Cardamom Spiced Donuts

Guess what? This post comes to you live from the East Coast. Yepp, I'm home in New Jersey and I am SO excited. I've already taken a 4 hour nap (I took my first red eye flight), there's pepparkakor dough resting in the fridge, lussekatter dough rising on the stove, and I have already taken an absurd amount of pictures and snapchats of my dog.

These donuts are unfortunately not coming to you live. I made them last week for book club because, well, who doesn't like donuts and these have been on my mind for quite some time. I originally wanted to make a chai spiced donut with some sort of glaze (I will make those too sometime), but when I sat down to make these, I just wanted the simple flavor of cardamom. Not that cardamom is a simple flavor, but you know what I mean. I didn't want to overload on spices and fancy things. I wanted the cardamom to be the star here.

Cardamom reminds me of home. We use cardamom a lot in Swedish baking, and now that it's the holiday season, I crave cardamom. There's something comforting about the smell of it and it instantly brings a smile to my face. There's a new holiday cocktail at work that uses cardamom and when we got to try a sip, I was way too excited over it.

These donuts are perfectly spiced and the sugar coating adds a nice little extra crunch and spice. The ladies at book club helped me eat most of these (thanks guys!) and I brought the last couple to work where they were demolished in about .04 seconds.

Make these to go with a special Christmas morning breakfast or even this weekend. I'm sure your family, or at least your own stomach, will appreciate them.

(P.S. Does anyone have advice for taking pictures at night? Now that it's getting dark out so early, I lose the natural light too quickly and I don't like how night time pictures turn out, like these ones. Thanks!)

Cardamom Spiced Donuts

makes about 12-16 donuts

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk

Cardamom Cinnamon Sugar Coating

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray donut pan with non stick spray and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, vegetable oil, brown sugar and granulated sugar together until smooth. Add in the eggs, beating until combined and smooth. With a mixing spoon, stir in baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, salt and vanilla.

Alternate adding in the flour and the milk, starting and ending with the flour. Stir gently until everything is combined.

Pour batter into a large ziplock bag and cut the corner. Pipe the batter into pan, so each well is just shy of being filled. Bake donuts for 7-10 minutes, or until the doughnut springs back to your touch. Let cool in donut pan for 3-5 minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

While the donuts cool, melt the 4 tablespoons of butter. In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, cardamom and cinnamon. Using a pastry brush, brush the whole donut with melted butter and then coat thoroughly with the sugar mixture. Repeat with remaining donuts.

[source: adapted from King Arthur Flour]