strawberry lavender doughnuts with cream cheese frosting
August 14, 2012 These doughnuts were actually made on Sunday and meant to be blogged about on Monday. I took photos and taste tested but wasn’t 100% happy with them. The lavender flavor was too strong and the strawberry didn’t come through enough. The frosting was also slightly runny because I tried to whip the strawberries into it. Not recommended.
I’ve had a small handful of dried lavender on my windowsill for the past few weeks. I picked it up at the farmers market for a whopping $1. Actually, that is probably overpriced considering lavender grows like weeds here and is in almost every single yard you walk past.
Point of this story? Well, there barely is one. Basically, the first go around of this recipe was a drippy frosting, fragrant fail. Also, I took a handful of lovely dried lavender photos on Sunday and wiped my card clean before taking today’s photos. I needed those photos for this post. Photographing already ground lavender looked like a purple-tinted pile of dirt. It just wasn’t doing it for me.
But I couldn’t show you these doughnuts without a photograph of lavender. So what did I do? Borrowed a few small stems from the neighbors while walking the dogs.
The bushes are literally 5 feet in diameter. I don’t think anyone is going to notice.
And, on the bonus side these are much prettier photos than the dried lavender shots!
Now that my pointless story is over how about some doughnuts?
How about a little cream cheese frosting sweetened with honey and powdered sucanat?
How about adding strawberries on top of the frosting instead of mixing them into it?
I’m thinking yes, and I hope you are too.
Strawberry Lavender Doughnuts with Cream Cheese Frosting [yields 8 doughnuts]
- 1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
- 1/2 cup sweet rice flour
- 6 T pure cane sugar or sucanat
- 7 Tbsp strawberry puree [see below]
- 6 Tbsp unsweetened almond milk
- 2 eggs
- 3 Tbsp almond meal
- 2 Tbsp sunflower oil
- 2.5 tsp ground dried lavender buds
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder*
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 8-10 strawberries for topping
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your doughnut pan with melted butter, melted coconut oil, or cooking spray.
- In a large bowl mix together all of your dry ingredients.
- In a medium bowl whisk together all of your wet ingredients until smooth.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir with a large wooden spoon until just combined. Avoid over-stirring.
- Carefully spoon the mixture into the doughnut pan molds about 1/8” from the top.
- Bake for 18 – 24min until golden brown and springy to the touch. If you toothpick test you want it to be moist, not gooey or dry.
- Let the doughnuts cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then slide a small spatula around the edges to loosen.
- Turn the doughnuts out onto a cooling rack, let completely cool, and then frost the doughnuts.
- Cut the stem off of the 8-10 strawberries and place them on a cutting board flat side down. Slice thinly [about 8 slices] and then slice once down the center in the opposite direction to halve the slices.
- Place the halves in an overlapping pattern on top of the frosting. Best if served immediately but can be stored—covered—in the fridge for 1 day.
notes: Using a Wilton doughnut pan this recipe yields 8 doughnuts. *For altitude around 5,000 feet set your oven to 370 degrees and decrease the baking powder to 3/4 tsp. Make sure your dried lavender buds are ground. You can finely chop them or use a food processor or coffee grinder [just beware the scent may linger].
Strawberry Puree [yields ~ 1/2 cup]
- 1.5 cups strawberries
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 1tsp tapioca starch
- Place the cleaned + stemmed strawberries into a pot over medium heat with the honey and tapioca starch.
- Stir until the mixture comes to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer [uncovered] for 10 minutes or until thickened and strawberries are breaking apart.
- Empty mixture into a blender, puree, then let cool.
Cream Cheese Frosting [yields 1 cup]
- 3/4 cup cream cheese
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup powdered sucanat or powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp honey
- Beat the cream cheese and butter together until fluffy and smooth.
- Beat in the honey and powdered sucanat until just smooth.
- Refrigerate for 15-20min while the doughnuts are baking and cooling.
- If you want a sweeter or stiffer frosting add more powdered sucanat.
A great farewell to strawberry season.
Ashley
Reader Comments (27)
@Karen - Unfortunately there isn't. White and brown rice flour will lead to a very different texture. Sweet rice flour is quite unique and is crucial in achieving the texture of this doughnut. Sorry about that!
@Becca - Yes, you probably could do that, although it might make the frosting a little wet/mushy. I left the topping raw to add a little texture and to draw attention to this pretty, red fruit. :) Definitely a fun idea though!
Yet again, I wish I owned a doughnut pan. I just feel like I'd never use it!
@Laura - I could definitely see how using slightly too much would taste like soap. Just grinding the lavender almost turned me off to eating it. Sooo fragrant!
@Eileen - Urban foraging....LOVE IT!!
@Heather - Nope, not bad! I'm pretty sure no one would mind around here because people are definitely not keeping them trimmed up!
@Katie - Thank you, dear!
@Rachel - That is exactly what I set out to do!
xo
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