Pumpkin Cake Doughnuts

I'm a fried doughnut gal, myself. My Mountain Man would regularly drive me an hour away to the Krispy Kreme when they first opened here. But who can resist the speed and minimal mess of baked doughnuts?

So, I finally caved in and bought some doughnut pans that were on clearance at Target. I know. Doughnut pans rank up there with bread machines, as far as the"experts" are concerned. In other words, they're thought to be a waste of time and kitchen space. However, in our home, the bread machine makes a lot of dough, and these doughnut pans will get a lot of use.

I tried them out for the first time this morning when I made these pumpkin cake doughnuts. The recipe is supposed to yield only 12 doughnuts, but I baked 30 from it, and these aren't minis, so who knows what I did wrong. The most time consuming part of doughnut-making is filling the tins and spreading out the mix.

These turned out great and would make a great addition to your tea time. :)

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cake Doughnuts
adapted from King Arthur's recipe

1/2 c. canola oil
3 large eggs
1-1/2 c. sugar
1-1/2 c. canned pumpkin
1-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or 3/4 tsp. cinnamon plus heaping 1/4 tsp. each of ground nutmeg and ground ginger)
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1-3/4 c. + 2 T. all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two standard doughnut pans. (You can also use a standard muffin pan and make muffins.)

Beat together the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

Add flour, stirring just until smooth.

Fill the well of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full.  Bake doughnuts for 15-18 minutes, or until cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. (Muffins will take about 23-25 minutes.)

Remove donuts from oven, and let cool for about 5 minutes. Remove from pans, and sprinkle both sides with cinnamon sugar. (KA suggests shaking the doughnuts in a bag of cinnamon sugar, but I just couldn't risk having them break into pieces!)

They can be stored at room temperature for several days.


With love,
Trisha