Vegan Kitchen
Vegan 'Bumble Bee' Doughnuts | Recipe And Tutorial

Who can resist a freshly baked, soft fluffy vegan donut? Not me! So this week in the Mother Of Grom kitchen I whipped up some Vegan Ring Doughnut delights decorated with some gorgeous egg-free royal icing to look like adorable little Buzzy Bees.

I have always loved doughnuts...

but being vegan has made it slightly trickier to find delicious iced rings - so being able to make these at home is such a treat.

This vegan donut recipe is surprisingly easy to make, has the best texture and tastes delicious.

With National Doughnut Week and World Bee Day fast approaching later this month, I thought I'd combine these two events into one post and give you the recipe to make the best vegan donuts that resemble our beloved bees! I even went out of my comfort zone to film the whole shebang AND put it on youtube so you can see the step-by-step guide on how to make them (accompanied by some music from Prints Jackson) and my Welshy voice dishing out the instructions.

As fun as this one is, the two events this post is celebrating are doing some wonderful work raising awareness for important causes. The National Doughnut charity week, sponsored by CSM Bakery Solutions, raises vital funds for The Children's Trust, the UK's leading charity for children with brain injury. And World Bee Day takes place on the 20th of May each year, and it aims to spread awareness of the significance of bees. Bee campaigners also ask people everywhere to do more to help and protect the special insects. Please read up on these great charities, and if you can help them in any way please do so.

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 1
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

Ingredients

For the Doughnuts

  • 6 tablespoons vegan butter at room temperature (I used Violife) 
  • ¾ teaspoon of table salt
  • 510g Organic Plain White Flour (M&S have a great one)
  • 700ml Sunflower oil for frying your doughnuts (your pan will need about 2 inches of oil in)

Vegan Royal Icing

Bee Antenna's

Vegan Cadbury Bournville Dark Chocolate Fingers Biscuits or for a Vegan Mikado style antenna, there's a great recipe on The Dorky French blog.

Method

1. To begin our egg free donut recipe .... in a small saucepan, warm up your dairy-free milk to 43°c Make sure it's warm and not hot as can affect your yeast.

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 2
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

2. Take a small bowl and put your warmed-up dairy-free milk, 7g sachet of yeast, and 1 teaspoon of your sugar in it and whisk together. Pop in a warm place and leave for 10 minutes. It should become foamy in this time.

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 3
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

3. In a mixing bowl use an electric whisk to mix together your butter and the remaining sugar until it has a whipped texture.

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 4
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

4. Add your teaspoon of vanilla extract and salt into the mixing bowl too, and beat together.

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 5
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

5. Take your milk/yeast/sugar mixture and start gradually adding it into your mixing bowl and use your electric whisk to mix on a low speed

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 6
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

6. Start adding your flour in gradually. Your mixture will start to get thicker the more flour you add in so you will have to switch over from your electric mixer to a wooden spoon and keep mixing until your dough is formed.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

7. Lightly flour your work surface and start to knead your dough until it has elasticity and a smooth texture. 

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

8. Place the dough ball in a lightly oiled, large mixing bowl. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic cling film wrap, foil, or a towel. Let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free location for one hour until it has doubled in size.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

9. Once your dough has doubled in size, knock down the dough to deflate and release the air so that you can form it into shapes. Lightly flour your work surface, take your rolling pin and roll out your dough ball so that it's 0.5inches in thickness. Cut out 3-3.5 inch diameter doughnuts with a doughnut cutter - or use a large and small biscuit or cookie cutter.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

11. Place the cut doughnuts on two baking trays that have been lined with parchment paper.  Repeat the rolling and cutting once more with the leftover dough.

Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts 11
Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

12. Cover the baking trays loosely again with plastic cling film wrap, foil, or a towel and put them back in a warm spot for another hour. Check on them after 30 minutes and then every 10-15 minutes. Check the first doughnut you cut out and lightly press it. If the indentation you make with your finger stays then it's ready.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

13. Fill a large pan with 2 inches of oil and put on medium to high heat. The optimum temperature for the oil should be 188-191°C which you can measure with a deep-frying thermometer. Add 1-2 doughnuts to your pan and let cook for 1 minute on each side until evenly golden brown and puffy.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

14. Line your baking trays from earlier with kitchen paper towels and use tongs to remove the cooked doughnuts onto them so the excess oil can be absorbed and they can cool. Repeat this step until all doughnuts have been cooked then leave to cool for 30 minutes.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

15. Whisk the aquafaba with an electric mixer until it starts to get foamy and then add 400g of the icing sugar to the mixture and continue to mix at high speed until the mixture texture is thick and silky. (To make the icing thicker, add more icing sugar until soft peaks are formed)

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

16. Take a separate bowl and transfer 1/4 of the icing sugar mixture into it. This 1/4 will be for the decorating (stripes and face)

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

17. Start to add in your yellow vegan food colouring into your main icing sugar mixture and blend with your electric mixer. Keep adding food colouring until you get the desired shade of yellow.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

18. Once your doughnuts have cooled, press into your yellow icing to coat 1/2 of your ring with the icing mixture. Put on a wired rack when coated. 

19. Once you have dipped all of your doughnuts leave to set for 20-30 minutes. The icing mixture will need to be set before you can decorate with your stripes.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

20. Take your 1/4 icing mixture and start to add in your brown vegan food colouring and whisk with your electric mixer until you've achieved a dark brown royal icing colour.

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

21. Pop the dark brown mixture into your piping gun (worth investing in one to save the plastic waste that icing bags create) and start to add on your stripes, eyes and little buzzy bee smiles!

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Mother of Grom - Vegan Donuts Buzzy Bee Donuts

For the bee antennas, you can use some Cadbury's Bourneville chocolate fingers or make the gorgeous vegan mikado sticks from the Dorky French blog post - which are so easy to make and a firm favourite in our house.

And there you have some adorable little buzzy bee, cruelty-free vegan doughnuts. I have included a Mother of Grom video of the whole recipe, preparation and baking procedure which provides a really good visual step-by-step guide. I find it so much easier to work to moving images so I really hope you find it useful my little gromlets. And kudos to my hubby AKA 'Father of Grom' for the music.

I trust we all now know how to make vegetarian donuts? These Vegan glazed doughnuts ticked all the taste boxes with my 5 year old lil one (5 year olds are always your toughest critic when is comes to treats and puddings I find) The glaze held strong and didn't become an immediate mess in the fingers! An ideal, mess-free, sweet snack for children.

If adorable bakes are your thing then be sure to check out my Vegan Cinnamon Bunny Recipe .... Cinnabunnies!

As always I'd love to see your Mother Of Grom creations, so be sure to tag me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook with your pictures.

Happy National Doughnut Week!

x

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Mother of Grom - Blog - Author
MoG x
Mother. Blogger. Maker. Baker.

Queen of the Sandals and Breaker of Paper Chains.

Mother of Grom - Blog - Author
Father of Grom
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Mother of Grom - Blog - Author
MoG x
Mother. Blogger. Maker. Baker.

Queen of the Sandals and Breaker of Paper Chains.