Pumpkin Old Fashioned Donuts

It's Sunday and I'm back with pumpkin treats! Talk about deja vu, right?

When treats are good though, one can excuse repetitive use of ingredients. Besides, I've got pumpkin on the brain. Halloween is fast approaching and they're popping up everywhere--along with those 'fun sized' candy bars that will be my undoing.

So lets just get right down to how today's post came about. One of the added perks of being a blogger is you get lots of very friendly folks emailing you, offering to send you things to try. I tend pass on about 99% of these just because I'm a busy lady and I've got enough stuff to eat and store in my home without people sending me more and trying to finagle a blog post--and because no one has offered to send me an Audi TT (Audi, what gives?).

I do however like the opportunity to give things away to my readers. So today, thanks to the lovely folks at McCormick, I have a box of goodies for one lucky reader in the U.S. of A packed with goodies like McCormick vanilla extract & food colorings, and a few other little treats from Le Creuset, Mui, Wilton and Palderno World Cuisine to assist with your baking fun. 

For my part, I'm whipping up a Halloween themed post. I had several ideas, all utilizing the standard company of Halloween players. Some very cute, some scary and some complicated. In the end though, I settled on tasty. Tasty and pumpkin-y. 

Besides, my last pumpkin recipe didn't use exactly one can of pumpkin and that made those with the small cans of pumpkin, like commenter Katie, go all sad-emoticon.

That makes me :( too. 

I also had leftover pumpkin, so today we're using it and we're making a batch of festive fall donuts.

: ) @

See what I did there?

So today we're pulling a recipe from a local Seattle icon, Top Pot donuts. They've just released a cookbook and I'm pulling a page and baking up their old fashioned pumpkin donuts.  

Full disclosure: I love old fashioned donuts. Love them. They're far and away my favorite donut and for some reason, rarely make it into donut cookbooks. Those heavy, craggy glazed confections sustained me at university. Nothing warms the soul and spikes the blood sugar at 5am like a big old fashioned.

Of course, the comforting combination of pumpkin and spice makes the ordinary old fashioned all that much better. Perfect on chilly mornings with a cup of coffee or piping hot cider. 

Now the old fashioned is a cake-style donut, but unlike its standard cake brethren it is cooked longer and at a lower temperature. This--and a few tweaks to the ingredients--is what gives the donut it's heft, moistness and craggy petals. This is also one donut that actually manages to taste good the next day. I actually prefer them the next morning as something seems wrong about a warm old fashioned, but that's just me. 

Pumpkin Old Fashioned Donuts

yields one dozen

from Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts

3 cups (355g) cake/soft wheat flour + more for cutting and rolling

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt 

3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoons McCormick Pumpkin Pie spice

1/2 cup (100g) sugar

2 tablespoons shortening/vegetable lard

2 large egg yolks

2/3 cup sour cream (165ml)

1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree (120ml)

canola oil, for frying

Pumpkin Glaze

4 1/2 cups (450g) powdered/icing sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons golden syrup (or light corn syrup)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon McCormick Pumpkin Pie spice

1/4 cup (60ml) canned pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon McCormick Vanilla extract

1/4 cup (60ml) hot water

To make the batter, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and pie spice and set aside.  In a second small bowl, combine the pumpkin puree and sour cream and set aside.

In the bowl of your mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the shortening with the sugar until sandy. Add the egg yolks and continue to mix for one more minute on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add 1/3rd of the flour mixture to the sugar, beating on low speed. Add half of the pumpkin mixture beating until just combined, scraping down the bowl with each addition. Add another third of the flour, mix and then the remaining pumpkin. Finally, mix in the remaining flour. Take care not to over mix. Too much mixing means too much gluten and that means tough cake donuts.

The dough will be sticky, resembling cookie dough.

Transfer the dough to a clean bowl and cover. Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes until chilled, or up to overnight.  While waiting, prep your glaze by combining all the ingredients until smooth in your mixer. If glaze seems overly thick, add up to an additional tablespoon of hot water until it reaches the right consistency. 

When the dough has chilled, dust an area of counter top with cake flour and prepare to roll out your dough. With flour dusted hands, transfer the dough to your counter top and roll to 1/2" thick. Cut out your donuts (I'm using a 3 1/2" Ateco donut cutter), dipping the cutter in flour after each cut. Combine the scraps and roll and cut again.

In a small pan, heat 2" of oil to 325°F, monitoring the temperature with a candy or deep frying thermometer both before and between batches.

When hot, dust any excess flour from your donuts and carefully add them to the oil. Frying one or two donuts at a time. Once the donuts float to the surface, allow them to cook for 15 seconds before flipping them. Cook for 75 to 90 seconds until golden brown and cracked and then flip again, frying the first side for an additional 60 to 75 seconds.

(Trick: If your donuts are cracking in random ways that you find unbecoming, you can score the donut  with a sharp knife before frying, much like you would score a loaf of bread. This will guide the cracking.)

Drain the donuts on a layer of paper towels and while hot, completely dip each into the pumpkin glaze. (If glaze has thickened, warm for a few seconds in the microwave). Allow the donut to dry on a cooling rack until the glaze is set.

To store, lightly cover and keep for up to 36 hours in a cool spot.

Enjoy!

To win the McCormick giveaway: U.S. residents simply post your favorite donut along with an emoticon that illustrates how you feel when eating them in the comments below. I'll pick my favorite next friday and send the box on its way. 

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