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Apple Cider Browned Butter Baked Doughnuts

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These Apple Cider Browned Butter Doughnuts are the best thing I have baked all year. Yes, I realize that’s a bold statement, given the number of things I have baked in 2020. (It’s been a heavy baking year… we all deal with stress in our own way, don’t judge!)

Granted, these doughnuts are not as pretty as my black and white ones from a few weeks ago, but OMG, the taste and texture of these is off-the-charts fantastic. I was inspired to bake these after seeing a recipe for Apple Cider Doughnut Cake from food writer Tara O’Brady. I subscribe to her newsletter and every week I get a charming, informative and beautifully crafted email.

Tara baked the batter in a loaf pan. Her description of this loaf is so lyrical. I want to write like this when I grow up.😉 “Out of the oven the texture is almost spongy; jaunty and open. As the cake sits, it settles, relaxing into a sturdiness that is exactly right and as it should be. The crust establishes itself with a gentle crunch as it meets the teeth, while the centre fluff gives way with a velvet weight.“

I made the loaves and fell in love with her recipe. Apples are featured prominently. The batter calls for reduced apple cider and applesauce. I wondered what would happen if I baked the batter in doughnut pans. You could also bake them in muffin tins, but they will take a few minutes longer to bake.

As I was assembling the ingredients, I realized I had run out of applesauce, but I had a jar of apple butter leftover from baking this.

There is no actual butter in apple butter. Apple butter is basically concentrated applesauce, or as I like to describe it, “applesauce on steroids“. Alex Delaney wrote a brilliant article explaining the difference.

The doughnuts come together fairly quickly. You will need to reduce the apple cider and brown the butter in advance.

While the doughnuts are delicious plain, dipping them in browned butter and then rolling them in cinnamon-sugar takes them over the top, so don’t skip this step!

I baked these doughnuts several times, the first time to just test the recipe, the second time to shoot the photos and the third time to shoot the video. Luckily I live in a condo and have several neighbours who happily take the leftovers. I also discovered that they freeze beautifully. Wrap individual doughnuts in plastic wrap and place them all in a freezer bag. They will thaw at room temperature in about 45 minutes.

Click here to print recipe for Baked-Apple-Cider-Brown-Butter-DoughnutsDownload

Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts

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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.

Click here to print recipe for Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts