Friday, November 14, 2014

Baked Apple Cider Donuts

After a hiatus I am happy to say that the recipe swaps I used to participate in are back!  Now being run by Ashley from Cheese Curd in Paradise, this month was a Blogger's Choice theme.  I was assigned Eva Bakes.  After drooling over 99.9% of her posts, I finally settled on a recipe.  The added bonus was that we had just received some fresh apple cider in our CSA box last week!






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In December of 2012 for my office holiday gift exchange I was gifted several requested baking items, including a donut pan.  When I asked for it I had grandiose plans of making homemade donuts all the time.  Fast forward to November 2014 and you can tell by the packaging currently in my trash can how well that plan worked out!


It turns out that donuts are really not hard to make at all.  These are cake donuts so they are a drier consistency than a puffy yeast donut would be, but it does not take away from the taste at all.  I made two adjustments from what Eva did (though they both were done in the recipe she based it off of).  First, I used cardamom that she didn't use.  I love the smell of cardamom.  It's one of those spices that costs approximately $12 and you need about 1/4 tsp or less in most recipes that calls for it.  But once you have it in your pantry you don't want to leave it out!  I had purchased it for last year's Crunchy Molasses Cookies and have been waiting for a reason to use it again.


I also added a cinnamon sugar coating to about half of my donuts which I think added a nice touch (I left them off of some because I knew a little someone's nibbly fingers would be all over these donuts and didn't want the added sugar for him).


As Eva also realized, although the original recipe said it makes 6 donuts, I was able to make 11.




Baked Apple Cider Donuts (from Eva Bakes)




Ingredients
1 cup apple cider
1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cardamom
3 tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp melted butter optional
cinnamon sugar optional




Directions 
Preheat  the oven to 400 degrees F.  Prepare your donut pan by adding cooking spray to each of the wells.
-  Boil the apple cider down in a small saucepan until it reduces down to 1/4 cup. Set aside and let cool.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom.
-  In the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large bowl using a hand mixer), cream together the butter and sugars. Add the olive oil, reduced apple cider, and egg. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients alternately with the milk, ending with the flour (dry) mixture.
-  Spoon the batter into the prepared donut pan and bake for 9-10 minutes or until golden.
-  Remove the donuts from the pan and let cool completely on a wire rack before glazing.

- If you want to add a cinnamon sugar topping, you can brush the donuts with melted butter and dip into or sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.