The Mystery of the Missing Donuts: Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

When September rolls around here in Utah sometimes it doesn’t feel like the ushering in of Autumn. We’ve been known to have temperatures well into the 90’s, or early freezes and snow flurries depending on the year. Sometimes all you have is the word, September to remind you that the seasons are changing. But a pumpkin spiced donut helps too.

We first whipped up a batch of these on September 1st, just to make sure we kicked off fall right. They were worth waking up extra early on a Tuesday morning to make sure my first grader had cinnamon sugar in the corners of her mouth as she skipped off to school. I guess mandatory masks have their plus sides.

We only waited a few days for another batch, a breezy Saturday morning where you could almost smell the leaves changing colors. We savored the first batch, eating all six before they cooled, and I left the remaining on the kitchen counter. We had a few to take to grandmas and a few for later. I knew the donuts wouldn’t make it through the day but I was surprised after loading the girls up the car to find the plate completely empty. No donuts for later, and none to share at grandmas house.

I began a frantic search for the eight missing donuts, after interrogating each child and deciding the two-year-old was the likeliest culprit. We searched in cabinets, toy baskets, garbage bins, anywhere we thought those stubby two-year-old arms could easily reach. After a half-hour of searching not a single donut turned up. We couldn’t even find cinnamon sugar evidence anywhere. With no real evidence, we came to the conclusion that she fed them one by one to Rico, our Great Pyrenees. In fact, the lack of evidence is what led us to that conclusion, it was all licked up, every last crumb.

Trying to find the humor while living my own “who stole the cookies from the cookie jar” moment would’ve been easier if these pumpkin spice donuts weren’t so perfectly delicious. Thankfully, enough time has passed now, and enough batches of donuts have been eaten in the meantime, that we can laugh about it now. And whenever I have a half dozen of these lovelies baking in the oven without fail Rico appears at the door, looking extra drooly and expectant. I can’t blame him.

**You will need a donut pan! Don’t have one? I’d suggest you invest! I bought mine at King Arthur Flour. Don’t want to buy one? I saw a great tutorial on how to make your own here