My relationship with doughnuts is a complicated one. I have memories of painful childhood dentist visits followed by a trip to Mr. Donut for a chocolate glazed, as a reward. As a young adult, doughnuts filled an emotional void for me. I was a new mom, pregnant with my second child, and we had just moved to a new city. I missed my family and friends, and felt very lonely. After a visit to the doctor, to check on the progress of my pregnancy (and weight gain), I’d stop by Lady Jane Donuts for a chocolate coconut cake doughnut, to drown my sorrows.

Eventually I replaced doughnuts with friends and it was many years before I indulged again. Doughnuts are really best eaten within a few hours of making them which is why I like making them myself. There are two main types of doughnuts, cake and yeast. Yeast style doughnuts, obviously rely on yeast to do the leavening work. They have a more open crumb structure and a chewier texture. Cake donuts, on the other hand, rely on baking powder and/or baking soda to do the heavy lifting. They result in a donut with a tighter crumb structure, and are denser and more crumbly than yeast donuts. Cake doughnuts are my favourite.

Most Apple Cider Doughnuts suffer from a weak apple flavour. They’re heavily flavoured with cinnamon and nutmeg and light on the apple. I wanted to recreate that juicy apple flavour that you get with the first bite of a crisp apple. I learned how to accomplish this from Stella Park at serious eats.com. The secret, it seems, is freeze dried apples pulverized with sugar into a sweet-tart powder for dredging the doughnuts with.

Freeze dried fruit is not the same as dried fruit. Dried fruit is dehydrated and only about 75% of the water is removed. With freeze-dried, the fruit is placed into a vacuum chamber where the temperature is well-below freezing and 99% of the moisture can be removed from the fruit.

A few years ago, I discovered that not all doughnuts need to be fried. There is such a thing as baked doughnuts. They make special doughnut pans, but I decided to use my mini Bundt pans, because they’re a little bit fancy, and that’s how we roll around here at saltandserenity!

The doughnut batter can be made in one bowl and you don’t even need a stand mixer. These are so fast and easy to make.

You’ll have leftover apple cinnamon sugar which keeps forever, in an airtight jar. I have been mixing in a spoonful with my oatmeal every morning and sprinkling it on buttered toast. YUM.