TWO Valentine’s Day recipes and it’s not even February yet.

Who am I?

Ohhh how nice it is to plan ahead. But don’t get too excited. I completely forgot about the super bowl this weekend and have no recipes lined up. However, I don’t think anyone would be upset to see the following recipe at their super bowl get together.

The star of the show, was once again blood oranges. I was hoping they would turn the actual doughnut pink, but no such luck. Maybe using all blood orange juice, instead of using both OJ + milk would have worked. I’ll have to try next time.

With a good squeeze of juice and a little bit of zest, the flavor was spot on.

While the doughnut may not have been pink, I drizzled pink icing overtop to give them a little more Valentine's Day spirit.

No red food dye here!

Perfectly pink with a little extra pop of orange flavor.

These would make an excellent breakfast or dessert. Possibly served with OJ or better yet, mimosas. Too bad we were out of champagne for this shoot. What a good excuse to gulp down a little bubbly at 1 o’clock in the afternoon!

I never expected this recipe to rival the molasses, cinnamon sugar, and apple cider doughnuts [my favorites]. They’re right up there though! Don’t make me pick a favorite. I now have four.

And you know what else?

They’re vegan! Perfect if you don’t eat eggs, or are out of eggs like I was. You’ll just need a little flax to throw in the mix. Freshly ground flax seeds work the best. No need to worry about mixing a flax “egg,” because it gets tossed right in with the dry ingredients.

Cakier + doughnuttier than you’d expect.

Especially for being gluten free, vegan, and baked!

Blood Orange + Chocolate Frosted Doughnuts

vegan, gluten-free // yields 6-8 doughnuts

1/2 cup gluten-free oat flour
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
3 Tablespoons almond meal
3 Tablespoons sunflower oil
1/3 cup sucanat
1.5 Tablespoons ground flax meal
3 Tablespoons unsweetened apple sauce
6 Tablespoons blood orange juice
1 Tablespoon blood orange zest
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat your oven to 350* + grease your donut pan.
In a medium sized bowl mix together the oat flour, sweet rice flour, almond meal, flax meal, sucanat, salt, baking powder + baking soda.
In a small bowl, whisk together blood orange juice, milk, vanilla, oil, zest + applesauce.
Stir wet into dry, until combined. Do not over stir. It will look slightly lumpy and should be thick.
With a spoon, spatula, or piping bag, transfer the batter to your greased pan, until almost flush with the top of the pan.
Bake for 24-28min.
Test with a toothpick for doneness. You want a slightly moist toothpick. Not gooey but not bone dry. The tops of the donut should be golden brown and it will spring back when you press it lightly.
Let them cool in the pan for 5min then turn out onto a cooling rack.
Add frosting when cooled.

tips/substitutions: If you have leftover batter with a 6-mold pan, your molds might be a smaller than mine, so they might bake slightly faster. For high altitude – oven 375*, 3/4t baking powder. You can grind oat flour from certified gluten free oat groats, steel cut oats, or rolled oats. Grind in a blender or magic bullet until soft and flour-like. Sub 2 eggs instead of ground flax, and lower almond milk to 2T if you don’t need/want them to be vegan. If you can’t find blood orange, just sub any unsweetened orange juice. To make almond meal, grind almonds in a food processor/blender/magic bullet until soft and mealy with not pieces of almond.

Chocolate Frosting

1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5-2.5 Tablespoons unsweetened almond milk

Stir everything together until smooth. If it’s too thin, add more powdered sugar. If it’s too thick, add 1t more of milk at a time.
Let sit for 5min to thicken.

*Make your own powdered sugar or sucanat.

Blood Orange Drizzle