Truly magical Cranberry Orange Protein Donuts loaded with fresh cranberries and the sweet zesty orange. These healthy cranberry donuts use protein powder for sweetness, are sugar free, low calorie and low fat. Just 6 base doughnut ingredients too.

Okay this might be my new best protein donut recipe! It’s actually low fat, low sugar, and just all round so good.

Super fluffy, and just unbelievably soft.

Best part about these protein powder doughnuts though? That cranberry orange combination!

This fresh cranberry baking recipe really does make an amazing dessert or breakfast or snack or post workout treat or anything. Just such a good one!

Ingredients For Cranberry Orange Protein Donuts

These healthy and skinny cranberry orange protein donuts are made with clean ingredients like protein powder for the sweetener, and have no oil or butter either; A sugar free and low fat fresh cranberry baking recipe!

Here’s what you need for the base donut recipe:

Vanilla Protein Powder (Whey-Caesin) – This adds in sweetness, so this protein doughnut recipe has no added sugar; I used Quest Nurition Vanilla Protein Powder since it’s a whey-caesin and bakes really well.
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – or a regular all purpose flour
Unsweetened Applesauce; This also replaces the fat that’s in most donut recipes, to make a low fat version.
Almond milk, or any other reduced fat milk, at room temperature
Eggs also at room temperature
Baking Powder

And for the Cranberry Orange Donut Flavor

Fresh Cranberries! This recipe uses whole fresh cranberries in baking this cake.
Orange Juice
Orange Zest

Some Tips For Cranberry Protein Powder Donuts:

Use room temperature applesauce, eggs and milk;
This is so the wet ingredients and dry ingredients can mix well.

Don’t over-mix the batter!
Make sure you gently fold the dry mix into the wet to combine them.
If you over-mix it, the protein powder – will make it tough, dense and gummy.

Make sure your mixture has enough moisture in it. The vanilla protein powder exteremely absorbent and if the wet ingredients are too little, the donuts will be dry and tough. Add more applesauce if needed.
The mix should be like a slightly thick cake batter.

Taste the batter and see if you need some extra sweetener. I’d recommend using stevia powder to maintain the consistency of the batter and have sugar free protein donuts.

Be sure to grease the donut pan if it your pan is not silicon.

If you have no donut pan, you can make your own with a muffin tin. Check how to do that on my Vanilla Cake Donuts post.

How to make Prevent Fresh Cranberries from Sinking in the Doughnut

This low sugar cranberry dessert recipe is baked with fresh cranberries and you want to make sure it doesn’t all sink to the bottom of the pan.

To prevent cranberries from sinking to the bottom of the protein doughnut, toss them in a bit of flour before mixing into the batter.

How to store Baked Cranberry Protein Doughnuts?

These homemade cranberry orange protein doughnuts keep really well at room temperature, in the fridge or freezer.

Store baked cranberry protein donuts on the countertop in an airtight container for 2 days.

Healthy cranberry doughnuts last about 5 days in the fridge in an airtight container.

To freeze cranberry orange protein doughnuts, place on a baking sheet, freeze individually and then transfer them to freezer safe zipper bags. They should keep up to 2 months. Thaw the baked protein donuts to room temperature before eating.

Alternate Ingredients for Healthy Cranberry Orange Donuts

I made these low calorie, low fat and sugar free healthy cranberry donuts with the ingredients and brands listed above, but here’s some options to try:

Whole Wheat Pastry Flour: All purpose flour or 1:1 Gluten Free Baking Flour in the same amount by weight not cups
Almond Milk: Regular milk

More healthy baking powder donut recipes?