Healthy Butternut Squash Donuts (Baked)

These healthy butternut squash donuts are made with pureed butternut squash, sweetened with coconut sugar, baked in the oven and topped with a thick maple icing. This squash donut recipe is gluten free, dairy free and paleo friendly.

While I do love pumpkin desserts during the fall, squash baked goods are also a favorite of mine!

Squash is naturally sweet, has a delicious, buttery flavor and creates the perfect moisture for baked goods.

These squash donuts are soft and moist with a nutty, buttery flavor and sweet maple icing. They're made with pureed squash and almond flour and sweetened with coconut sugar.

Why You'll Love these Butternut Squash Donuts

• Paleo friendly - made with real, whole food ingredients
• gluten free and grain free - squash donuts made with almond flour
• dairy free - no butter or milk and the icing is coconut based
• easy to make - a one bowl batter that's baked in a donut pan

Ingredients

Here's a list of what you'll need to make these gluten free butternut squash donuts:

Squash Donuts

• pureed butternut squash
• large eggs
• melted palm shortening (or butter)
• vanilla extract
• blanched almond flour
• tapioca starch
• coconut sugar (or preferred granulated sugar)
• baking powder
• cinnamon
• salt

Maple Icing

• coconut cream
• maple syrup
• powdered monk fruit sweetener
• tapioca starch

For this squash donut recipe, I pureed my own butternut squash. You can do this by cubing a squash and then steaming it in a steamer pot. Once soft, cool the squash a few minutes, then blend the squash in a food processor or high powered blender. The other option is to buy canned butternut squash.

Although I have only tested this recipe with butternut squash, most squash varieties should work for this recipe. You can even swap the squash for pumpkin puree.

To make these donuts nut free, use tigernut flour in place of the almond flour.

How to Make Squash Donuts

For these paleo squash donuts, you'll need a mixing bowl, whisk, spatula and listed ingredients to make the batter. Then you'll need a ziplock bag to pipe the batter and a silicone donut pan/s and baking sheet for baking the donuts. (I like to set the silicone donut pans on a baking sheet to make things easier.) Other donut pans should work, but baking time may vary.

Before you get started making the batter, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place the silicone donut pans on a baking sheet and grease 8 slots in the donut pans with palm shortening (or butter).

Make the Batter

Combine the wet donut ingredient in a large mixing bowl. This includes the pureed squash, eggs, shortening and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.

Mix in the dry ingredients: almond flour, tapiocas starch, coconut sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.

The batter will be thick, but still smooth enough to whisk.

Bake the Donuts

Scoop the batter into a ziplock baggie and cut a large hole on one end. Pipe the donut batter into your greased donut pans. You should get 8 donuts.

Place the donuts in the oven and bake at 350 degrees for 23-25 minutes.

Cool the Donuts

After baking, cool the donuts for 5-10 minutes in the donut pans. Removing them right away will result in them crumbling apart.

Place the squash donuts on a wire cooling rack and cool to room temperature before adding the icing.

Top Donuts with Icing

Lastly, make the icing for the donuts. Combine all icing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until smooth.

One at a time, dip the donuts into the icing, covering the entire top half of the donut. Place the donuts back on the wire cooling rack. Some of the icing will drip off the donuts, so you can place the wire rack over a baking sheet or parchment paper to catch the excess.

Toppings

After icing these healthy squash donuts, I added some cinnamon and bee pollen. These are optional toppings of course! Some other options would be to add chopped nuts or seeds, mini chocolate chips or sprinkles.

Storage

These donuts can be kept out at room temperature for serving, but need to be stored in the fridge. Place them in a sealed, airtight container in the fridge, for up to one week.

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