Looking for the perfect addition to your pumpkin spice latte on a crisp fall morning? Well look no further! These fall-inspired baked donuts are the ideal treat for welcoming those sweater-weather mornings. You can't beat a pumpkin spice donut topped with maple cinnamon glaze and sprinkled with brown sugar! Pair with your favorite coffee, hot chocolate, or apple cider while you're hanging multicolored wreaths and debating if it's too soon to throw up your Halloween decorations and you've got yourself the perfect fall breakfast!
Okay, enough fantasizing, let's bake!
Note: For this recipe, I use a pumpkin spice extract rather than actual pumpkin. I know not everyone has this in their pantry, so I've included a quick recipe for pumpkin pie spice you can use instead.
Also, I know, I know, real pumpkin should be the way to go. I'll do it "the right way" another time. These are quick and tasty and that's all I want some mornings!
Preheat your oven to 325 and lightly grease your donut tray.
Sift the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. In another mixing bowl, combine the milk, eggs, extracts, and melted butter. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined.
Note: Like I mentioned earlier, you can substitute the pumpkin spice extract for 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice which can be found in the spice section of your grocery store or quickly thrown together using the measurements below.
Pumpkin Pie Spice:
3 Tbs ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
Next, fill a gallon-sized bag with your batter and use it as a pastry bag to easily fill your donut tray. (Spooning it in works fine, it's just messier.) Fill each cup about 3/4 full.
Bake for 8-10 minutes. When they're done, the donuts will "bounce back" if you touch them. Remove the tray from oven and let the donuts cool for a couple minutes (still in the tray). Then transfer them to a cooling rack and let them cool for five minutes.
I like to glaze my donuts while they're still slightly warm. It helps the glaze melt and evenly coat the donut. Plus, it means you get to enjoy warm, fresh out of the oven donuts!
To make the glaze, whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl until they are completely combined. Glazing the donuts is messy so I put one of my large, plastic cutting boards under my cooling rack so the glaze can drip somewhere other than my counter.
Dip one side of each donut in the glaze bowl and then set it back on the cooling rack. Once you've dipped each donut and the glaze on the first has had a second to set, start with the first and dip the other side of each donut. Repeat this to get a thorough glaze or stop here if you aren't big on frosting.
Choose the prettiest side to be the top of your donut and sprinkle each with brown sugar as a finishing touch. (You could choose to sprinkle them with cinnamon or some of that pumpkin pie spice if that's what you used too!) Leave the donuts for a couple more minutes to allow the glaze to set.
Now you can enjoy your perfect fall donuts on a perfect fall morning!