Pumpkin Dough Donuts With Apple Pie Filling

Hello,

Today I brought a classic fried doughnut recipe, with a few twists. I enriched the dough with pumpkin puree and added pumpkin pie spices, resulting in a vivid color and moist yet fluffy, tasty doughnut, and I also made an apple pie filling flavored with pumpkin spice latte syrup, but I swapped one of the apples to a quince.

These doughnuts look more difficult to make than they actually are. The trickiest part was to fill them, I used a piping bag for this purpose.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 640 g cake flour (or all-purpose flour)
• 9 g active dry yeast
• 80 g sugar
• 180 ml lukewarm milk
• 1 egg
• 3 egg yolks
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• zest of 1 lemon
• 260 g pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/3 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/3 teaspoon ground cloves
• 80 g unsalted butter
• 7 g salt

Canola (or other neutral flavored oil) for frying

flour for dusting work surface

For dusting doughnuts:

• 100 g sugar
• 2 heaped teaspoons cinnamon

For the apple pie filling:

• 3 apples
• 1 quince (or one more apple)
• 50 g butter
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons pumpkin spice latte syrup *
• 10 g cornstarch
• 70 g apple cider

1 tablespoon lemon juice to help stop quince from browning

*How to make pumpkin spice latte syrup is contained in one of my former Instructables, check here, step 5. 

Utensils:

• digital scale
• kitchen towel
• saucepan
• baking tray
• parchment paper
• clingfilm
• bowls
• vegetable peeler
• chopping board
• large piping bag
• sealing clip
• stand mixer with dough hook attachment
• mixing bowl
• 6-8 cm diameter round cookie cutter
• rolling pin
• scissors
• wooden spoon
• tong
• slotted spoon 

Dump the flour into the mixing bowl of the stand mixer and make a well in the center.

Pour in 100 ml milk, add 1 tablespoon sugar and the dry yeast.

Cover the top with some flour, cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and wait for about 5-10 minutes.

Soon you’ll see cracks appearing on the surface, that means that the yeast is alive and ready to do its job to raise the dough. 

For the time being, place the salt and the butter aside and add the rest of the ingredients into the mixing bowl of the stand mixer equipped with the dough hook attachment and mix until the dough comes together (3-4 minutes).

At this point, add salt and the butter bit by bit (adding the next piece of butter after the former was fully incorporated) while kneading the dough constantly.

The dough should be kneaded for about 10-15 minutes altogether until it’s elastic and shiny.

This recipe, just like in case of most yeast-risen doughs, requires the dough to rise twice, and this is the time for the first.

Dump the dough to the work surface, form it into a ball and place it back into the lightly floured/oil mixing bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel, leave it on the countertop and wait.

Truly dramatic change can be expected, the dough will at lest double, but more likely to triple in volume in the next 1-2 hours (depending on environmental circumstances).

While the dough is rising, let’s prepare the filling. Quince is much harder than apple and it takes more time to cook, therefore it should be cooked for 5 minutes before adding the apples. I definitely suggest to try the recipe using quince as its tartness nicely balances the sweet flavor of the dough, but you may also omit it and add another apple instead.

Before getting on with quince preparation, place a small bowl with water and a squeeze of lemon juice by the chopping board as quince starts to oxidate in no time after cutting.

Peel, core and cut quince into small cubes and place the cubes into the lemony water as soon as possible.

Peel, core and cut apples into small cubes.

Bear in mind that the filling is supposed to go into the doughnuts, so when I say small, I mean unusually small for an apple pie filling, about 1 cm cubes. 

In a medium sized saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and cook it until it is light golden color. Add in the quince cubes and cook for 5 minutes, then add the apples, stir and add the pumpkin spice latte syrup. Cook, stirring once in a while until apples are softish, but still in one piece (al dente, if I may borrow the term from pasta cooking). Sift in starch, cook for one more minute. Remove from the heat and let cool. 

 When the dough at least doubled in volume, dump it onto a generously floured work surface and stretch it to about 1.5 cm thickness. Make sure that it does not stick, check regularly.

Cut the dough with a round cookie cutter (about 6-8 cm in diameter to give enough room for the filling).

Place the round cuts onto a piece of parchment (not too close to each other as they will grow and we want enough space between them to cut the parchment and to lower them into the hot oil by holding it) and loosely cover with clingfilm. Let them rest for about 30-40 minutes until they have visibly risen.

As for the dough in between the circles: fry them as they are, without kneading and rolling them again.

Heat about 3 cm canola / sunflower oil in a thick bottomed pan till it reaches about 170° Celsius (you may use a digital thermometer to measure). Temperature is very important, as if the oil is too hot, the outside of the doughnuts gets burnt while the inside does not cook through. The height of the oil should be enough for the doughnuts to float without touching the bottom of the pan.

Cut the parchment on which doughnuts are sitting so that each will be on its individual piece. The idea behind placing the doughnuts individually on parchment squares is that this way it will be easier to transfer them into the frying pan without ruining the airy texture. 

Lift the doughnuts by holding the parchment and place them gently (together with the parchment) into the hot oil. Soon the parchments will be separated from each piece of dough, they should be removed with a tong.

The number of doughnuts that can be fried at a time depends on the size of the pan. Do not overcrowd them!

 Fry one side for about 40-50 seconds then turn (use a spider or a slotted spoon) and fry the other half as well. Both sides should be golden brown.

 Place fried doughnuts on a fat absorbent paper. 

Mix sugar with cinnamon and while the doughnuts are still warm, coat them with the mixture.

Transfer the filling into a large piping bag, close the end with a sealing clip. Cut the top of the bag, so that you have a 1 cm opening in the front, approximately. Make a hole on the side of the doughnut by poking in the end of a spoon, then make space for the filling by moving it around. Be careful though not to push it too far and open up another hole.

Then place the tip of the piping bag into the hole and stuff the doughnut with a generous amount of filling. 

Now all there is left is to enjoy this autumn-flavored treat!