Pumpkin Doughnuts (or Muffins)

By KDHarmon

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée (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
• 1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) all purpose flour

Details

Adapted from kingarthurflour.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat all but flour together until smooth. Add flour and stir until smooth.

Lightly grease two standard doughnut pans.

As I mentioned earlier, if you don’t have doughnut pans, you can bake these in a couple of standard muffin tins; they just won’t be doughnuts.

Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full, using a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well; a tablespoon cookie scoop helps with this task.

If you’re making muffins, fill each well about 3/4 full; the recipe makes 15, so you’ll need to bake in two batches (unless you have two muffin pans).

Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. If you’re using self-rising flour, bake for the longer amount of time.

If you’re making muffins, they’ll need to bake for 23 to 25 minutes.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven, and after about 5 minutes, loosen their edges, and transfer them to a rack to cool.

While the doughnuts are still warm (but no longer fragile), gently shake them in a bag with cinnamon-sugar. Or better yet, pumpkin-spice sugar, made by combining the aforementioned pumpkin pie spice (or substitute) with granulated or extra-fine sugar.

Makes 12 doughnuts or 15 muffins.

Serve immediately. More on that later.

If you’ve made muffins, sprinkle their tops heavily with the spiced sugar of your choice.

These doughnuts are incredibly moist. And when stored in a plastic bag, they quickly become soggy. Let me share a couple of tips with you, things I’ve learned as a result of making these treats SO many times.

First, store them on a cooling rack, loosely covered. By that, I mean a layer of waxed paper or parchment laid on top. Or even better, something like a cake cover over them: an actual cake dome, an upended bowl, a deep, large lasagna pan – something that will shelter them, yet allow good air circulation as well.

Second, sugar them (or spread with icing) just before serving – or at most a couple of hours before.

Can you bake these ahead and freeze? Absolutely. Thaw at room temperature (on a cooling rack, uncovered) for a couple of hours before serving.