Name: Easy Air Fryer Chocolate Donuts - No Yeast, From Scratch!
Prep time: 8 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: ½ cup Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour (60-80g depending on flour, or regular AP); ¼ cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (30g, or more regular flour); ⅓ cup 1:1 Sugar-free Sugar Substitute (or regular Sugar); ¼ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (or Cacao Powder); 1 tsp Baking Powder; 2 Tbsp Cold Butter (cut in small cubes, 28g); 5 Tbsp Unsweetened Almond Milk (or other); ¼ cup Non-fat Greek Yogurt (56g); 3 Tbsp Chocolate Chips or Chopped Chocolate (Sugar free recommended, 42g); ¼ tsp Coconut Oil

Super easy and healthy Air Fryer Chocolate Donuts made from scratch with no yeast! Soft, fluffy and chocolate glazed, these air fryer cake donuts are perfect for breakfast or dessert. Sugar free, gluten free and Vegan too!

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I literally ate these ones straight out of the air fryer too – okay after like 5 minutes so I wouldn’t burn my mouth.

But these donuts were so perfectly soft and chocolatey – just like cake! I’d like to call them air fryer chocolate cake donuts to be honest!

Best part, I didn’t even have to wake up too early to ‘bake’ them for breakfast; They take like 5-10 minutes to mix and shape, and then 12 minutes to cook. No need to wait for the oven to preheat or any of that stuff.

And you can just do the dishes while you wait for those 12 minutes; That’s what I did actually. Along with re-heating my everyday big bowl of oats that I had before one of these.

Ingredients For Air Fryer Chocolate Donuts

These chocolate air fryer donuts have no yeast, but are made with baking powder and a few simple healthy ingredients.

Here’s what you need:

Gluten Free (All Purpose) Flour – or a regular all purpose flour
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour or some more of the all purpose. Don’t use regular whole wheat, I’ve got more details on that below.
Unsweetened Cocoa Powder or Cacao Powder
1:1 Sugar-free Sugar Substitute (or regular sugar) – I used Lakanto monk fruit sweetener so these healthy air fryer donuts sugar free too! Use my code HAYLSKITCHEN to get 15% off your order.
Non-Fat Greek Yogurt
Almond milk, or any other milk, at room temperature
Cold Butter this has to be straight out of the fridge and cold
Baking Powder

The Chocolate Glaze

To make chocolate glazed air fryer donuts, the extras you need are chocolate and a bit of coconut oil for the perfect glossy finish.

Here’s the specifics:

Sugar-free Chocolate Chips from Lakanto; These are sweetened with Monk Fruit (The code HAYLSKITCHEN gives you a discount) and are a healthy option here.
Coconut Oil

How to make Air Fryer Donuts from Scratch?

Other than being healthy, making air fryer doughnuts is super easy and quick too since there’s no yeast here!

Process dry ingredients and butter in food processor – gluten free flour, whole wheat pasty flour, cocoa powder, sugar-free sugar substitute and baking powder – and butter. You should have rough crumbles.

Stir the wet ingredients in large bowl: Greek Yogurt and almond milk

Add the dry mix into the wet and mix with spoon. You should have a shaggy ball of dough.

Lightly dust a work surface and your palms with more cocoa powder, transfer the dough over to the surface and knead it to form a proper ball. This should take about 30 seconds.

Divide the dough into 6 parts and roll into logs about 7” long.

Connect the ends of the logs, overlap and pinch together to form rings – the torus or donut shape.

Cook the donuts

Line the air fryer basket with parchment paper and place rings in; Leave enough room so the air can circulate.
Work in batches if needed.

Cook for 12 minutes at 350°F.

To make chocolate glazed donuts!

Step 0: Let the donuts cool a bit before you glaze them, so the chocolate sticks on well.

Step 1: Place the chocolate chips and coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl, and microwave for about 30-45 seconds

Step 2: Dip the air fryer or baked donuts in the chocolate glaze, lift them out, shake off the excess and set them on a cooling rack – the dry side down.

Tips for the perfect Healthy Air Fryer Donuts Recipe

Use whole pastry flour and not whole wheat flour; The latter will make the donuts really tough. There is no egg in here that would give them the rise you need.

Make sure to use cold butter for these airfryer donuts so that it creates those nice airy pockets in the middle when exposed to the high temperature.

Don’t over-mix the dough or add too much flour – this will give you dry and tough donuts. Knead for about 30 seconds. The dough will be a bit sticky when you’re done kneading (it will stick to your palms a bit).

How to store Air fryer Cake Donuts

These homemade chocolate glazed air fryer donuts keep well at room temperature, in the fridge or freezer.

Air fryer cake donuts keep at room temperature on the countertop for 2 days (in an airtight container).

They keep for 5 days in the fridge; An airtight container again.

For a freezer friendly option, freeze the donuts individually on a baking sheet and then transfer them to freezer safe zipper bags. They should keep up to 2 months.
Thaw the donuts to room temperature and warm them in the microwave when it’s time to eat.

Diet Friendly options for this Air fryer Donut Recipe

Vegan

This air fryer donut recipe has no eggs and uses non dairy milk can be easily turned Vegan; Use Coconut Yogurt and a Vegan butter substitute in place of the Greek yogurt and butter.
I tried this with a Vegan butter it was just perfect.

You also want to use dairy-free chocolate chips for the glaze.

Gluten Free

I used half whole wheat pastry and half gluten free all purpose flour for this recipe, but if you want a fully gluten-free recipe, just use all of the gf version!

To make Air Fryer Chocolate Donut Holes

You can easily turn this recipe into air fryer donut holes by rolling the dough into balls and then cooking them; Use the parchment liner again, but cook for 8 minutes.

This recipe would make about 12 donut holes.

How to make Air fryer Chocolate Cake Donuts in the Oven without Muffin Tin

If you don’t have an air fryer, you can also bake these chocolate doughnuts in the oven – with no donut pan or muffin tin needed!

Place the donut rings on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350°F for about 12-14 minutes.

More Air Fryer Dessert Recipes you’ll love:

Air Fryer Protein Donut Holes
2 Ingredient Dough Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls
Sweet Potato Fries but with a cinnamon sugar coating maybe?

Some more healthy donut recipes to try: