How To Turn Vegetables Into Dessert: The Veggie Donut (Picarones)
Donuts. Made of vegetables. Veggie donuts. Yes, Virginia, this is very real–and very doable, assuming you have the time and inclination to make and play with dough. Your child surely does–why not make an afternoon of it by making the recipe together?
The origin of this creation is also very real: they’re known in Peru and Chile as picarones. There, sweet potato and squash form the dough (see Adapt section); the donuts are immensely sweet due to the molasses-y dipping sauce poured over them. To speed the process up and maintain your sanity, we have simplified the preparation process to get you to goodness with the least amount of ingredients (i.e., ready-to-go pumpkin puree) and stress possible; we’ve also eliminated refined sugar from the dough and dipping sauce. Given how soft, velvety, and naturally sweet they already are, you’ll hardly notice.
- 1 tsp Instant Yeast (i.e., one small package)
- 1 can Pumpkin
- Cinnamon
- 1.5 cups All-Purpose Flour
- Orange
- In a large bowl, add the pumpkin puree, egg, several shakes of cinnamon, a generous pinch of salt, and the instant yeast; zest the skin of the orange all over the contents of the bowl. Using a hand mixer, blend until all ingredients are integrated.
- Keep your hand mixer on and add flour one half cup at a time; blend until fully integrated before adding more flour. Once all flour has been added, an elastic dough should have formed; if it is sticky and thin, add another half cup of flour and mix again until the dough is smooth and pliable.
- Flour a flat and dry surface or bowl. Move the dough to this surface or bowl and cover the dough with a dry hand towel; allow to proof for two hours. (Note: dough will rise during this time.)
- Place parchment paper on a tray or baking pan and line up next to your dough.
- Press down on dough to remove air pockets, then rip off a small chunk of the dough. Pinch and roll the dough until it forms a long tube-like shape, then pull and press each end together to form a circle with a hole in the center. Place the dough ring on parchment paper; repeat the process for your remaining dough.
- Cool in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to allow donuts to cohere.
- Heat a small pool of oil to Medium in a deep pot or skillet. (Woks are great for this)
- Carefully drop 3-4 dough rings at a time into the hot oil, then cook until the bottom has a deep orange-brown color, roughly 1 minute; flip over and cook until the other side has the same burnished color as the other, roughly one minute.
Assuming you made your donuts small enough, just drizzle honey all around the top and serve; if donuts are rather big, cut into smaller pieces. (If you have more dough than you need, form it into donut shapes and freeze until ready to use.)
You can make this with fresh vegetables by peeling and slicing up one small sweet potato and half of small butternut squash, then steaming or boiling the pieces until soft; blend until a smooth puree–add a bit of water if stodgy rather than creamy–is formed, then proceed with step #1 of Prep.