One of the pieces of advice you get if you ever put your house on the market is to bake cookies before a showing so that your home feels more inviting.
When we had a house on the market several years ago, our real estate agent also banned us from cooking anything too pungent—like curry or fish—lest we end up with the opposite problem.
I was on board with the fish rule, but if it were up to me, I think the curry smell would attract me more than repel me from a house. To each his own, I guess.
I thought about that advice this week after making this week’s recipe for pumpkin spice donuts. Our whole house immediately just smelled like fall—comforting and inviting.
If you don’t tend to be a baker, this is the recipe for you. All you need is a donut pan and two ingredients, and you can have some amazing donuts in no time.
I found this recipe on the blog “The Suburban Soapbox.” You can find the original post at https://thesuburbansoapbox.com/two-ingredient-baked-pumpkin-spice-donuts/. I didn’t make any changes to the recipe, since it’s only two ingredients, but I did leave off the powdered sugar glaze the original post suggested. These were moist, flavorful and plenty sweet without it.
Pumpkin Spice Cake Donuts
Ingredients
- 15.25- ounce spice cake mix
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and prepare a donut pan by lightly spraying the wells with cooking spray.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the cake mix and pumpkin puree until the mixture is smooth (it will be thick).
- Spoon your filling into the wells (or use a piping bag, as the original recipe author suggests, if you want your donuts to look more uniform and not have rough edges). I filled my wells to the tops.
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the donuts comes out clean.
- Let the donuts cool and then remove them from the pan, running a knife around the edges of each, if necessary, to loosen them. Store the finished donuts in an airtight container.
These were so, so easy and made a moist, delicious donut, too. The only “hard” part was that since I only have a six-well donut pan, I had to go in batches to get my donuts done. I managed to get a dozen out of this recipe.
That same day, I decided to make some chili in my crockpot, and I ate a donut along with my bowl that evening. It wasn’t quite the same as a cinnamon roll, but it was a great companion. They were also phenomenal along with a cup of coffee for breakfast.
I hope I don’t have to move from our current house any time soon (like never, ever, ever), but if I do have to put a house on the market again, I’m going to remember this recipe as a great air freshener. It’s quick, easy and smells and tastes fantastic.
Plus, if you don’t end up with any offers on your house, at least you have donuts to drown your sorrows.
This piece first appeared in print on Oct. 28, 2021.
Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.
