Pumpkin Cake Doughnuts???

I know. I know.  This is not a picture of the doughnut.  That is because this recipe (to me) was an EPIC FAIL as a doughnut.  But it worked out pretty well as a muffin.  So that is what I'm going to recommend you use this doughnut recipe for.

Pumpkin Cake Doughnuts 
(or muffins)

Ingredients:
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. canned pumpkin
1 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 3/4 c. + 2 T flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease two standard doughnut pans.  (I searched all over for mine and finally found some at Michaels.)  Beat together oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spice, salt, and baking powder until smooth.  Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full.  Bake the doughnuts for 15-18 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes.  Remove the doughnuts and transfer to a rack to cool.  While the doughnuts are still warm (but no longer fragile) gently shake them in a bag with cinnamon-sugar.

In my test kitchen:

I have read countless recipes/reviews about making homemade cake doughnuts that you fry in oil.  The general consensus is that the batter is very thin so it's almost impossible to cut the dough into a doughnut shape.  So then I came across these baked doughnuts.  I thought, "Why not try to bake them first and then fry them afterward for a few seconds to get that yummy crunchy outside that I love so much."  Ummmmmm, didn't really work so well.  It didnt' taste horrible but it didn't taste the way I wanted it to.  I also tried the doughnut exactly as the recipe stated and baked, then coated them in sugar.  They were so-so. 

The site where I pulled this recipe actually suggested that you could make these into  muffins.  So when my first few doughnuts didn't taste amazing, I just added about 1/2 chopped chocolate chips to the batter and put it in a greased muffin tin. (I floured the chocolate chips first to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins.)  Then I added some mini-chocolate chips to the top of the muffins just before baking.

If you make muffins, they will need to cook for 23-25 minutes.

~Happy Cooking!