Pumpkin Donuts

Today has been such a lazy day. After three days of conferences at school I was really ready for some down time. It felt so good to lounge in my pj's this morning until 11:00. I don't get to do that very often.

The next couple of days are Education Minnesota Conference days. Days when I should go and check out some new teaching tips.  I was going to go today, but I needed to get my oil changed in my van and have a funky noise checked out, so I decide it was best to take the 3:00 appointment today.

Since I had vast amounts of time today I decided to try out a new recipe. The weather is wet and cold out and feeling very fall like. I also have pumpkins on my mind so I decide to try and make some pumpkin donuts.

I have already invested in the donut pans from Wilton and I've tried doing this before, but the donuts were only ok. This time I attempted to make pumpkin donuts. I didn't think I could go wrong with this flavor and I was right. These donuts are super good. It is hard to eat just one.

You could use this batter and simply make muffins if you want. You would have to bake them a little longer, but if you have these donut pans I say go for it.

After baking these donuts you can shake them in a sugar mixture, frost them or simply eat them plain. They are good no matter what you do.

If you are going to buy these pans I would suggest waiting until Michaels has a 50% off coupon on bakeware. They tend to have these coupons often and I don't know if it is worth paying full price for a specialty pan that you might not use a lot. That's what I do on all my bakeware pans for cake decorating and such.

Give this recipe a try whether you want to do donuts or muffins they taste great and make the house smell wonderful!

Pumpkin donuts

 Preheat oven to 350 and spray donut pans with cooking spray.

Place the following in a mixing bowl:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, or 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus a heaping 1/4 teaspoon each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Beat everything together until smooth.

Add 1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) flour, stirring just until smooth.

Fill donut pans about 1/2 full with batter and bake 15 minutes. Cool in pan 5 minutes before removing and cool on a rack. While still slightly warm shake in a sugar,cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg mixture.