Apple & Pumpkin Snowball Doughnuts

This past weekend I had a Christmas party for a small group of friends, and I decided to make some doughnut balls covered in powdered sugar, so that they would look like - duh dun duh duh  - snowballs! I'd never made doughnuts before, but I did have some experience deep frying pastry dough for desserts with some Greek recipes, so the whole deep-frying venture wasn't as intimidating. I went ahead and gave this a try, and decided to make half of the doughnuts with some apple sauce and the other half with some pureed pumpkin I had laying around. They were absolutely fantastic, REALLY rich and cake-y on the inside, with a nice coating of sweet powdered sugar on the outside. Having them right from the fryer was good too, they were so warm and fluffy! I hope you guys like them as much as me and my friends did, these doughnuts are pretty awesome.

Ingredients:



1 Egg

2 Cups Flour

2 Cups Powdered Sugar

1/2 Cup Sugar

1/2 Cup While Milk

1/4 Cup Applesauce

1/4 Cup Pureed Pumpkin (canned pumpkin)

2 Tablespoons Butter

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/4 Teaspoon Nutmeg

1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves

Several cups of frying oil (I used canola oil)



Cream together the butter and sugar in a medium sized bowl. Set it aside. In a small mix together all of the dry ingredients, except the powdered sugar. Set it aside. Mix the milk and egg into the butter mixture until well blended. Add the dry ingredients, and mix until a dough-like substance has formed. Divide the dough in half and place it in two separate medium to small sized bowls. Add the pumpkin to one bowl and the applesauce to the other bowl and mix each of them until they have the same consistency throughout.

Heat the oil in a medium sized deep fryer until it reaches 375 degrees fahrenheit. Drop the applesauce mixture by tablespoon fulls into the fryer and then do the same with the pumpkin mixture until there is about one or two inches between the doughnuts floating in the fryer. Fry them until they're golden brown, about two to three minutes on each side. Remove them with a slotted spoon and place them on a plate lined with paper towels. Allow them to cool for 20 minutes, then blot them with another paper towel to remove the excess oil. Pour the powdered sugar into a large shallow bowl and roll the doughnuts in it until they are well covered. Place them on a plate, sprinkle a little more powdered sugar over the top, and serve immediately.