Ahhhhh!!!! It’s finally Fall! On Living Dayton today (12:00-1:00 p.m. for you Dayton locals), I’ll be sharing one of my most favorite Fall recipes: Pumpkin Cake Donuts!

I love to bake–especially with my kids. This recipe is simple enough for even young children to help you out. Statistics show that when you get kids excited to be in the kitchen, the more open they are to trying new foods and flavors.

Not only are these donuts baked and not fried, you can also reduce the amount of sugar in them without changing the outcome. After all, baking is a science! Generally, you can reduce the amount of sugar by 25% without changing taste or texture. If you aren’t sure of how much sugar to take out or want to swap white sugar with something else, be sure to contact the free baker’s hotline at King Arthur Flour!

Happy Baking!

Pumpkin Cake Donuts (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 to 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 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 King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
*See “tips,” below, for a lower-sugar option.

3 tablespoons cinnamon-sugar for coating

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two standard doughnut pans. If you don’t have doughnut pans, you can bake these in a standard muffin tin; they just won’t be doughnuts.
Beat together the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

Add the flour, stirring just until smooth.

Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full; use a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well. If you’re making muffins, fill each well about 3/4 full; the recipe makes about 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 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 the cinnamon-sugar. If you’ve made muffins, sprinkle their tops heavily with cinnamon-sugar.

Cool completely, and store (not wrapped tight) at room temperature for several days.

TIPS:

1. We’ve baked these doughnuts cutting the sugar back to just 1 cup; and while they were slightly less tender, we found them just as delicious.

2. Don’t wrap leftover doughnuts tightly in plastic; they’ll become soggy. If you’re not going to consume all of the doughnuts at one sitting, add the final coating of cinnamon-sugar only to those you’ll eat; store the rest, without their sugar, on a plate covered with a cake cover; or in a plastic bag that’s not fastened shut. Add cinnamon-sugar coating just before serving.

3. King Arthur Flour’s Gluten-Free Measure for Measure Flour makes it easy to make many of your favorite traditional recipes (like this one) gluten-free. Simply substitute Measure for Measure flour 1:1 for the flour called for in your recipe; no additional ingredients needed.