Rainbow Frosted Mini Donuts - vegan, raw, natural colors & no refined sugars

Happy National Doughnut Day! 

Get out there and get your freebie OR make your own! 

And I know you're thinking - no sugar - what the what??!! That cannot be a real doughnut.  But these are definitely sweet - just no refined sugars and you can feel less guilty for eating a bunch.

AND my obsession with natural colorants continues as these have no artificial colors or flavors added.

The base is all raw (Don't think like raw meat, but not baked) made from dates, coconut, pumpkin seeds, and coconut oil.

And the donut "glaze" is made from cashews, coconut oil, and a little maple syrup for sweetness.

The colors come from some of my favs these days for naturally coloring sweets:

And sprinkle them with fun and good stuff like edible dried lavender, freeze dried strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries, unsweetened coconut, candied ginger, nuts, turmeric, hibiscus powders - pretty much whatever you have you can add on top.

I love a pretty frosted doughnut and these mini healthy versions are perfect for my night time sweet tooth! 

Healthy eating and exercising was my 2017 new years resolution - not a diet but a real change in lifestyle and eating habits.  I still indulge and enjoy myself just in moderation - especially as I try to set an example for my 3 kiddos.  It seems today more than ever every one of us has to be accountable for their own actions and set an example for the next generations - you can't assume leaders or other role models will make the right choices.  

Thank you for swinging by and do something nice for someone today!

Rainbow Frosted Mini Raw Doughnuts

by Michelle Clausen June 2 - 2017

Ingredients and Instructions:

Doughnuts

1 cup mejool dates
1/4 flaked unsweetened coconut
1/8 cup raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
2 teaspoons of coconut oil 

1. Add ingredients to food processor and pulse until all is chopped into very small pieces and pasty.
2. Scoop about 2 tablespoonfuls and add to mini donut pan (or shape into mini donuts)
3. Refrigerate 15 minutes then remove from pan.

Frosting

2 cups raw cashews (soak over night in water)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of coconut oil (melted)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1. Add cashews to high speed blender and blend until mixture is thick and creamy and no large pieces (you may need to use a spatula to move cashews around until all are blended well).
2. Add remaining ingredients and blend until mixture resembles icing.   
3. Add mixture to smaller bowls and tint with natural colorants (about 1 teaspoon of powder for each cup of frosting - or more depending on how dark you want the color - the color does darken a bit as they set) like carrot powder, turmeric powder, freeze dried raspberry, freeze dried blueberry, matcha, hibiscus powder, blue spirulina powder, or beet powder.  
4. Sprinkle frosted "donuts" with edible dried lavender, freeze dried strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries, unsweetened coconut, candied ginger, nuts, turmeric, hibiscus powders.

Prep time: 60 minutes Yield: about 20-24 doughnuts.  Stores 1-2 days at room temperature (or 2 weeks refrigerated - you can also freeze them to last longer)

If you want some regular donut recipes and treats - you may also like these!

Watermelon Doughnuts

Churro Doughnuts

Beer Doughnuts

Donuts and Cupcakes

"Cronuts"

Baked Wheat Donuts

Surprise Inside Rainbow Filled Cupcakes

Happy Spring everyone! We just had a weekend full of little league baseball and the weather was absolutely beautiful.  Thank Mother Nature that it finally is Spring.  To celebrate I made more cupcakes.  

These cupcakes will trick you though.  They seem all plain and boring right??

But then cut inside, and ta-da, RAINBOW!  Does anyone ever get tired of rainbows and rainbow treats?? Well obvi not me.  Inside or outside or both.  I'll take them all.  

She the how to here at sheknows.

Enjoy the Spring weather and better yet go watch the new Star Wars 7 trailer that just came out!



Can't wait for Dec 2015! Have a great week!

whoopie pies and a blogoversary giveaway.....!

....so one of my new year resolutions was to make more stuff with less artificial dyes and to make more stuff using natural dyes....the first attempt was here....red velvet cake made "red" with beet juice....

.....and whoopie pies are just plain fun....made them before here and the chocolate were everyone's absolute fav.....this recipe seems pretty perfect (although for full disclosure, i have only made them once before and have not tried any other chocolate whoopie pie recipes to compare)....but these are super simple to make....and don't let the batter scare you....it's a little thinner than you would expect.....but they baked up great.....

...the frosting is a vanilla buttercream tinted with india tree natural decorating colors that i've been eyeing at whole foods for awhile.....they are way pricier than regular food colorings but i finally bit the bullet and got them.....

...they are made from vegetable colorants and it comes in a pack of 3 with red (beet), yellow (curcumin) and blue (red cabbage)....they are not gels like wilton or americolor food gels....but more liquid-y.....and the yellow seemed like it's in oil and you really need to shake that one up....(see pic below)....

...added about 5 drops to about 1-2 cups of frosting....and these are the colors you get.....light yellow, pink, and a pretty lavender color....the peach was made by mixing the yellow and pink that was leftover.....you definitely won't get a deep red, yellow, or blue easily with these colorants....but it will work nicely for soft pastel colors....(very nice with easter coming up soon......!).....think i'm going to experiment with some vegetable powders as well to see what colors you can get with those.....not giving up using the other food color gels since i doubt you can get really deep primary colors without them....but may use these in between....!...and i pretend the frosting is really not that bad for you with these mixed in....so you can eat an extra 1 or 2 or 10....!

....and since it's my "blogoversary" (woo hoo!) on the 22nd....i'm giving away another set of the india tree natural decorating colors....!..just leave a comment and you're entered...! (If you decide to follow the blog or on FB (or now on twitter @sugarswings) even better but not required!)..constructive feedback welcomed too!.....i'll pick a comment randomly on March 1st.....

......i'd love to send these to you and see what goodies you can bake up with them....! (addresses only in the US, sorry!)...and if you have had luck with other natural food colorants/dyes....i'd love to hear about that as well....!

...thank thank thank you to everyone that reads the blog....it's kinda cheaper than therapy for me....and i enjoy it way more than i anticipated....! now off to enjoy a whoopie pie for the special day.... :)

icing tip FAIL...!

...how do you get a perfect plain icing swirl...? .....like this....



or perfect dollop...like this?

..i thought you just need a ginormous tip, so i got a huge one and tried it, but it was too big and didn't fit the coupler i had, so couldn't get a good swirl going....and ended up with this...

...and thus, this....yuck.

...plus the colors started to blend toward the end and looked more like a green-yellow mustard rather than bright blue, yellow, and pink swirled icing.......more practice needed, blah.