apple cider doughnuts!

Now that we’ve detoured for the reader-requested discourse on Baxter State Park, back to fall industriousness and the apple cider doughnuts that Ellen and I made a couple of weekends ago. These doughnuts were really the icing on the cake of a wonderful fall weekend. We spent a chilly Saturday night cosy around Hamish and Ellen's fireplace, had a group of med school friends over for an impromptu brunch (featuring doughnuts!) on Sunday morning, followed by apple picking and then poking around Saratoga Springs (we found a great vintage wooden croquet set at a little secondhand shop that Dan just couldn't pass up), dinner at a Saratoga institution, Hattie's (recently featured on the Food Network and famous for its fried chicken), and finally a nightcap and some pool at a little hole-in-the-wall Saratoga bar. We got home late Sunday night tired but happy.

But back to the highlight of all this weekend hullabaloo: the apple cider doughnuts. All in all, they were really pretty easy and absolutely worth the calories (if that's the metric by which you choose to judge food!).

Cut doughnuts ready to be fried.

Ellen rolled the doughnuts in cinnamon sugar while I manned the fryer.

Rowan was patient as we fried doughnut after doughnut – in this picture, he’s wearing the septapus onesie I made for him!

The recipe is from the Washington Post archives – they said it would make 18 doughnuts, but it made far less for us. We also adapted the recipe to roll the hot doughnuts in cinnamon sugar, rather than deal with a fussy apple cider glaze.



For the doughnuts:

1 cup apple cider (reduced over medium heat to ¼ cup)
3 ½ cups flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
½ t. cinnamon
½ t. salt
1/8 t. freshly ground nutmeg
4 T butter, at room temp
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ cup buttermilk

Vegetable oil for flying

Reduce the cider to ½ cup over medium heat and set aside to cool. Mix the flour through nutmeg in a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth, then add eggs one at a time. Reduce speed to low and add the buttermilk and cider. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

Line two baking sheets with parchment and sprinkle with flour. Turn the dough onto one of the sheets and sprinkle the top with flour. Flatten the dough with your hands until it is about ½ inch thick. Transfer the dough to the freezer until it is slightly hardened (about 20 minutes). Pull out the dough and cut doughnut shapes (we used a pint glass for the outside and the cap to a tea ball for the inside – be creative!). Put the ct doughnuts and holes onto the second baking sheet. Refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes, while you heat up the oil.

Add oil to a deep pot to measure about 3 inches (le creuset pots work great for deep frying!). Attach a candy thermometer and heat over medium heat until it reaches 350 degrees. Have a plate ready lined with paper towels and the cinnamon sugar ready to roll the doughnuts in.

Add a few doughnuts to the oil and fry about 60 seconds on the first side and then flip and fry 30-60 seconds on the second side (or until golden brown). Don’t touch them to flip too early or they may start to fall apart on you – be gentle! Drain on paper towel for a minute until slightly cooled and then roll in the cinnamon sugar. Eat immediately!