Apple Cider Pumpkin Doughnuts with Maple Glaze

So, I have a confession: I'm addicted to Pinterest. And since I love to cook, I follow many fellow foodies and constantly see awesome cooking and baking ideas. Recently, many different kinds of homemade doughnuts have filled up my feed and caught my attention (really, are doughnuts the new cake pops?). I couldn't find a recipe that had all the flavors I wanted in a fall doughnut, so I did what I usually end up doing and made up my own recipe inspired by a few of the recipes I found (like this one or this one).

We happen to have delicious apple cider made on a farm from our CSA, and I wanted to make sure to incorporate it into my dough. A lot of the recipes I found for doughnuts seemed to include sweet potatoes, squash, or pumpkin, which sounded amazing so I wanted to include that element in my recipe as well. I also decided to replace most, but not all, of the eggs and oil this recipe would require with applesauce, which usually makes for a nice baking substitute,  is healthier, and would complement the other flavors well. Lastly, I wanted these doughnuts to be baked and not fried, as I try to be pretty health-conscious in my cooking.

I did need to go out and buy doughnut pans, which I was (not so) secretly happy about because I love getting cooking gadgetry at the HomeGoods near our apartment. Any excuse to go there is a good excuse, even though our credit card bill might protest. Normally I try to avoid specialized gadgets that only have one kind of use, but these were cheap and don't take up too much storage space, so I went for it. However, in case you don't have and/or don't want to get doughnut tins, I left the option open to make these as muffins as well, which are also delicious. Actually, this recipe made more batter than you need for a dozen doughnuts, so I ended up making doughnuts and muffins.

These taste as good as they look

Apple Blueberry Muffins

Ari has been encouraging me to add some of my own recipes to this blog, and I've finally gotten around to it now that I'm home-bound due to Hurricane Sandy!

These delicious muffins are healthy and dairy-free. I based this recipe on a another health-conscious mini muffin recipe I found. While it looked great, I didn't want my muffins to have dairy or to be small, and I had no bananas on hand. What resulted was an entirely new recipe that are great to have around the house for breakfast or snack.

I specifically used pastry flour to get an airy texture, and I picked dry over fresh blueberries so as not to over-saturate the muffins with moisture (and a pervasive blue dye!). The original recipe calls for a cup of vanilla yogurt and half a cup of milk. As I was seeking something dairy-free, I thought that the vanilla pudding mix would add the flavor and some of the moisture the yogurt adds, while also adding to the amount of milk to ensure enough liquid in the mixture.

This recipe can be adapted in many ways, especially by swapping out the apples and blueberries for other add-ins, like chocolate chips, nuts, or other fruit.

Enjoy! What are your favorite ways to modify dairy recipes?