chocolate glazed baked speculaas doughnuts

i must be about the only person on the planet who prefers baked doughnuts to the real, deep fried mccoy.  i can appreciate a krispy kreme every now and then, but anything more than a doughnut and a half makes me very sorry, very quickly, that i ever took a bite. the smell of doughnut grease and the way it coats the roof of my mouth, turns my insides to water.

these are a different story. i can make a plate of them disappear at light speed. hardly any grease, full of multigrain flavour and pillow soft. they smell like christmas and they're covered in dark, velvety chocolate.  i actually have to fight hubby for them.

you don't have to include the spices. i did because i was watching a christmas movie and wishing for snow, in the sweltering mid year heat. next thing i knew, i was spooning cinnamon into my mixing bowl and revelling in the festive aroma wafting out of the oven, when they were almost done.

i halved my base recipe so we'd look less greedy, but truthfully, i never make less than twice the amount you see below. these are much healthier, but that's not the reason hubby no longer looks at regular, sugary, deep fried, white wheat doughnuts. you know what? make that the only two people on the planet who prefer baked doughnuts, to the real, deep fried mccoy.

makes 9 or 10 doughnuts

dry

1/2 cup (50 g/2 oz) buckwheat flour
1/2 cup (50 g/2 oz) brown rice flour
1/2 cup (50 g/2 oz) oat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper (optional)
pinch salt

wet

3 large ripe bananas, thoroughly mashed
2/3  cup water (or non-dairy or low fodmap nut milk)
3 tablespoons olive oil (or melted butter)
2 tsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
12 drops stevia

160 g (5 1/2 oz) semi sweet dark chocolate (60 - 70% cocoa solids)

• preheat oven at 200 c (400 f)
• whisk together dry ingredients in a large deep bowl
• add wet ingredients and gently whisk until smooth
• grease a baked doughnut tray
• put about 2 tablespoons of batter into each depression
• use back of teaspoon to evenly spread and smooth batter into a tidy circle, avoiding the central funnel 
• put tray in oven and lower temperature to 180 c (350 f)
• bake for 15 - 18 minutes or until skewer comes out clean from doughnut
• remove from oven and cool on rack then refrigerate
• melt chocolate gently over hot water or in a microwave
• dip cold doughnuts into chocolate and flick wrist to let excess drip off 
• place on rack until chocolate sets before serving

notes

• eggs are not necessary as the bananas and oat flour act as binders
• the batter should be thick and scoopable
• a runny batter will yield flatter, less fluffy doughnuts
• chilling the doughnuts before dipping in chocolate makes the chocolate set faster and prevents messy drips
• if you don't like the pronounced flavour of buckwheat, replace the buckwheat flour with an equal amount of brown rice flour