These Low-Carb Lemon Donuts with Cheesecake Frosting are the ultimate breakfast treat. These goodies are made with almond flour and coconut oil so they are packed with nutrition. The cheesecake frosting complements the moist, light donuts. The donuts melt in your mouth and their lemony goodness will send you straight to citrus heaven.
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My donut pans have been getting a work-out recently! We regularly make our recipe for chocolate donuts. They have become a mainstay for road trip snacks as well as a quick and easy breakfast. While we love the chocolate donuts, we decided we needed a bit of a change-a donut with some citrus sass. Hence the birth of the lemon donut recipe.
We named the frosting “cheesecake frosting” because the combination of lemon and cream cheese whipped together seems a little like frosting, but also a little like a light, fluffy cheesecake. Yum!
Love lemon? You may also want to try our Keto Easy Lemon Chia Pudding Recipe, this keto white chocolate lemon cheesecake from Beauty and the Foodie, or our Low-Carb Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins Recipe (Paleo and Keto-Friendly)
Enjoy!
-Annissa

Low-Carb Lemon Donuts with Cheesecake Frosting
Ingredients
For the donuts
- Coconut oil spray to coat donut pans
- 2 ⅓ cups almond flour
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup granulated stevia/erythritol blend
- 2 Tablespoons coconut oil melted
- 3 large pasture raised eggs room temperature
- 1/3 cup unsweetened almond or coconut milk
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
For the frosting
- 3 oz cream cheese from grass-fed cows room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoon to 2 teaspoons stevia erythritol granulated sweetener
- 1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- about 1/2 cup heavy cream from grass fed cows
Instructions
For the donuts
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Spray two donut pans (each with room for six donuts) with oil.
- Sift almond flour, sea salt, baking soda and sweetener into a medium bowl.
- Use a whisk to mix thoroughly.
- Add coconut oil to dry ingredients and stir until absorbed.
- Add the eggs, vanilla extract and milk.
- Stir batter until smooth
- Spoon into prepared donut pans.
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Donuts are done when the top springs back when touched.
- Place pans on a cooling rack and allow to cool before frosting.
- Lavishly frost with cheesecake frosting.
Cheesecake frosting
- Using a mixer, beat together cream and granulated sweetener until smooth.
- Add vanilla extract and lemon juice and beat to combine.
- Add cream a tablespoon at a time and beat with a mixer between additions.
- Continue to add cream in this manner until the the frosting reaches the desired consistency.
Recipe Notes
Serving size: 1 donut
Per serving:
Calories 209
Fat (g): 19
Carbs (g): 5
Fiber (g): 2
Protein (g): 6
Net carbs (g): 3
Pinned it just in case I start craving for sweets again. At least I won’t feel so guilty.
These sound so delicious ! I love anything lemon!!
Me too!
low carb seems too good to be true! gorgeous recipe and I love almond flour
I REALLY LOVE YOUR RECIPES!. I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THE NEW ONES!.
Kelly,
Thanks so much! We currently put up two recipes a week. Right now our release schedule is every Tuesday and every Friday. We don’t have a certain time of day we make them public. It depends a little bit on what else we have going on that day. We may alter the schedule in the future depending on traffic.
This recipe is AMAZING – I can’t wait to make them!
Thank you so much!
Just curious what the macros for these are. How many carbs per serving?
Kandis,
When we first started our blog, we didn’t put nutritional information in. We now do it for each recipe and I’m trying to go back through and add it for our earlier recipes. The macros for this recipe are as follows:
For each serving (One donut with 1/12th of the glaze recipe):
Calories: 198
Total fat (g): 18
Carbs (g): 5
Fiber (g): 2
Protein (g): 6
Net Carbs (g): 3
-Annissa
I like them just plain. The icing was a little too tart for me but plain they were delicious. Can you show the carbs and all the counts without the icing?
Can you comment on my question above?
Sorry, I’ve been without Internet due to Dorian. Per donut (without frosting) Calories: 186, Fat: 14 grams, Total Carbs: 5 grams, Fiber” 2 grams, Protein: 6 grams.
There would be 3 net carbs per donut.
Annissa
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this fabulous recipe!! We LOVE lemon and this is the ultimate lemon flavor in the icing! The icing could be a mousse….. I made the donuts (didn’t have so used muffin pans and worked out great) and then the icing. My heavy whipping cream had gone bad so used 1/2 & 1/2 – not thick enough. Made another batch of icing with the heavy whipping cream and they were perfect. This will definitely be a keeper.
This comment makes my day! It’s why I do what I do!
-Annissa
THIS LOOKS SO GOOD, I LOVE DONUTS.
How do you store them?
Kelly,
I put them in a container with a cover and keep them in the refrigerator.
-Annissa
Thanks SO much, Annissa! These lemon donuts are fabulous! It is such a nice, simple, straight-forward recipe!
For anyone who’s interested I used your basic recipe to make an “apple cider” donut: Add to dry ingredients: 1 tsp Cardamom. For wet ingredients, decrease milk to 1/4 cup, skip the vanilla, and add 3 Tbsp of Cinnamon Apple Spice Tea (brew 1 bag of tea in 1/4 cup boiling water for 10 minutes, then cool; the 1/4 cup results in 3 Tbsp of tea).