Gluten-Free Banana Doughnuts

banana-doughnuts

Yesterday was my kind of lazy fall day. It started with one of those mornings I love. The ones that don’t begin with the alarm clock ringing at 6:30 am and the harried rush to get the kids up and out to school. It was a bit chilly and grey and I felt no guilt pulling the covers up a little higher and settling in for a late morning in bed.

When we finally did get up, I made doughnuts. Warm banana doughnuts with cinnamon, nutmeg and a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top. Just the perfect comfort food to pair with a lazy fall morning. When I have bananas that get so spotted, it looks like they can’t be eaten, I usually throw them in the freezer to save for a recipe, like this one, which calls for super-ripe bananas.

These doughnuts are baked, not fried. The sweetness from the bananas mixed with the earthiness of the cinnamon and nutmeg produce such an alluring smell in the kitchen. A few minutes in and the boys usually start to swarm around me asking what’s in the oven. They are always excited to find out it’s doughnuts.

I make several variations besides these including; banana chocolate chip and sugar and spiced. Silvana Nardone’s recipes in Cooking for Isaiah inspire them all. I’ve never frosted or glazed them as she sometimes does. I usually serve them plain or sprinkle a little confectioner’s sugar on top. They taste like old-fashioned, cake-like doughnuts and that’s how we like them.

Cooking for Isaiah is a Gluten and Dairy-Free cookbook. It was the first cookbook I bought and read after receiving my son’s celiac diagnosis. It was a tough time for me as I had already been managing severe food allergies for the kids including peanuts, tree nuts and sesame and was very overwhelmed upon learning we also had to avoid gluten (wheat, barley and rye) for Jeremy. The author, Silvana Nardone is a real food person. She used to own an Italian Bakery and has worked for several prominent publications in the industry, including Food and Wine.

Reading through the book gave me lots of great ideas and the doughnut recipe was the first one I tried. It was a big success with the kids and it gave me hope there would be many more foods we could enjoy as a family despite our varied dietary restrictions. Enjoy these doughnuts warm on a lazy morning and savor the aroma in your kitchen.

5.0 from 1 reviews
Tuesday's Treat: Banana Doughnuts with Powdered Sugar
Author: 
Recipe type: Breakfast
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 12
 
I played around with the original recipe, of course. My bananas were so ripe and sweet, I cut the original sugar portion in ½ as well as a few other minor modifications. The doughnuts still come out perfect for us.
Ingredients
  • • 1½ C Gluten Free Flour Blend (2 C White Rice Flour, ⅔ C potato starch, ⅓ C tapioca flour, 1 tsp xanthan gum. I usually have a container of this made with about 9 cups of flour in my pantry.)
  • • 1¾ tsp baking powder
  • • ½ tsp salt
  • • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • • ¼ tsp nutmeg
  • • 2 eggs, room temperature*
  • • ½ C sugar
  • • 3 extra ripe bananas**
  • • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • • ¼ C vegetable oil
  • • ½ cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray doughnut pan with cooking spray. I used 1 large doughnut and 1 mini-doughnut baking pan.
  2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a medium bowl
  3. In another medium bow, mash the bananas and then whisk them with the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and oil
  4. Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it
  5. Mix until just combined
  6. Pour dough into pans
  7. Cook for about 10 minutes, pull out of the oven and turn each doughnut over in the pan and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until slightly browned
  8. Take out of the oven, cool for 5 minutes in the pan on a rack, remove, sprinkle on sifted confectioner's sugar and serve warm
Notes
*If you are like me and don't want to wait for eggs to get to room temperature, you can put them in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes and then crack them open to use in the recipe
**If your bananas are not so ripe that they are soft and extra sweet, add a little more sugar to the recipe. The original calls for 1 cup but when I use very sweet bananas, I don't feel it needs that much.

3 Comments

  • can you make these with regular flour or whole wheat flour? any way to make them with out a donut pan? don’t have one but i do have some ripe bananas on my counter 🙂 thanks!

    • Hi Rachel,

      You should be able to sub regular flour into this recipe but I don’t know how to get the shape without the pan. However, I do have a delicious banana muffin recipe you can definitely sub regular flour into which will help you make good use of those ripe banana asap. Here is the link http://jackieourman.com/?p=261

  • These were so delicious! I baked for around 15 minutes instead of 20, and added a chocolate drizzle with coconut flakes on the top after baking. Thanks for the recipe!

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