Baked Pumpkin Buttermilk Doughnuts

"Don't miss the doughnut by looking through the hole."
~ Anonymous

Let's get this out of the way right now. This is a post about toroidal ring doughnuts (Bet you didn't know that's the technical term for the common hole-in-the-middle doughnut, did you? Neither did I.) and not filled doughnuts. And these toroidal ring doughnuts are baked, not fried. So you'll need a doughnut pan to make them.

According to sources (read: the Internet) the pedigree of doughnuts is hotly disputed. Doughnuts were either invented by Dutch settlers in the 19th century - who also gave us cookies and apple pie and, one assumes, the infamous red velvet fudge cake served at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the $250 cookies from Mrs. Fields circa 1980, and perhaps the the similarly priced Neiman Marcus chocolate cookies that your mother's sister's best friend was duped into buying by a pleasantly smiling waitress in 1994 - or by an American sailor by the name of Hanson Gregory in 1847 who, being a know-it-all 16-year old, felt that his mother's cooking was too greasy and never quite done enough in the middle and so took it upon himself to better her olykoeks.

Gregory was of Dutch stock so the Dutch still get a certain fame regardless of which version you choose to believe. 

Interestingly enough, doughnuts first get a mention in culinary literature in 1803 in an English Volume which included doughnuts in an appendix of American recipes. As this was a good 44 years before Hanson claimed to have bettered his mother's under-cooked olykoeks and 28 years before he was even born, one has to wonder if the American sailor was just full of it.

However they came to be, doughnuts were and are a popular treat. And as fall freezes into winter anything I can add pumpkin to is welcome. These doughnuts are wonderfully light and rich and the buttermilk and pumpkin give them a real feel of fall.

Baked Pumpkin Buttermilk Donuts

1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla

Sugar Coating
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 Tbs cinnamon
8 Tbs butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Combine all the dry ingredients except the brown sugar in a medium bowl. Mix well.

In another bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients plus the brown sugar. Whisk together until smooth.

Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet using a spoon. You do not want to over-mix.

Spoon the batter into a greased doughnut pan, filling just shy of the top as the doughnuts will rise quite a bit.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the thick portion of the doughnut comes out clean.

Remove the doughnuts from the pan and let them cool on a cooling rack while you prepare the sugar coating.

Melt the butter completely. Pour the butter into a small, flat-bottomed bowl or dish. In another flat-bottomed bowl, mix together the granulated sugar and cinnamon.

Take a doughnut and dip it face-down into the melted butter. You want to coat the top and sides with butter. Immediately put it in the sugar coating mixture, making certain you get all the butter covered with the sugar.

Put the doughnut back on the cooling rack, face-up, and repeat with the remaining doughnuts.

Best enjoyed warm!

Makes about 10 standard sized doughnuts.