Pumpkin Donuts

 

   I am one of those crazy people who likes pumpkin flavoured food in the fall.  I drink pumpkin steamers, make pumpkin bread and smoothies and am game for just about anything pumpkin for about two months. One of the towns that I used to live in had a wonderful bakery where they made pumpkin donuts. I liked these donuts al lot and would buy a half dozen any Saturday that I wasn't working. They would be my breakfast Saturday and Sunday. I haven't lived in a town with a good stand alone bakery since then and I miss those donuts.

   A while ago I found out that it is possible to bake donuts. They don't have quite the same texture as fried cake donuts, but it looked interesting. I toyed around with buying a donut pan, but didn't want to spend money on a kitchen thing that would just sit and collect dust.

   Last week I was buying some things on Amazon when I decided to see how much a donut pan cost. There were a lot to choose form. In the end I bought a set of two silicone pans at a pretty good price. 

   I thought this would be a good project to do with my Mom. I'm always looking for things we can bake where she can help me. This seemed like the perfect things to try. Since it is November, pumpkin donuts were in order. I found a simple recipe that didn't have any exotic ingredients. I brought the pans with me to Mom and Dad's place.

   After a little chatting we got to work. I preheated the oven and then began to measure the dry ingredients. I had my mother mix those together. While she mixed, I measured out the wet ingredients. by that time Mom was done with the dry ingredients. She mixed the wet ingredients and then we put the two together. Mom was very diligent in making sure there were no flour lumps in the batter. After she was done I put the batter in the donuts pans and put them in the oven.

   It took awhile to bake because I had filled the pans too full, a mistake I won't repeat. I took the batch out of the oven and let them sit in the pan for a few minutes. Then I carefully took them out. They slid out of the pan perfectly I only broke one. 

   After lunch I made the glaze. I put brown sugar, milk and a little butter in a pan. Mom stirred it until the butter was melted then we let it simmer for a minute. I chopped some walnuts to put on top. We took it off the heat and put some vanilla in it and the powder sugar. I should have sifted the sugar because there were little lumps of sugar that Mom was trying to mix in. There were so many that the glaze got too thick before she could get them out. I used it anyway. It worked pretty well. Before the glaze set, I sprinkled the chopped walnuts on them. 

   Dad heated some coffee for himself and Mom. We tasted the donuts. They were good. Dad liked them so much he had two. Success.

   I'm going to try apple cider donuts next.....