Pumpkin. Pie. Doughnuts.

I know - second post in a day? Since when, say what now? I agree, but bear with me for a minute. 

My first love was not, in fact, knitting. Or spinning. It was food. I used to work in commercial kitchens and I love love love food. 

A few weeks ago, I bought my husbeast (who also love love loves food) a new toy for the kitchen. A deep fryer. Since then he seems set on frying ALL THE THINGS and I have not been able to get near it. 'Til tonight. 

I steamed up some pumpkin to make pumpkin and cheese scones (because I am a lover of all things pumpkin and also all things cheese) but there was way too much there, so I got to thinking ebout what else I was going to use it for. And the idea for these babies was born. I have to put a warning here that they are concentrated evil and if you make them (and I suggest you do) please be aware - they are most definitely found in the category of 'sometimes food'. 

PUMPKIN PIE DOUGHNUTS

Ingredients: 

1 cup plain flour

1 cup self raising flour

14g dried yeast

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of all spice

1/2 cup pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

First in one bowl combine your flours, yeast and allspice. In a second separate bowl place your pureed pumpkin, brown sugar and ricotta. Hit this with a stickmixer or pop it in a food processor until it is smooth and creamy and well blended. Make a well in the centre of the flours, and pour your puree mix in there, then work it through until it is well mixed. You should have a ball of slightly sticky dough at this point, so knead this until it is smooth and elastic. 

Place your dough in a clean slightly oiled bowl and set it in a warm place for an hour, or until it is doubled in size. 

Pop your dough onto the bench top and separate it, with a knife into manageable sized chunks. Now you need to make your wee donuts. I made mine bite sized. 

To do this I separated the dough into quarters then rolled each quarter out into a sausage shape. Then I cut slices off, and poked a hole in each one with my little finger, stretching out a touch. But you could make them any size you want. 

Next you want to fry them! If you don;t have a deep fryer, you could obviously just use some oil in saucepan on the stove. Fry them at a low temperature for about 2-3 minutes or until golden brown, flipping them over midway through so that both sides are even. 

Drain them for a minute or so, then toss them through a mix of cinnamon sugar with the ratio weighted towards sugar. 

DON'T yank them straight out of the sugar and into your mouth as I did because you WILL wind up with third degree burns of the tongue and you will sound like someone cut out your tongue for at least ten minutes afterwards.

Once they are cool enough to eat - do it! Delicious bite sized chunks of slightly chewy pumpkin pie doughnut. 

YUM!

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