October 3, 2021 - 1:55am
Pumpkin Yeast Donuts - Denser, less airy?
Good morning, I make A LOT of donuts! I have my yeast donuts down to a science and they are all big and airy and have a gorgeous ring of truth.
However, as I created and tested my pumpkin yeast donut recipe, and really thought it would be a winner, only to find the donuts never proofed the way I wanted them to. When compared side by side to my regular yeast donuts, they were much smaller, tighter, and no ring of truth.
My recipe adds 15% pumpkin puree, 1.5% pumpkin spice and that's about it to the mix. Has anyone had this issue and found a way to overcome it?
My thought is the pumpkin puree is messing with the the gluten development so the donuts never probably proof and allowed to expand in the fryer?
Any thoughts?
Best,
R
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I don't have any experience making donuts at home, but I have a couple thoughts. The spice mix likely contains cinnamon, which can definitely interfere with dough raising (as can other spices) and the pumpkin puree is usually pretty dense with a high moisture content. Maybe if you switched to putting the spice mix in the icing and made some other adjustments for the amount of moisture the pumpkin is bringing to the party, it could help with the rise...? Just stabs in the dark here from a novice donut maker ;-). Best of luck!
I don't make doughnuts but I have made gnocchi using squash. There is so much moisture in squashes that it just absorbs and absorbs flour to no end if you are not careful.
Would you be willing to share your donut recipe? I'm intrigued!
about keeping the yeast, reducing the salt in the recipe and adding some baking powder? So you get the final kick when the donuts bake out?