dinosaur doughnuts

Quick post today. Made these dinosaur doughnuts a couple days ago with Clara on a whim and decided that they were too easy and tasty to not do a post on. This recipe is ridiculously quick to prepare and also requires little washing up because essentially all you need is a blender and a pan.

The first thing you should know about these is that they are baked, not deep fried so whilst they might not be as delicious, they are a lot healthier for you. I would love to make doughnuts the proper way but the truth is, deep frying and scalding oil terrifies me so maybe at a later date. These doughnuts also have no sugar, butter or flour! Well the doughnut part that is, I used cinnamon sugar to coat them... The recipe instead uses almond meal and honey. I found the recipe on this blog and the recipes there are all grain and sugar free and makes me feel incredibly guilty for using so much refined flour and sugar. Anyway, it's definitely worth a look.

This recipe also uses a batter instead of a dough and yeast. The original recipe used a doughnut tin to cook the batter in but I didn't have one. So I just pulled out whatever I could find in my cupboard and decided on using this adorable dinosaur pan (thank you Yen). You all should know about my love of dinosaurs so this seemed appropriate. I'm not sure if it was because of the thickness of the pan but this took a little longer to cook than the recommended 10 minutes, more around the 12-14 minute mark. If you are going to make this though, I suggest you bake it for 10 minutes first and then decide if it needs any longer because you do not want to overcook them.

I also didn't have any dates to make the icing and the attempt to use sultanas as a substitute didn't work out well. So I just decided covering them in cinnamon sugar instead which is always safe, trusty and delicious.

Also apologies about the photos, I started baking too late and the sun was already going down and no light = bad photos.

dinosaur doughnuts
adapted from roostblog

1 1/4 cup almond meal/flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil or ghee
2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract


cinnamon sugar
25g melted butter
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon


1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Put all dry ingredients in a blender and mix with a spoon.
3. Add all wet ingredients to the blender.
4. Blend until the batter is smooth.
5. Pour into greased dinosaur pan or doughnut moulds or whatever you can find.
6. Bake for 10 minutes and then check on them. If they are still not cooked, bake for a few minutes longer but be careful not to overbake or they will be dry.
7. Remove doughnut from pan.
9. For the cinnamon sugar, mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.
8. Brush doughnuts with a little bit of butter while still warm and coat in sugar.

Simple, isn't it? If you're really lazy you could even use store bought cinnamon sugar like I did the first time I made them but it didn't seem economical. Good to make if you have a doughnut craving or just feel like baking something quick. These are best served warm so microwave them for a few seconds to heat them up if you can. This'll also prevent them from being dry which they might be after a day or so.

Since I have a few spares sitting in my kitchen right now, I've decided to give them away! So, first three comments on this post can get a dinosaur from me tomorrow. But if you all jig or nobody comments I'll just eat them all myself.

With all these upcoming class parties, birthdays, housewarming parties etc, I'll probably turn into a baking machine, which is good for me, good for those around me but bad for my father who is OCD and feels the need to double clean the kitchen every time after I bake.

So get commenting and I'll be back soon!