Decadent cake and frosting without the guilt! Red Velvet Donuts are a fun way to portion out this classic dessert so you can stay on track while still indulging.
As you might be able to tell, I’ve been on a donut kick lately. I finally bought some molds given the whole stay-at-home situation, so experimenting has given me some creative relief from the chaos of online teaching.
Cinnamon Roll Baked Donuts was my first venture into the world of healthier donuts, and boy have they been a success! They’ve blown up all over Instagram, and I couldn’t be happier. Seeing how those were giving you joy during this time motivated me to keep rolling these donut recipes out!
These are much more moist and cake-like than regular donuts. To be fair, they’re really just Red Velvet cupcakes in donut form. I need to make use of my donut molds! Haha. You could definitely make these in muffin tins and get delicious, decadent cupcakes out of them.
how do you make red velvet cake healthier?
Well, traditional recipes include loads of butter, sugar, and full-fat cream cheese. Those ingredients make the cake moist and rich, but a stick of butter is just not feasible if we want to have these regularly. I found that we could achieve a similar texture by using just a bit of softened cream cheese beat together with a minimal amount of sugar.
I use 1/4 cup of sugar for the cake and then add 3/4 cup of applesauce to naturally increase the sweetness. The applesauce also keeps the donuts tender.
The donuts get super fluffy when adding in a combination of baking powder, baking soda, and Greek yogurt (nonfat, to keep the points low). Baking powder and baking soda are leavening agents that make the batter extra tender and fluffy, but baking soda needs acid to activate it.
Greek yogurt serves two functions for these Red Velvet Donuts: it activates the baking soda, and it takes the place of oil or butter as a tenderizing ingredient.
Many people asked what they could substitute for Greek yogurt on my Cinnamon Roll Donut recipe. I said probably just omit, but for this one you really do need that acid. Another option is to use 1 tsp apple cider vinegar and then replace the 2 tbsp Greek yogurt with more almond milk.
How to quickly soften cream cheese
If you’re anything like me, you find a recipe and want to make it NOW. Or you plan to make it and forget the before-making-this instructions, like setting your cream cheese out to come to room temperature.
Here is a life hack that came to me out of sheer impatience. If you forget to set your cream cheese out on your counter or simply don’t want to wait for it to come to room temp, put the required amount of cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl and heat on the defrost setting for 15-30 seconds. It works with butter, too!
Frosting your donuts
If you want to be fancy, you could go with the drizzle that you see in most of my pictures. I put the frosting in a sandwich plastic bag, cut a bottom tip off, and use that to drizzle so they would look pretty.
That’s great for aesthetic purposes, but a lot of the frosting ended up on my cutting board. I don’t know about you, but if I’m making dessert, I want every last bit of sweetness I can get!
So I think the better option, though not as pretty, is to frost the top of each donut or cupcake, using a small spatula or knife.
Obviously not as pretty, but so much more flavor! We need to make every last point/calorie work for us with these Red Velvet Donuts, right? I think these would be so cute topped with red sprinkles.
Finally, if you don’t have red food coloring or just don’t want to use it, no worries. You’ll have a chocolate-looking donut that tastes more like a vanilla cake with a hint of chocolate. Still delicious!
I’d love to hear from you if you make this recipe! It makes my day when you share your pics on Instagram and tag me (@litecravings). Don’t forget to use #litecravingsrecipes to make sure I see it. If I don’t get a chance to scroll through my tags quickly enough, I won’t see your post. I always make a point to look through the hashtags, though, so I’ll see it there.
Red Velvet Donuts
Ingredients
FOR THE DONUTS
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 2 ounces reduced fat cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 2 tbsp nonfat Greek yogurt
- 2 tsp almond milk (or milk of choice)
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- red food coloring (amount depends on your food coloring and how red you want it)
FOR THE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- 2 ounces reduced fat cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 tbsp powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp almond milk (or milk of choice)
Instructions
MAKE THE DONUTS
- Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, beat together softened cream cheese and sugar. (See blog notes for how to quickly soften cream cheese.)
- Add the rest of the wet ingredients to the cream cheese/sugar mixture and beat until fully combined.
- Slowly whisk the wet ingredients into the dry until just fully combined. Add in food coloring (if you want) until the batter is a deep crimson/burgundy color.
- Evenly divide batter between 9 donut molds or muffin tins. Mine came out to about 3 tbsp batter per mold.
- Bake until just cooked through, when a tooth pick inserted comes out clean, about 11-15 minutes. Mine were perfectly done at 13 minutes. Try not to over bake! Let cool for about 5 minutes.
MAKE THE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- Beat together cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Add in vanilla and milk, then whisk until combined.
- Frost donuts/cupcakes with a mini spatula, or drizzle frosting over the top. See blog notes for how I did that.
These were amazing!! So moist, fluffy, and had the perfect amount of sweetness. Didn’t feel guilty eating them, thanks for sharing the recipe!