Every so often during our childhood, usually on Saturday mornings when we didn’t have soccer or basketball games, our parents would treat my brother and me to a special donut breakfast. We’d walk to the little mom-and-pop shop about a mile away from our house, bright and early before the rest of the neighborhood woke up, to pick out our treats.
As soon as we walked through the door, we ran over to the long glass display case filled with hundreds of pastries. The “kid-sized” donuts sat on the top shelf on the far right, closest to the entrance, a few rows above the bite-sized donut holes.
After careful consideration of each donut’s sprinkles — chocolate, rainbow, or festively themed (red, white, and blue stars in July, green Christmas trees in December, that sort of thing!) — we’d point to the exact donuts we wanted… Which generally were the ones with the most sprinkles! Always incredibly sweet, the owner would grab a pair of tongs and hover them over the pastries we pointed to, just to make sure we received the exact sprinkle-topped donuts we asked for.
As little kids, that was a huge deal… Not all of the donuts were evenly covered in those sprinkles!
On extra special occasions, our parents let us eat our treats in the shop, rather than carrying them home in a white paper bag. The owner put each of our donuts on a small plate and handed us little round glass bottles of apple juice, and we walked over to one of the booths with bright red vinyl-covered seats to happily enjoy every last crumb of our donuts.
Back then, we were picky eaters and gravitated towards the plain flavors of vanilla, chocolate, or a combination of the two. Vanilla with vanilla glaze, chocolate with chocolate glaze, vanilla with chocolate glaze… We didn’t really mind as long as the donuts had lots of sprinkles and we weren’t required to share a bite with our parents!
During one of my last few trips back home, my parents and I reminisced about that cute little donut shop and our favorite donut flavors. Although I became much more adventurous as I grew up, I still love cake-style donuts the most, like the ones we purchased from that store.
And with fall finally starting to arrive here in California, those memories inspired me to bake these Healthy Pumpkin Donuts with Vanilla Bean Glaze when I returned home! They’re so soft and moist with lots of cozy pumpkin and warm spice flavors, and I topped them with a deliciously sweet vanilla glaze as a nod to some of my favorite childhood donuts.
Yet unlike those ones from my past… These are baked, not fried! And with how comforting and rich they taste, you’d never believe they’re 36 calories!
Continue reading & see the rest! ›› Healthy Pumpkin Donuts + A Giveaway!
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