Oh I just had to try a recipe for apple cider doughnuts from a magazine titled ‘Yankee’. Funny name, don’t you think?

This recipe is fantastic. No yeast, no overnight rising, done in an hour or so and the next day the doughnuts still taste fairly light and moist, not heavy like some homemade doughnut recipes. The only hard work involved is reducing the apple cider and purchasing some buttermilk—or do as I do and substitute milk with lemon juice for buttermilk. These came out tasty enough that I didn’t even bother with cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar.

Here is the link to the original recipe. In the recipe below, I have included the proportions I used for the milk and lemon juice buttermilk substitute.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
5 tablespoons soft unsalted butter
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk (or mix 1/2 cup full fat milk with a good, strong squeeze of fresh lemon juice and let sit for a bit.)
1/3 cup boiled apple cider (Boil about 1 cup of apple cider way down and use 1/3 cup once it has reduced)
1 tbs vanilla extract
vegetable oil (for deep frying)

1) Use a kitchen aid with whisk attachment or handheld mixer to cream butter and sugar till creamy and fluffy.
2) Add eggs, one at a time, and mix after each
3) Add buttermilk (or substitute), boiled cider and vanilla and mix.
4) Add in the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda and spices and mix with a wooden spoon or the paddle attachment for the kitchen aid.
5) The original recipe tells you to:
“Line two baking sheets with waxed paper or parchment paper and dust generously with flour. Turn dough out onto one baking sheet and pat gently into 3/4-inch-thickness. Sprinkle dough with additional flour, cover with plastic wrap, and place in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up. Remove dough from the freezer; use a lightly floured 3-inch doughnut cutter (or two concentric biscuit cutters) to cut out about 18 doughnuts with holes. (You may gather the scraps and roll again as needed, but you may need to chill the dough more to firm it up.) Place cut doughnuts on the other baking sheet as you go; then transfer to the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up again.”
I found that the dough was not too soft and quite easy to work with. I patted down a thick layer of dough and put it in the freezer only for as long as it took the oil to heat up.
6) Heat up about 3 inches of oil in a deep pot (if you have a thermometer it should be 350 degrees). Take the chilled dough out of the freezer and use a doughnut cutter (I use the top half of a cocktail shaker) to cut out the doughnuts, flouring the cutter edge so that it doesn’t stick. I use a shot glass or a jigger to cut out the holes. Save these to fry as little doughnut holes.
7) Fry each side of the doughnuts for about a minute, and then drain on paper towel.
8) Roll out the scraps of dough to make more doughnuts and keep frying.
9) Serve plain, dusted with powdered sugar or rolled in cinnamon sugar.

Serve warm with coffee, obviously 😉