C is for Cinderella's Tea Party

Princesses. Disney. Brothers Grimm. Cartoon or Fairy Tale. Traditional needing rescue or independent and saving the day. It doesn't matter what type of princess she is Bee and Bear love her. It is fair to say that my daughters love anything to do with princesses. Mind you they also love fairies, dinosaurs, barbie, bugs, cute animals, etc. etc. so they are probably no different to most other girls their age.  But they do especially love princesses.  Which is why I decided to surprise them with a Cinderella Tea Party.

Bee dressed as Princess Ariel.

Princess Ariel was invited and joined Princess Bear for the party.  First up we read the Cinderella story and talked about what food was mentioned.  From our version of the story we came up with breakfast (including the cups of tea), corn for the chickens and mice and a pumpkin for the carriage.

In honour of Cinderella and her carriage I made Pumpkin Cinnamon Doughnuts.  They were delicious and a nice change to plain Cinnamon Sugar doughnuts. Pink tea was served as the refreshment of course!

Normally I would get Bear and Bee to help me with these but today there were a surprise.  If you want your child to help they should be able to do steps 2 and 3 of making the doughnut batter and then step 9 to coat the doughnuts in the cinnamon sugar topping.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Doughnuts

Makes 10
Download printable recipe card here.

Ingredients
Doughnuts
1 1/2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Cinnamon Sugar Coating
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions
1. Preheat doughnut machine.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.
3. Whisk in the oil, pumpkin, milk and egg.  Mix until smooth.
4. Spoon into a piping bag.
5. Spray machine lightly with cooking oil spray.
6. Fill the bases of the doughnut rings by piping in half of the batter.
7. Cook for 6 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Meanwhile mix together the caster sugar and cinnamon on a large plate.
9. When doughnuts are cooked transfer to a plate and brush with melted butter. Gently coat with the cinnamon sugar topping.
10.  Repeat steps 5 to 9 with the remaining batter.

If you don't have a doughnut machine, these doughnuts can be baked in the oven.  Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius.  Grease a doughnut pan with melted butter. Pipe in the batter until two-thirds full and baked for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown.  Remove from the oven and add cinnamon sugar topping as per step 9 above.

Have you made any fairy tale inspired food lately?