These doughnuts were actually made on Sunday and meant to be blogged about on Monday. I took photos and taste tested but wasn’t 100% happy with them. The lavender flavor was too strong and the strawberry didn’t come through enough. The frosting was also slightly runny because I tried to whip the strawberries into it. Not recommended.

I’ve had a small handful of dried lavender on my windowsill for the past few weeks. I picked it up at the farmers market for a whopping $1. Actually, that is probably overpriced considering lavender grows like weeds here and is in almost every single yard you walk past.

Point of this story? Well, there barely is one. Basically, the first go around of this recipe was a drippy frosting, fragrant fail. Also, I took a handful of lovely dried lavender photos on Sunday and wiped my card clean before taking today’s photos. I needed those photos for this post. Photographing already ground lavender looked like a purple-tinted pile of dirt. It just wasn’t doing it for me.

But I couldn’t show you these doughnuts without a photograph of lavender. So what did I do? Borroweda few small stems from the neighbors while walking the dogs.

The bushes are literally 5 feet in diameter. I don’t think anyone is going to notice.

And, on the bonus side these are much prettier photos than the dried lavender shots!

Now that my pointless story is over how about some doughnuts?

How about a little cream cheese frosting sweetened with honey and powdered sucanat?

How about adding strawberries on top of the frosting instead of mixing them into it?

I’m thinking yes, and I hope you are too.

Print this!

Strawberry Lavender Doughnuts with Cream Cheese Frosting

gluten-free // yields 8 doughnuts

1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
6 tablespoons pure cane sugar or sucanat
7 tablespoons strawberry puree [see below]
6 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons almond meal
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2.5 teaspoons grounddried lavender buds
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder*
1/4 teaspoon salt
8-10 strawberries for topping

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your doughnut pan with melted butter, melted coconut oil, or cooking spray.
In a large bowl mix together all of your dry ingredients.
In a medium bowl whisk together all of your wet ingredients until smooth.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir with a large wooden spoon until just combined. Avoid over-stirring.
Carefully spoon the mixture into the doughnut pan molds about 1/8” from the top.
Bake for 18 – 24min until golden brown and springy to the touch. If you toothpick test you want it to be moist, not gooey or dry.
Let the doughnuts cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then slide a small spatula around the edges to loosen.
Turn the doughnuts out onto a cooling rack, let completely cool, and then frost the doughnuts.
Cut the stem off of the 8-10 strawberries and place them on a cutting board flat side down. Slice thinly [about 8 slices] and then slice once down the center in the opposite direction to halve the slices.
Place the halves in an overlapping pattern on top of the frosting. Best if served immediately but can be stored—covered—in the fridge for 1 day.

notes: Using a Wilton doughnut pan this recipe yields 8 doughnuts. *For altitude around 5,000 feet set your oven to 370 degrees and decrease the baking powder to 3/4 tsp. Make sure your dried lavender buds are ground. You can finely chop them or use a food processor or coffee grinder [just beware the scent may linger].

Strawberry Puree[yields ~ 1/2 cup]

1.5 cups strawberries
1 Tbsp honey
1tsp tapioca starch

Place the cleaned + stemmed strawberries into a pot over medium heat with the honey and tapioca starch.
Stir until the mixture comes to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer [uncovered] for 10 minutes or until thickened and strawberries are breaking apart.
Empty mixture into a blender, puree, then let cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting [yields 1 cup]