Nuts About Dough

Recently I purchased a donut pan. Kind of an impulse buy, but I've been on a baking kick lately. (By the way, I swear that this will not become a baking blog. But I just have to share these donuts.)

And these doughnuts are that good.

I took the end of a batch to work on election night (I was working overnight) to leave for the morning crew. When I told Greg he got a panicked look in his eye and said, "But you'll make more, right?"

Clearly I don't bake frequently enough for the poor man.

Now. I will say that some people take issue with the fact that anyone would call something a doughnut when it has been baked. Well it's my blog and I'll call it a doughnut if I want to. If it makes you feel better, you can call them Appley and Delicious Non-Doughnut Rounds. But I'll just stick to apple cider doughnuts.

These taste like cake doughnuts to me, though it has been quite a while since I had a real doughnut, as I don't really like sweets very much. These are sweet -- but not too sweet -- and they have a nice amount of spice.

I've used two very similar recipes for this, one from The Kitchn and one from Tasty Kitchen.

I prefer the Tasty Kitchen version, but I modified the recipe to take elements from The Kitchn's recipe (apple butter) and my own craziness (whole wheat flour.)

In my rendition of the Tasty Kitchen version, I used apple butter instead of applesauce, a cup of King Arthur Flour's white whole wheat flour in place of all-purpose -- also tried using plain whole wheat flour, but that version got a bit heavy. And I messed with using hard cider instead of regular cider (pretty good actually -- totally worthwhile sub if that's what you have on hand). I also don't seem to own nutmeg. I have no idea how that's possible, but it is. And I added ground ginger because I love ground ginger. I also subbed some of the white sugar for brown. As with most any spiced cake-like food I make, I probably quadrupled the spices.

In the glaze, I thinned it out much more than the recipe called for -- it was VERY thick at first and not very apple-y. So I used extra apple cider and stirred in a bunch of apple butter to increase the apple flavor. And in the dipping cinnamon sugar, I added some extra spices and used less sugar.

Actually at this point I think it might be fair to just give you my recipe. I didn't realize how much I changed it the Tasty Kitchen version, sheesh. This is an approximate version, but I think it should be pretty close.


FOR THE DONUTS:

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon Allspice
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cups apple cider
• 1/4 cups apple butter
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

FOR THE TOPPING:

• 3-4 Tablespoons Apple Cider
• 1 1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 teaspoons Allspice
• 1/4 cups Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice

Use the Tasty Kitchen baking directions, though, this recipe is really all theirs. And the idea to put the batter into a plastic bag and cut off a corner and pipe into the doughnut pan? GENIUS. It is seriously difficult for me to spoon batter into a doughnut pan.

Anyway, the final product is what I would describe as a gingerbread apple cider doughnut. Delicious. And according to this website, they're not too terrible for you. About 150 calories per doughnuts. With a couple of scrambled eggs, I'd call that breakfast.

Or you can be like Greg and skip the eggs and have an extra doughnut.

And you better believe I'm making a batch for Thanksgiving. The people who are coming early/staying over need something delicious to get them through the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, right?