipes

Popular Right Now

Reader Interactions

44 Comments

Leave a comment or reviewLeave a rating
  1. Molly says

    Katie, I love your blog and troll it at least once a day. 🙂 I made these donuts using gluten-free all purpose flour due to having an allergy. They taste amazing, but as they baked, I noticed the beet juice colored disappeared. When I pulled them out, they were just the normal brown color. Do you think this is due to the fact that I used gf flour? Please keep the amazing recipes coming!

  2. Cynthia says

    I misread the instructions and put in a tablespoon of vinegar instead of a teaspoon. Let me tell you, the extra vinegar is NOT a good idea. Now that I see what I did wrong, I will try it again…correctly.

  3. Mariela says

    I made these to the T and they were oh my goodness!!!! delicious!. I used a combination of flour: 2/3 cup millet, almost 1/3 cup brown rice flour, finished the cup with potato starch. It worked as a charm. I used food coloring, and I dipped them in the chocolate/coconut butter/honey dip suggestion from the top of the page. Wow. Shame I have only one pan, so I made only one batch, which lasted me less than a day. I’m making more today. And ordering more doughnut pans! Thank you, Katie!

    • Jason Sanford says

      You can buy it at whole foods, walmart, online (jet.com, vitacost, amazon), sometimes target, or just buy beets and boil and puree them. (Or just google how to make your own beet juice)

See More Comments

Leave A Reply

Get Free Recipes

Don’t Miss Out On The NEW Free Healthy Recipes

Sign up below to receive exclusive & always free healthy recipes right in your inbox:

Chocolate Covered Katie The Healthy Dessert Blog Recipes