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.
We just mutually decide that we were going to cut sugar and cut carbs and this has helped! I personally used plain Greek yogurt instead of the vanilla. It’s all I had. I wish I didn’t use so much as they were slightly gummy
My kids liked these but I added peppermint extract for choco-mint version. I plan on using coconut extract next. Highly recommend easy & quick to make!
These are delicious, I made them with the powdered sugar coating the first time, and then tried a cinnamon coating the second time. The cinnamon was a fun swap for fall!
These taste like chocolate cake pops. I suggest using PEScience cake pop protein powder and cook them a little less than listed for the same taste and texture of a cake pop. So good!
Made these exactly as the recipe says and turned out perfectly! Same texture and density as real donut holes but now you can eat more of them! Next time I would do the chocolate cupcake PEScience flavor with the cocoa powder because there’s never too much chocolate in my opinion
Have made the Kodiak Cakes version several times. Chocolate mix with peanut butter protein powder and buttermilk mix with vanilla protein powder. Top them both with a Greek yogurt/protein powder ‘sauce’. Added mini choc ships to the top for the chocolate version and strawberries and blueberries to the buttermilk version. 1/4 of the recipe is a good serving when cooking for one. Planning for more flavor combos.
I believe I commented here by mistake for the pancakes ! I redid it on the pancake page.
Made this original recipe as is and it was a crowd pleaser. Tried a cinnamon version with vanilla pudding powder and cinnamon protein powder rolled in a cinnamon confection blend . Also did a batch with a white chocolate pudding powder and a fruity protein powder. So easy to toss together and have available on the fly.
Hi!
You mentioned subbing arrowroot or xanthan gum with cocoa powder for the pudding. How much of each would I need to use? Thanks!
If I wanted to use real sugar, such as honey, how much would I use?
Depends on what you’re trying to replace. If you’re looking to replace the Swerve and pudding mix, honey won’t be a good substitute. You’d need something similar like powdered sugar or a combination of powdered sugar and a bit more cocoa powder.