Apple Cider Doughnuts Recipe

Every Monday night we have Family Night and everyone gets to take turns deciding what the treat will be that evening.  I shutter at saying that more often than I care to admit, the boys pick doughnuts.  Store bought, day old doughnuts.  I don’t eat doughnuts.  They are just one of those things I can live without.  Don’t take away "my” cookies, or ice cream, or brownies, or….well, you get the point.  But doughnuts.  Don’t need them.  So whenever the boys pick doughnuts, I don’t eat one.  (I certainly don’t NEED doughnuts!)

So this past Monday when one of the boys decided they wanted doughnuts, I tried with all my might to get them to change their mind.  Nope.  Doughnuts.  So usually Kevin or I will try sometime that day to go to a store and grab some of their lovely made-that-morning doughnuts.  But I decided instead, we’d MAKE doughnuts.  I’d seen quite a few blogs that were featuring Apple Cider Doughnuts and thought they looked and sounded really good (for fried food and doughnuts I don’t need.)  We also don’t fry food very often here!  I decided to make an exception for these.

I don’t know the the original source for these doughnuts, but I printed off the recipe I found at Laura’s blog, Real Mom Kitchen.  I made a few slight changes. 

Apple Cider Doughnuts, adapted by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1 cup apple cider  (I actually used a packet of apple cider drink mix and boiled that down to 1/4 cup!  I know it’s not the same as fresh apple cider, but it seems to have worked!)

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup of butter (softened)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

3 1/2 cups unbleached white flour  (I added about an extra 1/2 cup flour until the dough seemed workable enough to roll out)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

oil for frying

1 cup cinnamon-sugar for coating fried doughnuts

Boil cider until it reduces to 1/4 cup, allow it to cool completely. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg in a bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, and mix until blended. Add buttermilk and reduced cider, blend until incorporated. Add flour mixture gradually, until just incorporated. Turn dough out on a well floured board, knead it a few times to make sure ingredients are well-mixed. (I refrigerated the dough for an hour or two wrapped in plastic wrap before we were ready to fry the doughnuts.) 

Roll into a 1/2 inch thick circle on floured surface. Using a 3" round cutter (or doughnut cutter), cut as many circles as you can. Cut smaller hole in center. Set aside centers to make doughnut holes, or collect them along with dough around the larger circles, form a ball, flatten to 1/2 inch and repeat the cutting of doughnuts.  Heat about 3 inches of oil in a high-sided pan or dutch oven. When oil is hot (about 350 degrees), place as many doughnuts/holes as will fit into pan without crowding them. Allow the doughnuts to brown, then turn them over and brown the other side (total of about 2-4 minutes).

Remove them from the oil and set them on a paper towel. When all of the doughnuts are fried, coat them in the cinnamon sugar mixture and serve.  Makes over a dozen doughnuts and holes!

The boys really had fun cutting out the doughnuts and making some other fun shapes.  We had so many that we called our neighbors and invited them over to help us eat them.  Taylor did a perfect job of covering them all with the cinnamon and sugar.  These are the cake kind of doughnuts.  I prefer this kind to airy/yeasty ones.  I might have eaten 4 doughnut holes (she said under her breath).  The holes don’t count for calories, you know, since it’s a hole, there’s nothing there!  These are really good!