So it isn’t officially fall, but I couldn’t wait to get started on all the apple recipes! These baked apple cider donuts are perfectly cozy and delicious. Making them got me so excited to take my little one apple picking this year. I hope to go in the next couple of weeks, so I am sure there will be more apple recipes to come. 🙂
I have actually never made any kind of donut, so I was really excited to try these out. Of course I didn’t have the equipment, but I found these affordable donut pans online and they worked great. I have so many ideas for recipes I’d like to try.
We have the cutest donut shop in Asheville called Hole Doughnuts. They make all their donuts to order, and like most of the food in this town, they are unbelievably delicious. I was beyond excited when I walked in one day to find a mint julep donut on the board. This town is so creative and inspiring. I know folks are pumped about pumpkin spice so I’ll be working on that one for sure!
My husband’s family has a tradition of making homemade donuts on election night. I’m not sure how that came to be, but I love traditions and I think that is definitely one worth adopting. Although, I tend to eat a lot when I am nervous, so it may not actually be the best idea. I’ll never forget the time we were stopped and asked to pull into a garage while our entire car and every one of our bags was searched at the Canadian border. We had absolutely no reason to be nervous, but that didn’t stop me from freaking out and eating literally all the cheese we had just picked up in Wisconsin. Hilarious memories.
These apple cider donuts are simple to pull together and can be a really special treat for a cool weekend morning or any fall gathering. I imagine it would be a great surprise to bring a fresh batch of these into the office sometime! Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think!
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Baked Apple Cider Donuts with Spiced Glaze and Candied Walnuts
- Total Time: 45
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
Sweet apple cider donuts baked and dunked in a spiced glaze topped with chopped candied walnuts. The perfect treat for a cool fall morning.
Ingredients
Candied Walnuts
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3 tablespoons sugar
Glaze
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
Donuts
- 1 cup apple cider
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- zest of 1 lemon
- 6 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup whole milk buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
Instructions
Prepare the candied walnuts:
- Add the chopped walnuts, butter, and sugar to a nonstick pan and heat over medium heat stirring constantly for 3 to 4 minutes until sugar is melted.
- Once cooled, further chop the walnuts into tiny pieces to sprinkle over the donuts.
Prepare the glaze:
- Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, heavy cream, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom in a small bowl until thoroughly combined.
Prepare the donut batter:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Reduce the apple cider by 1/2 by simmering over medium heat in a pot on the stove until 1/2 cup of liquid remains. Mine took about 10 minutes to reduce.
- Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, salt and lemon zest in a medium bowl.
- Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the melted butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, buttermilk and vanilla. Once well mixed add the egg on low speed until just combined.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients with the mixer still set to low until well combined.
- Pour the slightly cooled reduced apple cider into the mixture and mix.
- Spoon your batter into a zip-lock bag, seal, and cut one of the bottom corners of the bag to squeeze the batter through into the pan.
- Grease donut pans with nonstick cooking spray.
- Fill each cavity of the donut pans about half way full and bake for approximately 10 minutes until cooked through.
- Remove donuts while still hot and dunk each side into the glaze. Sprinkle the top with chopped candied walnuts.
- Allow to cool on a cooling rack.
Notes
- These donuts are fairly sweet. If you want to cut the sweetness, dunk only the top side of the donut into the glaze.
- You could also replace the glaze with a cinnamon sugar coating by dunking each donut in a mixture of melted butter, cinnamon and sugar!
- Prep Time: 30
- Cook Time: 15
- Category: Donuts
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Fall
Keywords: apple cider donuts
I choose this recipe today because it was the perfect rainy day for this donut (and coffee)! I used the mini donut pan and they turned out great! Definitely a do over!
★★★★★
Thanks so much for trying them out! I’m happy to hear it worked well with a mini donut pan ????
Election night is now less than a month away and it looks like it might be an all-nighter, so we will definitely try this instead of the old deep fat fryer
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Ha! You may need to go full fat for that night.
These are so good and pretty!
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Thank you!