These simple to make gluten free Vanilla Bean Glazed Honey Cake Doughnuts are the perfect special occasion or weekend breakfast! They’re perfect moist, made with almond flour, and they’re gluten free and dairy free too. The glaze is made with coconut butter making these a refined sugar free treat. The vanilla bean combined with the hint of honey flavor makes these doughnuts something to look forward to!
It’s no secret that I’m a huge chocolate fan. It would seem that the chocolate fanaticism is genetically passed down in my family. (Just kidding… but seriously!) But weirdly enough I’m an equally enthusiastic fan of anything vanilla.
There’s nothing quite like a buttery-tender cake heavily scented with vanilla. And when you pair that with a cup of coffee, you’ve got my favorite indulgence. The relationship between vanilla and coffee is well documented, (affogato anyone) and for me it even outweighs the coffee/chocolate combo.
These doughnuts are a combo of two favorite recipes. The first inspiration is the most amazing vanilla cake from the former Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine, Ruth Reichl. It’s called Nicky’s Vanilla Cake. You can find it in her book, Garlic and Sapphires, (her books are great if you’re crazy about food)!
My second inspiration comes from memories of my favorite doughnut as a child, the Old Fashioned Glazed. I combined the vanilla cake flavors that I remember, into a simple baked doughnut. And now we can all enjoy these beauties on slow weekend mornings!
Now let’s jump in and make these Vanilla Bean Glazed Honey Cake Doughnuts step by step!
This recipe is really simple and doesn’t require a mixer. Simply whisk together the dry ingredients, mix them together with the wet ingredients, and you’re ready to bake.
You can make these with coconut oil for a dairy free option or use avocado oil. But butter definitely has the edge for flavor!
Spoon the batter evenly into a doughnut pan. There might be a little leftover that you can bake in a muffin tin. Or a second doughnut pan works too if you have one. Finally, smooth out the tops of the doughnuts a bit with the back of the spoon before baking them.
Even though it’s really hard to wait, these need to cool until they’re barely warm. Then you turn the pan upside down to release them onto a cooling rack to finish cooling to room temperature. If you try and get them out sooner, you run the risk of breaking 1 or 2.
Once they’ve cooled, you’re ready to glaze them. I started off all neat and tidy by spooning the glaze over them. But in the end I dunked each one into the glaze before carefully removing them (cake doughnuts are fragile) just to speed things up a bit. I ended up with a few crumbs in the glaze. But I felt like it was a pretty small price to pay considering it saved me a ton of time!
As I mentioned before, these are really good with coffee. My sister stopped by just in time, and ended up with a freshly baked doughnut. Which of course we paired with an Americano in her to-go cup!
And now for an up close view of the pound cake-like texture of these doughnuts because seeing is believing. I wouldn’t blame you for a moment if you were a bit skeptical about gluten free doughnuts. But these will definitely change your mind in just bite!
I sure hope you enjoy these Vanilla Bean Glazed Honey Cake Doughnuts. And if you do please leave me a comment/rating below. I always love hearing from you here! And if you’re looking for more doughnuts, try my Double Chocolate Cake Doughnuts or my Strawberry Cake Doughnuts.
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Vanilla Bean Glazed Honey Cake Doughnuts
- Total Time: 25 mins
- Yield: 6 doughnuts + a few small doughnut holes 1x
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
These simple to make gluten free Vanilla Bean Glazed Honey Cake Doughnuts are the perfect special occasion or weekend breakfast! They’re perfect moist, made with almond flour, and they’re gluten free and dairy free too. The glaze is made with coconut butter making these a refined sugar free treat. The vanilla bean combined with the hint of honey flavor makes these doughnuts something to look forward too again and again!
Ingredients
Doughnuts:
1 3/4 cups almond flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch/flour
1 Teaspoon baking powder
pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup honey
4 Tablespoons salted butter, melted
1 egg
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Glaze:
1/4 cup coconut butter, also called mana
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
2 Tablespoons honey
pinch of sea salt
1–2 Teaspoons lemon juice
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350ºF and lightly grease a non-stick doughnut pan for 6 doughnuts.
Whisk together the almond flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, and sea salt.
Melt the honey and butter together, set aside to cool before whisking in the egg and vanilla extract.
Mix the honey mixture into the almond flour mixture until combined and there are no lumps.
Divide the batter evenly between the 6 doughnut spots, filling each one about 3/4 of the way full. The batter is quite thick, and I used 2 spoons to spread it around. I had a little leftover batter, and made ‘doughnut holes’ by baking the remaining batter in a mini muffin tin.
Bake for 7-10 minutes or until puffy and no longer gooey in the center. You can check the doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center, when it comes out clean or with moist crumbs, the doughnuts are done.
Let the doughnuts cool for at least 20 minutes before removing them from the pan to cool to room temperature on a cooling rack.
Make the glaze by melting everything together over low heat just until liquified.
You can either dip the doughnuts into the glaze (carefully, cake doughnuts break easily) or you can spoon the glaze evenly over each doughnut.
Notes
The glaze for these doughnuts is sweet like a normal frosting which makes these great with a cup of coffee. However if you like things on the less sweet side feel free to play around with the glaze.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Could I make these with all purpose flour?
I wouldn’t substitute all purpose flour here because there won’t be enough liquids or fat in the recipe to turn out. Almond flour comes with it’s own natural oils already in it which creates a moist cake doughnut. I’m sorry I don’t have any way to substitute all purpose in this case.
Are you able to substitute vanilla extract for vanilla bean and get the same result? Thanks!
Yes you should be able to sub in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract for the vanilla bean, or a bit more to taste. I hope you enjoy these, and definitely let me know if you have any more questions!
I. Cannot find coconut butter. What would be a good substitute? Regular butter?
Coconut butter is usually available in any kind of health food store, or you can order online. But if you can’t get it, I would sub in a powdered sugar glaze instead of the coconut butter one in the recipe. Butter won’t work in place of coconut butter which is much thicker (really solid at room temperature) and creates a nice frosting glaze. I hope this helps, but be sure to let me know if you have any more questions!