baked pumpkin donuts

These donuts had very high expectations to live up to. All week long at work my friend Carrie and I had been talking, emailing, and sharing recipes for baked donuts. When conversation was at a lull during lunch we would cheer each other up by talking about our big day of making pumpkin donuts. When work got a little too stressfull, we reminded ourselves- with a precise countdown- of how long we had until we made donuts. This week was all about the pumpkin. And donuts. And why not, really? We planned an entire pumpkin afternoon. First we made the dough and left it to rise while we walked to a nearby taproom and drank pumpkin beer and ate a delicious lunch. On the walk home we discovered a local vegetable stand with tables upon tables devoted to pumpkins and squash. As we walked home in the bright (hot) sunshine, we discussed several icing combinations for the donuts as well as what different shapes and sizes we prefered our donuts to be. Pure bliss.

The anticipation for the donuts did not leave us dissapointed when the final product came out of the oven. As soon as we came into the house we dawned our aprons and got to work. Silently, we created a working assembly line from rolling out the dough, to cutting the shapes, to moving them onto pans, to cutting out the center holes. So many pans of dough left for a second a rise! When they were nice and fluffy once more, we started the baking and icing. The first batch could not get iced fast enough. Actually, the first one we iced got torn straight in half and devoured immediatley. Ahhh....the stressfull week, the waiting, the anticipation, the doubt- whatever it was was completely washed away with one bite of pumpkin donut. I'm not saying pumpkin donuts will solve your problems or anything. Okay, maybe I am.

Inspiration and recipe adaption comes from one of my favorite cooking blogs, 101 cookbooks. All of Heidi's recipes are fool proof and she manages to make elaborate, tasty dishes from simple whole foods. I read her baked donuts recipe a while ago and kept coming back to it when trying to figure out how I was going to make vegan pumpkin donuts. I finally decided to stick with it and am oh-so glad I did. Click on the first blog listed, 101 cookbooks, over to the right under "other cyber-spaces". If your are curious about her donuts, type in "baked donuts" into the search box to see her recipe and gorgeous picture.


Make these when you have time to spare and plenty of friends around to share them with. And if you can talk a close friend into sharing the kitchen space with you, it's all the better.

you will need these:
large bowl
electic mixer with dough hook or your two arms and hands- pumped up and ready for action
clean tea towels
wooden spoon
big and small donut cutter or make do with house hold objects. for instance, a to-go container and shot glass, different sized coffee cups or biscuit/cookie cutters
parchment paper
baking sheets

for the dough:
1 packet yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1 1/3 C warm soy milk (or other vegan milk) or water
2/3 C unrefined sugar
2 T vegan butter (Earth Balance makes a good product)
1 15 oz can organic pumpkin puree or bake your own pumpkin (squash works too) using about 1 1/2-2 C flesh
5 C unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp salt

for the icing:
1/2 C vegan butter, melted
1/4 C (or more) unrefined sugar
3 T brown sugar
1 T cinnamon
dash of nutmeg


first, warm the soy milk until it is warm to the touch, not hot though. pour 1/3 C milk into your desired mixing bowl and sprinkle in the the yeast stiring to make sure it is incorporated. set aside for 5 minutes.

after 5 minutes lighly mix in the sugar, butter, pumpkin, the remaining 1 C milk, salt and spices until just barely combined.

start adding flour one cup a time. when you get to about 5 cups start paying close attention to the dough. at this point either turn on the dough hook and let it do it's magic, or throw in a little more flour and plop out onto a floured surface. keep adding flour to the mix until dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, or ceases to stick to your fingers. overdoing it with the flour is OK; just add some more milk or water to the mix if it seems dry. if you are doing this by hand, really give it a go. work out some frustration. throw it, pound it, punch it. i promise it likes it. with either method work the dough until it has a wonderful elastic feel. it's a ta-da! moment. i promise you will know. if using the mixer, plop the dough onto a floured surface and knead a couple of times. no punching or pounding for you though. all of this should take about 5-10 minutes depending on kneading method, temperature and how shy the gluten in the flour is being.













grease a bowl with either oil or vegan butter. i like to wash out the bowl (with warm water) i just mixed in to give the bowl some warmth which will give the yeast a little kick start.

place in a warm spot (like your oven on very, very low) covered with a clean tea towel until the dough roughly doubles in size. about an hour or so.













preheat oven to 375 degrees

when you have a beautiful mound of dough give it a good punch and let all the air escape. this is really fun, by the way. turn out onto a floured surface and roll out until it is about 1/4 inch thick. use donut cutter or make-do cutter (see "you will need these" list above) cut the large circles then place them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. then proceed to cut out the smaller holes. attempting to do this in one step will make moving them a real pain and will probably deform the beautiful circles.

again, cover the dough with clean tea towels and set to rise about 45 minutes. i like to put my baking sheets on top of my oven while it pre-heats.

when dough is nice and puffy again start baking away. bake them while you are standing right next to the oven. they should cook for about 8-10 mintues. No longer!!

let them cool for a few seconds them dip the tops in the melted butter, then into the cinnamon/sugar mixture. eat right away. share with friends. make some coffee and eat more.