Apple Cider Doughnuts

It's fall, people! And you know what that means . . . Apples! Apple pie, apple butter, apple cake, applesauce, apple cider and . . . Apple Cider Doughnuts. Oh, yes. LCBF and I moved back to upstate New York this summer and I have been waiting for these things for three months. I was super excited for our small town Apple Festival, which rolled into town a couple of weeks ago: apples, doughnuts, kettle corn, and cider, oh my!  Alas, my dreams were quickly dashed by weirdly huge crowds and impossibly long lines. I did not get my hands on any cider doughnuts, though I did inadvertently cut about 50 people who were standing in line for kettle corn. I'm not even sorry; the kettle corn was delicious. Apple fest is a take no prisoners kind of event. I told myself that there was plenty of time for doughnuts--we do live practically next door to an orchard. Imagine my heartbreak when we ventured out to not one, but two orchards this weekend only to learn that this apple season had been cut short by last spring's frost and had a small yield this fall. Nary a doughnut in sight. Boo! What I did find, however, was both apples and cider. So, I made up my mind. Sometimes in this world, a girl's gotta make her cider doughnuts herself. And so I did. Recipe, largely adopted from Smitten Kitchen's blog, which she has adopted from NYC's Hearth restaurant's recipe, after the jump.

Apple Cider Doughnuts
Yield: about 16, plus doughnut holes
Time: a couple hours--definitely a weekend project

For Doughnuts:
1 cup apple cider
3 1/2 cups flour, plus extra for pressing out
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
4 tbl. (1/2 stick) butter, softened
2 large eggs
1/2 cup soy milk*
1/2 tsp. lemon juice*
Vegetable oil for frying

For topping:
1 cup sugar
1 heaping tbl. ground cinnamon

*The original recipe calls for buttermilk, but I never use buttermilk in anything. Who keeps that stuff around? Why buy a 1/2 gallon of something you'll only use a 1/2 cup of? Also, lactose. Evil, evil lactose. "Souring" soy or cow's milk with lemon juice makes an undetectable substitute.

Note: Now that I'm back in the states, I have unpacked my measuring cups and spoons and such, so these measurements are accurate. You can wing it though if you want. Just eyeball it--you'll be fine.

Reduce apple cider to ~ 1/4 cup in a sauce pan over medium heat for about 20 min. Let cool.

While cider is reducing, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl and set aside.

In an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter together until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

Add lemon juice to soy milk and mix together (makes a buttermilk substitute).

Slowly add reduced cider and soy milk/lemon juice mixture to mixer bowl, beating to incorporate. Add flour mixture slowly until the dough comes together and flour is fully incorporated.

Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and flour generously (seriously, this is way sticky dough--you'll need a lot of flour). Dump dough on one sheet, flour top and hands and press out until dough is about 1/2" thick. You'll use the other sheet to place cut rounds on later.

How I discovered I needed more flour:

Success!

Stick dough in the freezer for about 20 minutes to harden slightly.

While dough is chilling, make cinnamon-sugar topping by mixing 1 cup sugar and 1 heaping tbl. of ground cinnamon together in a bowl. Set aside. This makes *a lot* of topping. If you don't plan on saving it for another use (cinnamon toast? ice cream topping?), you could get away with using 3/4 cup and 1 level tbl. cinnamon.

Pull dough out of the freezer and cut out doughnuts. Apparently you can buy a doughnut cutter, but I used a 3 1/2" round pastry cutter for the doughnut and a smaller 1" round cutter for the hole. Specialized doughnut cutters seem like a single-use tool and I am, in general, against such things.

Place cut out doughnuts on second, floured cookie sheet.

You can either fry the doughnut holes or add them to the rest of the scraps. Re-roll scraps and continue cutting dough until it's all been made into delicious doughnut shapes.

Refrigerate doughnuts for 20-30 minutes.

Fill a wide pan with 2-3" of vegetable oil and heat over med. heat until oil reaches 350F (using a candy thermometer) or until bubbles crawl up the narrow end of a wooden spoon when inserted (low tech alternative).

Add doughnuts to the oil a few at a time (don't overcrowd). Fry one side for about a minute, then turn and fry the other side for another minute. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels.

Let cool for a minute then coat with cinnamon-sugar topping.

Serve warm with hot cider, tea, or coffee.