Nuts for doughnuts!

I awoke Sunday morning determined to complete at least 1 of my Daring Kitchen challenges.  Given the fatty nature of deep fried doughnuts and the fact that I'd likely end up eating all of them myself, I opted to bake my doughnuts.  The result?  Delicious pumpkin doughnuts that tasted like sweet pumpkin bread!  They may not look as nice as other Daring Bakers' glazed confectionery delights...but I was able to eat half a batch in one sitting with relatively no guilt. 

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.

The batter was gooey but easy enough to work with once I decided to forgo the mixer and opted instead for solid arm wrestling with the dough.

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I obtained a circular shape by using a zip lock bag as my piping bag, cutting the corner off of the bag, and squeezing out the dough from the tip of the bag.  It worked marvelously but was gooey on the last doughnut and difficult to get the last bit of dough out.  As you can see, I simply make squiggly messes for the last bit of dough.

After 10 minutes in the oven, I enjoyed delicious baked (and relatively healthy) pumpkin doughnuts with my morning coffee.  A wonderful Sunday morning, it was indeed!