Chocolate Pumpkin Donuts

I am really late to the pumpkin party this year, but I have an excellent reason: my grocery store changed their whole layout. For a while we couldn’t find anything anymore, which meant I couldn’t locate the prodigious pumpkin puree.
It’s a real problem, don’t laugh.
At this point you might say: “But couldn’t you have gotten a fresh pumpkin and used homemade puree?” Would you believe me if I told you that I couldn’t find whole pumpkins either? At first I thought they had ran out, but eventually I had to admit that I probably wasn’t looking at the right place. Long story short, I ended up finding the pumpkin puree, but we still can’t find the tahini. 

Even though pumpkin season is coming to a close, I still wanted to create one festive recipe using that beautiful squash. I came up with these fluffy chocolate pumpkin donuts. They don’t have any icing or decorations, because I wanted to be able to dunk them in a cup of tea or coffee. They’re great for breakfast, dessert, or with your afternoon decaf. I used cocoa instead of melted chocolate or chocolate chunks, so these donuts are juuuust sweet enough, with a festive taste of pumpkin pie spices. If you’d like to check out my pumpkin recipes from previous years (which include divine pumpkin mapple muffins and pumpkin spice shortbread cookies), you can find them here. 

Extra tips:

• If you don’t have pumpkin pie spices, you can make your own blend by combining ¼ cup of cinnamon, 2 tbs of ginger, 4 tsp of nutmeg, 2 tsp of allspice and 2 tsp of cloves. Store in an airtight container and sprinkle on literally everything between the months of September and November.
• Between each batch, wipe down your donut pan to remove crumbs, then grease again. This will prevent the donuts from sticking or from being covered in residu left over from the previous batch.
• When tossing the cocoa with the flour mixture, use the back of a spoon to break up any cacao lumps. You can also sift the cacao before adding it to the flour.
• To fill the donut pan, I use a small spoon to drop dollops of batter all around the center cavity of each donut. I then use the spoon to smooth everything out evenly around the cavity.
• If you don’t have a cooling rack, you can use a dish towel to lay the donuts on. Just make sure to flip them over a couple of times while they cool.

​These donuts are super simple to make and the best part is that you don’t have to wait until they’re completely cold to enjoy them, since you don’t need to glaze them. My boyfriend and I ate the entire batch in just a few days; they’re that good. I hope that you enjoy this recipe and if you try it, please tag me (@teaandmascara) or use the hashtag #teaandmascara so I can see your beautiful recreations.

​Happy November!

Much love,