I’m always hesitant to declare a new recipe the best recipe on my blog because of recency bias and all that jazz. So, I’ll just say these high protein baked donut holes are in the top five.
I’m honestly not sure how to describe the joy you experience when biting into one. They’re slightly crispy on the outside but moist like perfect chocolate cake on the inside. And the powdered sugar exterior gives them a cool, perfectly sweet taste.
Amazeballs. (Ironically this was one of the more popular title suggestions when I polled my Instagram.)
And as always, I’ve done my best to keep things simple.
Ingredients for Chocolate Cake Baked Donut Holes
Below I’ll run through a few notes of ingredient swaps and recipe modifications.
Swerve Confectioners
These protein donut holes call for Swerve confectioners in the dough itself. Just look at how moist the center is below! If you don’t have any on hand, you could try adding a bit more pudding mix or other thickeners mixed with another low calorie sweetener.
For the powdered sugar coating, however, it’s going to be a bit more difficult to replicate the true powdered sugar texture with protein powder and granular sugar blended together. But even without the perfect powdered sugar exterior, these protein donut holes are still delicious!
My final word on Swerve would be that if you’re on the fence about buying some, it’s one of the best ingredients I’ve come across in some time. For high protein, low calorie desserts, it’s a game changer. And don’t think it’s a one-recipe ingredient. Here are other recipes I’ve made with Swerve:
- Oreo Protein Cake and Protein Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cinnamon Roll Protein Mug Cake
- No Bake Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake
- High Protein Birthday Mug Cake
If you’re curious where to find Swerve, you can use their store locator here or you can find it on my Amazon list.
Pudding Mix
This ingredient is readily found these days in most grocery stores. If you can’t find the chocolate or fudge flavors or would like to use something else, you could combine cocoa powder with something like corn starch, arrowroot powder, xanthan gum, or another thickener.
Coconut Flour
Coconut flour works extremely well in lower calorie recipes thanks to how absorbent it is. You don’t need to use much to get the desired effects of flour, keeping calories low. That said, I realize not everyone keeps it on hand.
If you want to swap the coconut flour for something like all purpose flour, you’ll want to use at least a 2:1 exchange ratio. That means you may need a half cup of all purpose flour.
If you go this route and have a dough that’s too thick, you can add more fat or even a bit of liquid like a lower calorie milk or water at the end of mixing.
Protein Powder
The recipe calls for PEScience Select which is a bit different than most protein powders since it’s a blend of whey and casein. If you’re using a whey-only protein powder or something similar, you may need to add more protein powder or flour so you can handle the dough.
I expect to continue developing recipes with PEScience Protein. So if you like my protein desserts and want to pick some up, you can use my affiliate discount code mason at checkout to save 15%.
All right, grab a bowl and get ready to go. If you try these protein donut holes or any of my protein sweets, I wanna see them. Snap a pic and tag me on Instagram @mason_woodruff.
Chocolate Cake Baked Protein Donut Holes
Ingredients
- 1/4 C 28g Coconut Flour
- 1 scoop, 31g Vanilla Protein Powder*
- 2 Tbsp 10g Unsweetened Dark Cocoa Powder
- 2 1/2 Tbsp 22g Sugar Free Chocolate Fudge Pudding Mix
- 1 Tbsp 9g Swerve Confectioners (or powdered erythritol)
- 1/2 C 113g Vanilla Fat Free Greek Yogurt
- 1 Egg
For Rolling the Donut Holes After Baking
- 1-2 Tbsp 9-18g Swerve Confectioners
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Add the Greek yogurt and egg to the dry ingredients and stir until you have a giant ball of dough. (I use a rubber spatula and use a folding, pressing movement to incorporate any remaining dry ingredients.)
- Once you have the ball of dough, pinch off 8 smaller balls and place them on the baking sheet.
- Using your hands (spray them cooking spray if the dough is sticking), roll the balls between your hands until smooth.
- Bake for 14-16 minutes or until the donut holes are cooked through.
- Allow the donut holes to cool slightly before rolling them in the additional powdered sugar.
Absolutely love this recipe! As well as being a chocolate lover, I have a huge sweet tooth, and this recipe was easy to make, has awesome macros, and tasted amazing. The fudgy texture in these donut holes are beautiful!
Absolutely love this recipe! As well as being a chocolate lover, I have a huge sweet tooth, and this recipe was easy to make, has awesome macros, and tasted amazing. The fudgy texture in these donut holes are beautiful!
This is amazing even my kids love them , thank you!
These look so good. I haven’t tried swerve before so thanks for the link. I’ve heard about it from a friend but forgot where she told me to order it.
I’m only mildly obsessed with it. 🙂
Hi there! Have you ever dabbled in the idea of baking low carb? Your echoes look amazing, but I follow the THM (Trim healthy mama) lifestyle. We can’t have AP flour, sugar and processed goods. just drool st your recipes and thought I would ask. They also produce the best low carb sweetener EVER- called Gentle Sweet! Anywho- kudos to all of your hard work on your recipes:$
Thanks, Kari! I make the occasional low carb recipe like my low carb breakfast pizza, microwave biscuits, and low carb Cheezits. But I don’t follow any strict guidelines with ingredients or specific carb counts. That said, I do my best to give tips for making substitutions and modifying any recipe to fit other needs. There are always limits, though!
These are soooooo good! They’re so fudgy and moist youd never guess they were low calorie or had so much protein! My boyfriend, who dislikes almost anything baked with protein powder, would eat all of these in one sitting if I let him.
These are soooooo good! They’re so fudgy and moist youd never guess they were low calorie or had so much protein! My boyfriend, who dislikes almost anything baked with protein powder, would eat all of these in one sitting if I let him.
Hi, love your recipes! Do you think I could replace the protein powder with flour for a lower protein version?
I’d say yes, but I’m not certain on the amounts. Maybe try gram for gram and add the liquid ingredients slowly.
Have you ever tried making these with Lemon FF pudding mix instead of the chocolate? I’m going to try it and see how it turns out since I love lemon stuff 😀
I haven’t, but I bet it would work great. Let me know how they turn out!
I made the lemon version of these and they turned out great and were rockin! I just subbed FF SF lemon pudding mix for the chocolate, omitted the cocoa powder, omitted the Swerve coating, and added a couple of drops of lemon extract. I think they would be even better with a white Chocolate style coating. Do have any macro friendly coating recipes?
Thanks for the lemon pudding idea. Make them this evening, smells delicious
bought pudding mix for this recipe and the donut holes turned out fab!!!!!
Made these again and doubled the recipe and srsly…with that taste, texture and macros they are too good to be ture!!
Seriously one of the best recipes I’ve tried. Dangerously good. Pro tip: figure out the macros for the whole recipe before you make them. You’re going to need to know this because they’re that addicting.
These are soooo good! They stay moist, sweet, and chocolatey for days. You don’t even need to coat the outside in swerve powdered sugar if you dont want to because they’re great already!