Skinny Chocolate Donuts Recipe

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These super simple donuts are a skinny version of my favorite Chocolate Baked Donuts and are made with 2 simple ingredients.

Happy Tuesday / the-second-diet-day of 2016!

Because who starts a diet on a Friday?

My goal this week (and beyond) is to show you guys that desserts don’t have to always be loaded down with fat, sugar, and calories to be deeeeelicious and impressive. In fact, I’m sort of obsessed with making diet-friendly versions of desserts.

My husband aways accuses me of having multiple personality disorder when it comes to dieting. I love diets. Trust me, I knoooooooooow. I know you’re not supposed to diet. It’s all about the “healthy lifestyle” these days. Blah, blah, blah. But I love the structure of a diet. And I also love the hope that this one will be the one that makes me skinny in 3 days.

Meh. I have problems. There are worse things, right?

(For the record, I’ve always been a Weight Watchers fan, and you’ll find several WW friendly recipes on Something Swanky!)

So anyway. Diet friendly desserts.

Diet friendly donuts specifically.

This recipe calls for two main ingredients: pumpkin puree and cake mix. You’ll also need a splash of milk (about 1/4 cup) and any toppings you want to add.

And here’s what I love about it: it’s so versatile! I made these yummy Pumpkin Cinnamon Donuts in the Fall. It would also be fun to use a spice cake mix or butter pecan! The possibilities are endless really. The intensity of the pumpkin flavor just depends on what kind of cake mix you use. Light cake mixes like yellow or white will taste like pumpkin. But a “darker” cake mix like chocolate will mask the taste of the pumpkin. For instance, these donuts don’t really taste like pumpkin unless you’re actually “looking” for the flavor.

And it’s a great recipe for different food sensitivities depending on the kind of cake mix you buy. Make it gluten free by using a gluten free cake mix. Or sugar free (Pillsbury). Or dairy free (Duncan Hines).

These donuts are soft and moist (thanks to the pumpkin) and so chocolate-y! Especially if you want to opt for the chocolate frosting on top. You could do a few different things there depending on what you like– melt canned chocolate frosting (I love), or melt down chocolate (using a darker chocolate will decrease the sugar by quite a bit), or make homemade chocolate ganache (yummmmm). Or use my very favorite chocolate glaze. It’s out of this world!

These donuts are, of course, baked and not fried. So you will need a donut pan to make them look like traditional donuts (it’ll be the best $13 you ever spend). But you could also opt to make donut “holes” instead by using a mini muffin tin.

Or you could always just make muffins.

Enjoy folks! Here’s to a dessert-filled 2016 ☺️.

Did you know I have an Instagram account solely dedicated to diet food? I do! You can follow that account here. Or you can just stick to the desserts and follow me here. Whatever 🙂