I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Even thought I eat pretty darn healthy most of the time, I definitely have a weak spot for baked goods. While I generally try to keep even my sweet indulgences in the reasonable category, every now and then I just want a doughnut! The thing about conventional doughnuts is that they’re about as bad as it gets. You’ve got sugary fried dough all covered in sugary glaze, and if it’s a really good doughnut, it’s stuffed with more sugary stuff and topped with chocolate.
Fortunately, I’m pretty good about fooling myself when it comes to these things. What’s that mean? I’m a sucker for anything that looks like a legitimate doughnut. No need for frying and stuffing and layers upon layers of glaze. Cake doughnuts that are baked in the oven are good enough for me, as long as they resemble doughnuts. That’s why doughnut pans are awesome. When you make a batch of baked doughnuts you’re basically making tube-shaped muffins, but they make me happy.
These baked matcha doughnuts are an indulgence, but they’re considerably lighter than doughnuts you might pick up at a bakery. So they satisfy my sweet tooth, but I feel a lot better after polishing one off!
Since spring is right around the bend, I flavored this particular batch of baked doughnuts with what I consider to be springy flavors: green tea with an almond glaze. The matcha green tea has a mild earthy taste, and if you enjoy drinking green tea, you’ll probably enjoy eating it as well. It also gives these doughnuts a pretty bright green hue, so they look springy too. Matcha powder comes in different grades—be sure to use ceremonial grade for the brightest color and cleanest flavor.

Ingredients
For the matcha doughnuts:
- 1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar or another granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon ceremonial grade matcha powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup unflavored soy or almond milk
- 1/4 cup coconut oil liquid state
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
For the almond glaze:
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon unflavored soy or almond milk
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
For topping:
- 1/4 cup finely chopped almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 6 cavity doughnut pan.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, matcha, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl or liquid measuring cup, stir together the milk, coconut oil, and vanilla. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until fully mixed and a thick batter forms.
- Pipe or spoon the batter into the doughnut cavities. Place the pan into the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Remove the pan from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- While the doughnuts cool, stir the glaze ingredients together in a small bowl, adding a bit more milk if the mixture needs thinning, or a bit more powdered sugar if it needs thickening.
- When the doughnuts are cool, remove them from the pan and dip the top of each one into the glaze, then sprinkle with almonds. Transfer to a plate and allow to rest until the glaze sets.
- Serve.
16 Comments
Charly´s Vegan Tacos
March 13, 2017 at 11:02 amI´d really like to make these as a trial run dessert for my restaurant down in Tulum, Mexico. The recipe is excellent, very easy to follow and straight forward. I appreciate you taking the time to create and share vegan recipes like these. If you ever come to Tulum we´d love to invite you down to the restaurant for some delicious vegan tacos.
Izzy
March 13, 2017 at 12:18 pmThese look so delicious!
I HAVE to try them.
Izzy | Pinch of delight
Ashley Madden
March 15, 2017 at 2:16 pmThese are perfect! Love your take on the almond glaze!!! xo
Amber H
March 15, 2017 at 7:55 pmIf I don’t have coconut oil, would another type work? These look so yummy!
Alissa
March 16, 2017 at 9:36 amThanks Amber! You should be fine with any neutral-flavored baking oil. Canola would be my second choice for these. Enjoy!
Eli
March 17, 2017 at 11:13 pmIf I make it in the muffin pan is the baking time the same?
Alissa
March 18, 2017 at 10:36 amI haven’t tested the recipe in a muffin pan, so I can’t say for sure. I think it would work, and probably require a few extra minutes of bake time. I’d start checking them around 15 minutes, and keep checking until the tops are springy.
Sonia
March 19, 2017 at 4:20 pmHi Alissa, I would really like to try these, but not using wheat flour, any suggestion on what would be best to substitute? many thanks
Alissa
March 20, 2017 at 3:37 pmHi Sonia! Do you use spelt flour? I use that a lot as a substitute for wheat, an I think it would work here. If you’re going for gluten-free I think an all-purpose gf blend like Bob’s Red Mill or King Arthur would be your best bet, but I haven’t tried either myself, so I can’t be 100% sure.
Joy
March 19, 2017 at 5:42 pmDo you have the nutritional information for this recipe?
Alissa
March 20, 2017 at 3:39 pmWe don’t calculate the nutritional info for our recipes, but here’s a link to a calculator if you’d like to give it a try yourself.
ben
March 20, 2017 at 9:48 pmThe “print recipe” button is broken (and was recently, on the pad see ew recipe). I generally store all the recipes I’m interested in as PDFs – any possibility of a fix?
Alissa
March 21, 2017 at 10:00 amSorry about that! Right now it’s working in Chrome on desktop, but we’re having some trouble with it in other browsers. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on, but in the meantime you should be able to print from Chrome.
brinacyl
February 7, 2018 at 1:13 pmthese turned out great ! do you think i can increase matcha to 1.5 tbps ? thank you
Katie Trant
February 9, 2018 at 5:59 amYou can increase it to taste, however, with too much the doughnuts will become bitter, so tread carefully.
Alyssa
May 21, 2019 at 3:17 pmWonderful recipe, thank you! I made them as mini muffins which worked wonderfully. The texture was light and fluffy, plus flavour is great!