Market to Meal: Pumpkin Doughnuts

Well, its the first week of October. We were eating with friends this week and she was telling a story about her daughter loving how she "made it fall" despite the weather being nothing like it here in Thailand. So whether it feels like fall where you are or not, maybe you can make it feel like fall with some of these pumpkin doughnuts. The rest of this post is written by my friend Rachel S.. She spent many years in China, but is in the US right now. Rachel is a super mom of 4 and can create some amazing things in the kitchen! Thanks to Rachel for this guest post! (Sorry for some of the text/photo edits being a little off--blogger hates it when I cut and paste things in!)

Now that fall is officially here, I’ve begun on my yearly mission to eat pumpkin until everyone in the house loathes it. This was easier when I lived overseas...I miss nanguas. But now, I’m armed with a can of Libby’s pumpkin, which is ok, I guess. I’ve seen several recipes floating around Pinterest for pumpkin donuts, so I thought I would give them a try. My first recipe turned out just ok, so then the challenge was to find the perfect recipe. So this is a mix of a couple of different recipes.

Pumpkin Donuts

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice* (see below for substitute)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp butter, softened or melted

2 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 tsp vanilla

Caramel Glaze

1/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup milk

powdered sugar to the right consistency

Chocolate Glaze

2 tbsp butter, melted

1/4 cup cocoa

powdered sugar

milk

add the last two ingredients until you get the right sweetness and consistency

Buttermilk Maple Glaze

powdered sugar

maple flavoring

buttermilk or milk

Powdered Sugar and Cinnamon

Mix together and toss doughnuts in to coat.

*Make Your Own Pumpkin Pie Spice: Combine 1/2 tsp cinnamon + 1/4 tsp each cloves and nutmeg + 1/8 tsp each cardamom and allspice (I think you could leave out the cardamom if you don't have it)

First, assemble all the ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients together...

And then mix the wet ingredients together...

Then mix the wet into the dry. Be careful not to over work this. You’ll mix it more than muffins, less than bread. It will be sticky, that’s ok. If you want you can try refrigerating the dough a little so that it’s easier to work with...my family would make their own breakfast if they had to wait on that, though.

Turn it out onto a generously floured surface and flour the top before you roll it out. Roll it to about 1/2 inch thickness. You can start to heat the oil to about 360.

Cut out the donuts, and if you are like me and don’t have a donut hole cutter, just use a spoon to poke around to make a hole.

Once your oil is good and hot, start frying the donuts until they’re golden brown. I always fry about 3 at a time so that I don’t overcrowd. And I always cut open one that comes out to make sure they’re cooked in the middle...we had a pretty traumatic breakfast where our apple fritters were beautiful on the outside and runny in the middle.

After all the donuts are fried, you can work on the frosting. I thought I would try a couple of different types. My first was a caramel, which I hoped would be powdered sugar-less, as I know that powdered sugar is a hard to come by in places.

First, caramelize white sugar in the bottom of a pan. The sugar with turn into liquid and the start to brown VERY quickly. Be careful, mine was a little overdone.

Then add butter, whisking it in...

And then a little milk. Lastly add powdered sugar and blend until smooth.

Coat the donuts immediately as the caramel will harden.

Next, I thought, what do I love more than pumpkin? Chocolate, of course. I basically just used the Hershey’s box frosting recipe, cut in a quarter, but added more milk to make it thinner.