Wait… did you read that right? Sugar-free… pecan Nutella… donuts? I mean I just OHMYGODYESYOUDID! homemade pecan Nutella . Because WHO NEEDS REASONS. All you need are donuts and a mouth to put them in.
So let’s GET. IT. ON.
Method
To make the donuts
Add the 150 g strong white bread flour , 4 tsps malt powder (if you don’t have malt, simply replace with the same quantity of flour), 3.5 g dried yeast , 1.5 tsp cinnamon , {ground-ginger}, 0.25 tsp salt and 1 pinch stevia into a large ceramic bowl and mix together with a dry wooden spoon.
In a separate bowl, grate 15 g stem ginger (15g = approximately 1 stem ginger ball) and add 150 ml almond milk , stirring together briefly. Make sure the almond milk is at least room temperature – you can warm it for 15-20 seconds in a microwave.
Make a shallow well in the dry mixture and pour the ginger & almond milk mix in slowly. Using a metal spoon, mix and combine the wet & dry ingredients slowly but thoroughly, ensuring there are no lumps. This should take a few minutes, but your mix should be sticky and combined well enough to hold together in a ball.
Take 15 g butter, softened and cut into small pieces. For each piece, make a small well in your dough mix and add a piece at a time, combining into your dough mix until it is absorbed completely – you should see no yellow streams or lumps of butter. Once all the butter is added, keep mixing until your dough ball is soft, smooth and springy to the touch.
Grease a large bowl either with butter, oil, or a couple of squirts of 1-Cal sunflower oil spray and gently drop in your ball of dough. Spray/grease a sheet of cling film and cover over your bowl. Leave it in a warm dry place for 90 minutes, or until the dough has at least doubled in size.
Once the dough has risen, lightly flour your kitchen surface and tip the dough out of the bowl. Knock it back by punching the dough flat (be careful of your knuckles), and then roll & shape it into a log approximately 35cm/14 inches in length and around 3-4cm/1-1.25inches in diameter. Score the top of the dough into thirds, and then score each third in half – this should give you six pieces. Cut the dough into evenly-sized pieces with a sharp knife or a dough-cutter and shape into balls. The quickest and most effective way I found to do this was to pick up each one, then stretch & tuck the dough underneath itself, pinching it in and under at the bottom – as if you were trying to tuck a tight piece of fabric around a golf ball.
Put a piece of greaseproof baking/parchment paper on a baking tray and space your balls of dough evenly on the sheet – I tend to stagger them like the dots on a domino so that they have plenty of space to grow. Spray/grease a sheet of cling film and cover your dough balls, making sure that that they are completely covered, but not so tight that the cling film is squashing them down (we want them to grow again). Leave for at least an hour, or until they have doubled in size.
Pre-heat the oven to 160°f fan (180°c with no fan / 350°f)
Once the dough balls have risen, remove the cling film and place in the oven for around 12 minutes. Once done, they should appear a pale golden colour with a definite crust, and feel dense but firm-springy. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely for at least 15 minutes.
For the Pecan Nutella & dusting
While the donuts are proving or baking, add 125 g pecans to a small blender or chopper (I personally use the Ninja Master Prep Professional Chopper ) and blitz for 20-30 seconds. You will need to do this several times, scraping down the blender bowl each time (which is why I recommend a small blender, so they don’t get scattered immediately). After about 5-6 minutes, the nuts will go from coarsely chopped, to finely ground, to a texture similar to wet sand, to a slightly smoother wet sand… and eventually much more like the consistency of nut butter. Have patience and don’t rush it – it will happen!
Once the blitzed nuts are pretty smooth, add 30 g cocoa powder , 10 g skimmed milk powder , 1 pinch salt , 0.25 tsp stevia and 4 tsps coconut oil and blitz together until smooth. I would recommend adding the oil a teaspoon at a time until the consistency seems right – you don’t want it too thick that it’s impossible to pipe, but you also don’t want it so runny that it pours out everywhere.
Once your cooked donuts have completely cooled, take a small knife and lightly poke into one side, then take a wooden spoon and push the handle to just over halfway in, and wiggle it around a little – you’re creating a hole for that delicious Nutella filling.
If you already have some piping bags to hand, simply take one and unfurl the edges over a large mug, then spoon your pecan Nutella mix into it. If you don’t have any piping bags to hand, you can pretty easily make your own with baking paper . Once your filling is inside the bag, cut off the end and slowly pipe your filling into each donut, being careful not to overstuff them.
If you have powdered/confectioner’s xylitol, then ideal – otherwise, add 10 g xylitol to a dry pestle & mortar and grind down until it’s the same consistency as powdered sugar. Mix with 25 g skimmed milk powder , 1 tsp ground cinnamon and 0.125 tsp stevia in a dry bowl and mix together thoroughly.
Using a silicon pastry brush, paint the tops (and optionally the bottoms) of your donuts with 15 g melted butter . Then, with a medium-fine sieve, sift your powdered sugar mix over your donuts. If you want the bottoms doing too, then roll them over and re-dust the bottoms too.
Hide Method
Put these on a plate, and watch them disappear in an instant. And you don’t even have any guests over – it’s just you, eating these sugar-free ginger-spiced pecan Nutella donuts on your own, in the dark, laughing quietly as the crumbs of the last donut fall into your lap. How did that happen? WHO CARES ALL THE DONUTS ARE YOURS.
Nutritional Info
Total Carbohydrates
29.7g
*Typical values per serving.
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