Who’s ready for some Pumpkin Chai Donuts?
A moist, soft, fluffy donut with the wonderful flavors of pumpkin and chai spice. Pumpkin Chai Donuts are the most perfect Fall treat!
It’s that time again, once again for the Secret Recipe Club reveal.
After a crazy weekend with too many commitments, it was nice to have something so nice to look forward to baking.
Truth is, I made these the day I first got my assignment for this month, but then decided that yesterday, it would be wonderful to make them again.
They are just that good.
And this time I made them into actual donuts. Which I didn’t think would make them better, but they were.
If you love chai as much as we do, try out our Chai Spice Coconut Ice Cream or our Chai Latte Yogurt Tea Cake. Or try this Pumpkin Chai Bubble Bread.
In the end, these donuts won out because of my passion for all three. Pumpkin, Oh yeah, Chai? Yep!
Donuts… I love donuts!
So I made Pumpkin Chai Donuts. But you can also make them into muffins if you’d like. We did the first time.
I originally made them exactly the way she made them, into little mini muffin gems – they were amazing, so tender and moist and delicious.
But I wanted to make them again.
This time, I did a little of both, a few mini muffins gems and a few donuts. You can do it whichever way you wish.
The only change I really made to the whole recipe, was the cooking time and temperature.
I really wanted a moist donut with the wonderful pumpkin and chai flavor to be the focus. I think I achieved that.
Pumpkin Chai Donuts Recipe
Pumpkin Chai Donuts
Ingredients
For the batter:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoons ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoons ground allspice
- ⅓ cup milk
- 1 ¼ cup pure pumpkin puree
- 10 Tablespoons unsalted butter room temp
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
For the Sugar coating:
- 6 teaspoons chai spice see recipe below
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- melted butter
Sweet as Sugar Cookies’ Chai Spice Blend
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 4 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons cardamom
- 2 teaspoons cloves or allspice
- ½ teaspoons white pepper
Instructions
To Make the Chai Spice:
- Combine all the spices and mix well. The results will be more than you need, but you can use it for all sorts of things. Store in a spice jar or mason jar (I tripled it and put it in a small mason jar)
For the donuts:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease your donut pans, or if you are making mini donut muffins, grease your mini muffin pans.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the first six dry ingredients.
- In another bowl, combine the milk and the pumpkin puree.
- In another bowl, beat the butter with the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, individually scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add the dry flour ingredients a little at a time, alternating between the pumpkin mixture until well combined. Batter will be thick.
- I used a mini ice cream scoop to fill the mini muffin tins.
- For the full size donuts, I put the batter into a baggie and cut off the tip to use as a piping bag. I piped the batter into the donut pan.
- Bake for 13-16 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
For the Chai Sugar Mixture:
- Melt about a half cup of butter or so.
- In a bowl, whisk together the sugar with the chai spice you made.
- Allow the donuts or muffins to cool for about 10-15 minutes.
- Remove them from the pan, and dip them into the melted butter, and the toss in the sugar-spice mixture, until coated.
- You can start eating them immediately, but best to give them about 10 minutes to cool down a little more.
So glad that you tried these donut muffins. They’re one of my faves and I’m as crazy about pumpkin and chai flavors as you are. I think I better put donut pan on my Christmas list so I can start making your donut version of them.
I’m making these- delish!!
Now these are some serious doughnuts… I wonder how they would work gluten-free – may have to try soon!
I love chai this time of year, and even better paired with pumpkin! Great choice for this month!
Wow, you went above and beyond, but it sounds like it was well worth it!
You knocked it out of the park for SRC with these lovely donuts.
Nicole, these donuts are fabulous! You hit it out of the park with the flavour combo – I love that you paired pumpkin with chai. A donut pan is on my holiday wish list this year. I’d better start dropping hints to the Husband!
These look delicious! Great autumn pick!
Do you think you can make the dough ahead of time and freeze it?
I can’t give a straight answer on that Jessica. I’m so sorry. I haven’t done it so I am not sure how the results will turn out. I know with bread baking, you don’t typically want to freeze the dough. This recipe is a bit different than a traditional bread recipe, but it still makes me wonder how the thawed dough would turn out. If you do decide to try that out, please let us know your results. Sorry I couldn’t give you a more concrete answer.