Healthy Peppermint Hot Cocoa Donuts (Vegan, Gluten Free)

These healthy donuts are super rich and taste like peppermint hot chocolate! They're gluten free and vegan and only require 1 bowl to make.

Christmas may be over but I’m still enjoying hot cocoa and peppermint for the rest of winter😝 I just love the cozy vibes and the comfort of it!

This recipe is not for hot chocolate, but for hot chocolate donuts! With peppermint flavor of course 😉

I might even like these donuts better than hot chocolate—they’ve got the flavor but are more dessert-like, and they actually provide a lot of nutritional value!🤩

Not only that, they’re also vegan and gluten free! There are, of course, plenty of additional substitutions to make for dietary or convenience reasons that I will explain in this post 🙂

If you’re planning on making this later, click here to save it on Pinterest so you can always come back to it! 📌

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Getting that Peppermint Hot Cocoa Flavor

The peppermint is obvious, just add some peppermint extract and crushed candy canes!

If you don't have peppermint extract, you can get some here. The bottle may look tiny but it will last you a while! If you're not a fan of peppermint, feel free to skip it and just make some classic hot chocolate donuts 🙂

Now for the hot cocoa, there is a difference between something that is hot chocolate flavored vs. plain chocolate. A hot cocoa donut puts more emphasis on the milk as the main wet ingredient and main source of moisture instead of oil.

But don't get me wrong, we're still using oil! Avocado oil in this case, or any neutral oil like melted coconut or sunflower (although avocado is best). If you think oil-free desserts taste as good as ones with oil, then clearly it's been a while since you've had one 😉

Of course, we're not using dairy milk since this is a vegan recipe. I highly recommend using oat milk as it has the perfect amount of fat and flavor! Fat free milks like almond are not ideal (but you can still use it if that's all you have)--coconut and cashew milk are good alternatives.

Making it Vegan and Gluten Free

Most baked donut recipes are vegan in the first place, so there isn't much of a difference here. No eggs or butter, and oat milk instead of dairy milk.

Now to make it gluten free...usually I use flours like almond or oat flour. But I was at the grocery store the other day and came across this measure for measure gluten free flour. I knew I had to give it a try!

I made these donuts with it and couldn't even tell the difference. It's made of a combination of flours, mostly rice flour, plus some leaveners to get the exact texture that a wheat flour would have!

If you don't have a gluten sensitivity, regular white or white whole wheat flour works just fine. For paleo, you could *try* using almond flour, but I have not tried it and can't say if it will work.

📌Click here to save this recipe on Pinterest so you can always come back to it!

I really hope you like this recipe! If you decide to make it, be sure to post a picture/story and tag me @nutritiousdelights on Instagram–I’d love to see!💕

More recipes you might love:

Healthy Almond Butter Zucchini Brownies (Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Paleo)

Healthy Flourless Brownie Cookies (Gluten Free)

Healthy Gingerbread Cookies (Vegan, Gluten Free, Paleo)