A Return to the Daring Bakers- Doughnuts

I have an unhealthy obsession with doughnuts. I love them, well and truly. Although I avoid most fried foods as I don't think they're worth the calories, doughnuts will get me every time. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'll eat any doughnut that crosses my path. As a rule, I prefer cake style over yeast, especially if those yeast doughnuts come from Krispy Kreme. A certain college roommate of mine loved Krispy Kremes, particularly the way they 'melted in your mouth'. Her words, not mine; I like to masticate my baked goods, thank you.

The only other time I attempted doughnuts was in my 10th grade foods class in high school. I remember the special cookie cutter we had (with center hole removal device) and covertly snacking from a brown bag of doughnuts for the rest of the day. Needless to say, I was pleased with the first challenge to bring me back in to the DB fold.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

I chose the Pumpkin Doughnut recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine, by way of Epicurious, as it was a cake-style doughnut, and I had half a can of pumpkin in the fridge from another recipe. I didn't get creative with this one, besides cutting the recipe in half (as there was absolutely no reason for me to have 24 freshly fried tempting treats in my kitchen), so you can follow the link to get to the recipe. This time around, I didn't have a special device for cutting out the center hole so I improvised and used a rolled up piece of paper. Not the best, but it worked, especially once I started dipping it in flour between cuts. The only word of advice I have on the recipe-- make just half the amount of spice sugar to roll the doughnuts in. I made the amount the recipe called for and had tons left over.