I started searching for recipes, and found one simply called “Easy Doughnuts” from RealSimple.com. Perfect, I thought. It didn’t require heavy duty frying, and the dough could be bought pre-made at the grocery store—Pillsbury Grands, they suggested. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that frying a pre-made biscuit wasn’t really what I was looking to do. A Pillsbury Grand just doesn’t equal a doughnut, in my book, no matter what you do to it.
I found a few other recipes that involved yeast, which were nixed right away: I’m still afraid of the price tag and lack of user-friendliness. I finally found a winner from, where else, Smitten Kitchen. It didn’t involve scary yeast, but still looked to have all of the makings of a good, classic doughnut. And, I had never had an apple cider doughnut before.
The Recipe
Apple Cider Doughnuts, SmittenKitchen.com
Apprehension Meter
The meter ran medium-high for this recipe. I was 100% new to the frying world, and had visions of apartment fires and grease burns dancing in my head. On a less grave note, even though this dough didn’t require yeast or time to rise or anything complicated, for some reason, working with dough is always a little intimidating for me.
No really fancy or expensive ingredients needed for this recipe
I also lacked a few of the utensils. I don’t own any cookie cutters, and the Bed Bath & Beyond down the street only sold huge tubs of them for $20. No thanks. I also only own one baking sheet, instead of the required two, but this has never proved to be a serious problem. You just have to be a little crafty with space, and maybe a little more flexible with time, depending on the recipe.
And finally, I don’t own a candy thermometer, and didn’t feel like buying one, considering I never fry food. Having the oil the right temperature might seem like a very important thing—and it is—but I felt like being a rebel and “going with my instincts.” Something I probably shouldn’t do in the kitchen…not quite yet.
Here’s How It Really Went
There are few things, I think, more gratifying and annoying than making your first batch of homemade doughnuts. What I was rewarded with was a very stinky apartment, but a tasty, warm, and moist batch of doughnuts and doughnut holes.
Apple cider, reducing
Be warned: The whole recipe took me about two hours, from start to finish. I’m not sure if this is because I am a novice doughnut maker, but I didn’t realize it would take so long. Most of the time was spent waiting while the dough sat in the freezer, then waiting again while the dough chilled in the fridge before frying.
Butter and Sugar
The dough itself, once it all came together, was truly a pleasure to work with. It was unbelievably soft, and while I should have been a little more generous with the flour on the work surface, it didn’t stick to my fingers, the way pizza dough often does.
Not having a cookie cutter turned out to be fine in the end, but it really was a pain trying to cut all of the shapes out with a knife, which was my brilliant plan. It wasn’t difficult, but it was time consuming, and I ended up with irregular shapes. I suppose that’s part of the charm of homemade goodies, but I was hoping they’d turn out looking a little nicer.
Even after spreading it out over the parchment paper, this still wasn't enough flour
As I mentioned before, sprinkling quite a bit more flour on the parchment paper before pressing out the dough would have helped me out a lot, or maybe just ensuring that it was spread out more evenly. It was kind of tough to peel the cut shapes out from the dough, and contributed to more incongruities in shape.
Impromptu clearing of the freezer to accommodate the dough
Who would have guessed a ruler would come in handy in the kitchen? I used this to measure out the circumference of my doughnuts.
Once all of the shapes were cut and chilled in the fridge, it was time for the really scary part, the frying. For some reason I had thought that I had had a lot more vegetable oil at home than I really did, and came up about an inch short, but, I had come that far anyway, there was no sense in letting that stop me.
I heated the oil on my stove on medium-high. Heating that much oil is kind of strange, because, unlike water, it doesn’t boil to let you know it’s ready, and unlike having just a little bit of oil in your pan, it doesn’t really ripple when it gets really hot.
I plunked two doughnuts into the oil, and they immediately started frying. They sunk at first, and then bobbed up, turning golden then brown as the oil bubbled excitedly around them. I waited about 60 seconds, and used a slotted spoon to flip them over. About 30 seconds after that, I scooped them out of the oil, and let them rest on a bed of paper towels.
My first two doughnuts were a very dark, almost burnt-looking brown. According to Smitten Kitchen’s photos, apple cider doughnuts look like they are supposed to be somewhat more brown than your typical Krispy Kreme, but these looked a little too brown, and therefore unappealing.
I concluded that the oil was entirely too hot, and turned the burner down to low. I plopped another doughnut in, but this time only let it fry for about 25 seconds on each side. Well, needless to say, that didn’t work out so well either.
My under-cooked experimental doughnut
I finally found the happiest medium I could- about 30-ish seconds on each side, then a few more additional flips, about every 10 seconds.
Of course, if I had just bought the darn candy thermometer, all of this could have been avoided.
While my creations wouldn’t have been able to get by on their good looks alone, they certainly did taste good. I found them to be rich in doughy flavor, and not at all crumbly, as I had worried they might.
While I was frying the doughnuts, I kept wondering how intense the apple flavor would be. I was a little disappointed to find that it wasn’t very intense at all. It was there, slight and quiet, but maybe could have been enhanced had I made the suggested apple glaze to top the doughnuts, rather than the easier way out: cinnamon and sugar.
Would I suggest making these for a weekend brunch? Probably not, unless you have a few hours to spare and don’t care if you and your apartment reek of oil. But, I do plan to try these, or maybe another doughnut recipe again in the future (as soon as I buy a candy thermometer!). The frying part was really, truly fun, for some reason. And the end result is a special treat—hot, fresh, and homemade. Special treats don’t get better than that.
