So I haven’t ever done a guest post. Never! But I’ve wanted to do one with Jenni from Urban Poser ever since I first came across her blog. Not only are her pictures by far some of the best out there, but her recipes are incredible. I don’t understand how her brain comes up with some of these recipes she makes. She is an inspiration in the blogging and paleo food world, and I feel incredibly lucky to have her as my first guest post. She’s the best. Be sure to check out her blog right away and spice up your kitchen!
Oh and by the way, you’re welcome. This recipe is UNREAL. Bravo, Jenni. Bravo.
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Picture this: You’re sitting in your cave, shooting the breeze with your buddies Grok and Brog. It’s a nice day outside and you’re all feasting on the last of this month’s wooly mammoth. As you polish off the last bit you think, “dang, I could really go for something sweet.” Almost on cue, the doorrocks clank together and lo and behold, there’s a Cave-Girl Scout at the door with your favorite post-mammoth treat: Samoa cookies!
Ok, ok….so historically speaking that’s probably not 100% accurate. But seriously…..who cares? And who doesn’t love Girl Scout cookies?!?
When Juli asked me to guest post on her blog, I immediately started trying to figure out what I wanted to make for her. She left it wide open for me to choose and I had a lot of options in mind. But when the idea to reinvent my old favorite Girl Scout standard in “Paleo-friendly” donut style hit me, I knew that I had my answer.
Sometimes when I’m creating a recipe, it takes a little while to zero in on the perfect balance of ingredients and complimentary flavors, but in this case, literally millions of people have already stamped their seal of approval on the classic combination that is the Samoa cookie. (I know, I know….we’re not supposed to call them “Samoas” anymore but hey, I lived on the islands so I get a pass. Deal with it.)
All that was left for me to do was to see if I could reasonably create a Paleo friendly version of this classic treat. And surprisingly enough, I nailed it on nearly the first try. They came together beautifully and even though it may seem like a lot of steps, it’s actually incredibly simple to pull together and the caramel can even be made ahead of time, so don’t be afraid to dive right in and give it a shot.
Now I know that people come to “Paleo” for a lot of different reasons; and I’m not saying that these donuts will make you live any longer or be significantly healthier, but I do know that pretty much everyone agrees that one of the biggest keys to longevity is happiness, and these donuts will make you happy, guaranteed. So as far as I’m concerned, these donuts will make you live longer, healthier and make you an overall better person.
Guest Post: Samoa Donuts
Ingredients
For the Donuts
- 2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour (such as Honeyville)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- A scant less than 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons honey
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, softened or liquid
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon Lemon juice
- 3 whole large room temp eggs
Coconut caramel topping
- 1 can full-fat coconut milk (about 1 1/2 cups), I used guar gum-free Natural Value
- 1/2 cup mild flavored honey or maple syrup,
- A pinch of sea salt
- 1 rounded tablespoon ghee or butter (can sub palm shortening or coconut oil)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ cup finely shredded coconut, plus 2 more tablespoons for garnishing
For the Dipping Chocolate
- 1 bag Enjoy Life Chocolate chips (melted in a double boiler)
Instructions
- Preheat your mini donut making machine OR preheat the oven to 350 degrees if you are using a regular donut pan or making into muffins.
- In a large bowl, mix together the almond flour, baking soda and salt.
- In another bowl, combine the honey, oil, vanilla, lemon juice and eggs.
- Add the oil/honey mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix till just combined.
- Add about 2 tablespoons of batter to each mould in the donut machine or scoop the batter into a ziplock bag, twisting the other end to close it. Snip the end off of one of the corners with a scissors. Start with a small cut. You can always make it bigger if you need too. Squeeze batter into moulds.
- Close the lid and allow to cook for about 2 minutes. Times will vary with each machine. Open the machine and flip over each donut using the forked ‘skewer’ that comes with most machines. Close the lid again cook for about one more minute. Remove donuts and let cool on a wire rack. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
- If using a regular donut pan, fill each well-greased mould about ¾ full. Smooth the tops if needed and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
- Makes 12-15 mini donuts or 6 regular sized ones (depending on how much batter you eat during the prep time.)
For the Coconut Caramel
- In a small-medium heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring the coconut milk, honey and salt to a boil over medium high heat, being sure that they are well combined. Reduce to a medium heat, and let the mixture boil down for about 35-40 minutes.
- Add the ghee and vanilla, stirring it in till well incorporated. Continue cooking for another 5-15 minutes or as long as needed until it is a deep caramel color. Don’t rush the process. Depending on how hot your burner is this process could be faster or slower. Stir often toward the end to keep the bottom from burning too much. A little burning is fine as long as you are stirring it in to the mixture. It will give it a darker flavor.
- Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and let cool for 5 minutes then stir vigorously until it’s creamy, shinny and smooth.
- While the caramel is cooking, spread the coconut out on an ungreased cookie sheet and toast the coconut in a 325 degree oven. Stir often till golden, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.
- Mix the toasted coconut into the caramel minus a tablespoon or so for garnishing later. Use coconut caramel while still warm for best spreading results. Caramel can be made ahead of time(w/o the shredded coconut) and reheated in a double boiler.
These look amazing! Can the almond flour be substituded for coconut flour???
No. Coconut flour is a totally different animal. If you can’t do almonds, you could try sunflower seed flour, but you’ll have to make it in your food processor//blender and sift it to get a fine powder. (Sunflower seed butter or flour can react with baking soda to turn green, but it doesn’t look like there is enough in this instance)
There are coconut flour donuts, but you’ll need 5-6 eggs. Google a recipe or check out Real Sustenance or CookingTF for some options, HTH
These look amazing. I’m practically drooling on my ipad.
Yeah, I had super runny caramel as well, BUT it’s still delicious! I would use about half the amount of coconut milk next time probably especially since I dumped the whole can of it in the pan. 🙂
SUPER AWESOME RECIPE!!!
You lost me at mini donut maker…..
they look delicious… but who will ever truly make this??
Be real.
me!!!
Me too!
Make them as muffins 😛
I’m making them for Mother’s Day. Or rather, my husband is! <3
A regular donut pan works great too!
I have made this many many times now. Wonderful recipe. I used to have a donut pan… but I got a donut maker because it’s so fun to have donuts for my family and for guests who are and aren’t paleo/primal eaters!!
Can I use Trader Joe’s almond meal flour? Whats the difference between almond meal and blanched almond flour?
You can generally substitute the meal for the flour but the only difference is that the meal version sometimes isn’t as pretty. If you’re slathering it with chocolate and caramel, I don’t think pretty matters. 😉
I don’t recommend Bob’s. You will get really mixed results when baking because it is much more coarsly ground. Because of this the liquids absorb differently then a fine ground AF like from Honeyville or Nuts.com.
A suggestion for all of you would-be donut makers…try your local thrift stores for a mini-donut maker before you go to Target or wherever. I picked one up at Saver’s for $5.99…pretty much brand new.
My goodness, these look too good to be true! Stunning!!
These look amazing. I am going to test them out and then probably make them for my birthday! Goodbye cake.
The donuts look awesome, but I’m distracted by that photo of the caramel on its own. Hand me that dish of caramel and I think I could eat the whole thing plain. (And feel ill afterwards, sure, but it’d be fun while it lasted.)
When I made these the caramel was really runny too. Is it supposed to be that way?
The caramel sauce came out so runny-I used coconut oil instead of ghee and there was a very oil-y taste to it and an oil layer sat on-top of the caramel. Looked nothing like the picture??? Maybe you need ghee for the real deal? I ended up skimming off a lot of the oil and it was still runny…didn’t stick on the donut? Any tips?
I do think you need the ghee as butter is part of the great taste of caramel.
Mine was oily too. Perhaps it depends on the brand of coconut milk used? Mine was oily before I even added the ghee. So i just poured it off. Still became thick and creamy and caramel-y….took me about 30 minutes from start to finish. I used the Natural Value brand btw.
It took about 40 minutes of soft boiling, then cooling 5 minutes, then I need to whisk it for a few minutes to get it to the right texture and really incorporate everything.