Nutrition
Calories: 268kcal | Carbohydrates: 27.8g | Protein: 34.6g | Fat: 1.6g | Sodium: 30.6mg | Fiber: 1.1g
Check out these no-powder high protein cinnamon sugar donut holes! The magic is vital wheat gluten, and if you haven't tried dessert seitan yet, now is the time!
Servings
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup Vital Wheat Gluten
- 2 tsp Corn Starch
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/2 cup Water
- 3 tbsp White Sugar
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 F (177 C).
- Mix the sugar and ground cinnamon in a small bowl.
- In a medium bowl, combine the vital wheat gluten, corn starch and baking powder.
- Add water and apple cider vinegar to your dry mixture. I usually just mix with my hands. Don't mix too much because it will make the texture more chewy. Should end up as a dough. If it's too wet, add some more gluten.
- Split dough into 12 – 16 pieces (if you do much large, it will change the cooking time and temperature).
- Roll these pieces into balls and toss them around in the cinnamon sugar mixture until they are coated.
- Space out evenly on the tray (I like to use a copper crisper tray).
- Bake for 25 – 27 minutes.
- You will know that they're done when you can poke them and they don't dent or collapse. They should feel very tight and solid.
Equipment
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Notes
Track this on My Fitness Pal searching:
PDV High Protein Cinnamon Sugar Donut Holes
Equipment: either a copper crisper tray or air fryer; we use the crisper tray so we can bake everything at once. These puff up a lot so unless you have a large air fryer, I wouldn’t recommend using one. You could probably also use a baking sheet with parchment paper, though I have not tried it.
Did you make this recipe?Mention @proteindeficient.vegan
Have you tried any dessert seitan recipes yet? If you’re new to them (or even if you’re not), these High Protein Cinnamon Sugar Donut Holes are a great place to start! They are high in protein, have a great texture and taste so good you won’t believe they’re semi-healthy! I love using vital wheat gluten in desserts instead of protein powder!
Now that I’ve got you sold on dessert seitan, you should also check out my High Protein Chocolate Sietan! They’re like chewy little brownie bites!
Ingredients
- Vital Wheat Gluten – if you’re gluten-intolerant….sorry? Be sure to weigh this ingredient out. It’s incredibly dense and oftentimes, the volume measurement usually does not line up with the weight measurement as listed on the nutrition label.
- Cornstarch.
- Baking Powder.
- Apple Cider Vinegar – if you don’t have ACV, rice vinegar or white wine vinegar could probably work too.
- Sugar – I just used white sugar for this! Brown sugar could also work well. If you’re trying to reduce you’re sugar intake, monkfruit works great!
- Cinnamon – what is a cinnamon sugar treat without cinnamon? I used 1 tsp but if you’re a hardcore cinnamon lover, maybe try 1.5 tsp!
Directions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 F (177 CC).
- In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon together. The bowl should be large enough that you can roll the donut holes around in it.
- In a medium bowl, add your dry ingredients – vital wheat gluten, corn starch, and baking powder. Whisk these together well. Please weigh your vital wheat gluten. It’s a very dense ingredients that settles and becomes more dense as it sits on your pantry shelf, so the weight measurement rarely matches the volume measurement that is shown on the nutrition label. For instance, when I weigh out 1/2 cup volume measurement, it’s equal to the weight of 3 servings (3/4 cup). If you have too much gluten, your mixture will be dry and too little will result in very wet dough. Either way, if it’s not the right amount, your calories will be off, so it’s worth weighing!
- The dough should end up a little wet (wet enough that cinnamon sugary goodness will stick to it), but it should not be a loose dough.
- Roll the dough into little balls. I usually go with 12 – 16. If you do large balls, your temperature and cook time may vary.
- Roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar mixture until coated.
- Place the balls on the baking tray/crisping tray, spaced out evenly.
- Bake for 25 – 27 minutes. I haven’t cooked these in an air fryer before so the cooking time and temperature I’ve included is for an oven.
- You will know that they are done when you poke them and they don’t dent or collapse. They should be tight and solid when they’re done cooking.
Silly Little Haiku
I like little balls
Cinnamon and sugary
Little crispy balls
Author
Protein Deficient Vegan
These are so fun and such a creative use of vital wheat gluten! I air-fried mine (25 min, at 350), and added half of the sugar to the dough, along with some vanilla and almond extract. Super-crispy right out of the air-fryer, and they reheat decently in the toaster or microwave. Great macros!
These sound like great modifications; I especially like the addition of almond extract! Also, thank you for putting how long you cooked them in the air fryer for; I’ve been scared to try these again in the air fryer, since I destroyed one by making the dough balls too big my first time making them lol
Love this recipe! Saw the post on reddit and I’m going to use these as a replacement for protein bars! The only modification I’m making is to just add a little jam/jelly in the middle because the macros are so good that it definitely can spare the extra carbs for the classic jelly donut hole flavor.
Thank you so much! I think jam/jelly in the middle sounds delicious! I think even just dipping them in jelly is an amazing idea! 🙂
These are addictive! They’re light, fluffy, and pleasantly chewy.
I used granulated stevia in place of sugar (trying to get through a big bag I got on sale…) and it went fine.
Yay!! I’m glad they turned out well with stevia too! Thank you for leaving a review! 🙂