I have interrupted my scheduled recipes to bring you this one – and for very good reason.

Cassava flour is my latest go-to for gluten-free cooking. I have discovered the texture it provides really mimics that of the regular gluten-containing flours, especially when blended with a fine particle flour such as tapioca flour or glutinous rice flour, and a stronger flour such as buckwheat or sweet potato flour. For these tasty morsels, I’ve used green banana flour to mimic the action and provide some of the flavour of bananas in the authentic recipes.

Doughnuts have been a no-go for me for a while – I used to still eat them sometimes and suffer the consequences of having ingested wheat, and those consequences are neither fun nor pretty. So I have avoided all doughnuts, even gluten-free doughnuts as I didn’t want to take a huge sugar hit to replace the soft texture provided by wheat flour. And then last year I took my trip to the African continent – Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania – where our travel group had a bunch of people with food issues, and the most versatile cook who catered for all of our needs every day for three weeks! I ‘discovered’ a common ingredient throughout Eastern Africa is cassava – and so much of it growing in farms scattered throughout much of the more lush parts of the countries we visited. While I didn’t get to find any authentic Accra – the Ugandan treats made from cassava and banana from which these doughnuts take their inspiration – I did find out how versatile cassava was as an ingredient for gluten-free (and nut-free) cooking.

Cassava is also big in Mauritius, which I visited at the end of the trip to continental Africa. I found in supermarkets there the intriguing, delicious Biscuits de Manioc, naturally gluten-free biscuits made from the Manioc/cassava plant, and they went really well with vanilla or chocolate almond milk as a snack (a little too well!).

So for this recipe, tweaked from a traditional recipe that contains just cassava and banana, I had a couple of attempts. As I couldn’t get hold of fresh or frozen cassava, but I had a vast amount of cassava flour, I decided to sub the flour in with the mashed bananas, add some spices and sugar, shallow fry and try them out. They weren’t bad. A little dense, especially after cooling, but packed with banana flavour. They didn’t really maintain ball form and were a little lumpy. I needed to tweak the recipe further and, now, I had run out of bananas, so I used up the rest of my green banana flour to replace them. Knowing how good coconut yoghurt has been in delivering results for my doughs lately, I decided to use that to add moisture, and I used half of I have allowed for in the recipe below, adding almond milk to bring the thick paste back to a dough. I added baking powder and vinegar to help give these doughnuts a little bit more of an airy quality and allowed the dough to rise for 10-20 minutes before shallow-frying them.

This time, they seemed to lose their shape a little while cooking again, but puffed up really well in the hot oil and seemed to puff like a yeast ring doughnut. Once they were done, they came out in a more pleasing rounder shape than my first effort, so I was much happier with the result so far. I rolled them in cinnamon and sugar, and then couldn’t resist trying one while still piping hot. Oh, my gosh it was a repeat of my discovery of those super soft hot cross buns I made earlier! Bt, these were crunchy on the outside, deliciously chewy on the inside, with the familiar taste of cinnamon, sugar and banana all coming to the fore! I had to eat more.

I would suggest if you’re making these for your family or for friends that you at least double the recipe because these will not last long! They’ll be practically inhaled by anyone around – and they won’t believe you that they’re gluten-free and vegan to boot, not to mention low on refined sugar! Practically a health food!

Ingredients

• 1 cup cassava flour
• 1/2 cup green banana flour
• 1 cup coconut yoghurt
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1 Tbsp rice malt syrup
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp vinegar
• 1 pinch salt
• 2-3 Tbsp vegetable oil for frying
• Cinnamon and sugar to dust

Method

1. Combine flours, syrup, salt and baking powder in a mixing bowl.
2. Add yoghurt and vinegar and mix together to form a soft somewhat silky dough – don’t overwork it, though.
3. Cover dough and let rise in a warm spot for 10-20 minutes.
4. Heat vegetable oil in fry pan until hot.
5. Roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls in the palm of your hand.
6. Ppalace dough balls into hot oil carefully and let them cook until golden. Check for colour regularly with tongs and turn to cook and colour the other sides of the dough balls. You’ll end up with oddly misshapen doughnuts this way, but I quite like the rustic look. Alternatively, place in a deep fryer until crispy golden.
7. Once cooked and golden, remove from pan to a napkin to drain off excess oil.
8. Roll doughnuts in cinnamon and sugar mixture before serving.
9. Makes about 12 golf-ball size doughnuts.