Bonus: Apple Cider Cake Donuts

This is serious. This is the first donut making of my baking career. I purchased a donut pan. Someone should tell the donut pan label makers that the image of a yeasted donut on a pan specifically for non yeasted cake donuts is silly at best. A few tweaks to the recipe I found and clearly I overfilled so there is no discernable hole, but no one complained about that! I will aim for a hole next time... maybe. 

Ingredients 
1 1/2 cups apple cider
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cardamom 
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk, scalded, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping

1 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

5 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon of reserved reduced apple cider

First, reduce that apple cider. Put it in a saucepan and simmer on low heat until it is 1/2 cup. I checked every 5 minutes after the first 10 minutes. I poured it into a pyrex to measure and then back into the saucepan to keep going. It was about 25 minutes to reach the 1/2 cup. Reserve 1 tablespoon to use in the topping and set the remainder aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep your donut pan(s) with baking spray. This recipe makes 12 donuts, if you only have 1 pan, bake the first 6, then rinse the pan, dry the pan, respray the pan and bake the second round. 

Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt together and set aside. 

Whisk the melted butter, egg, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla extract together. Pour into the dry ingredients, add the reduced apple cider, and whisk everything together until smooth and combined. Batter is slightly thicker than a muffin batter would be. 

Fill your donut pan 1/2 full. As you can see in the pictures below, I overfilled :-) If you run into the wife, ask her about how I overfilled the eclairs in baking class on our honeymoon. You can spoon the batter in, but it is much easier to put the batter in a pastry bag or plastic bag and pipe it in. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges and tops are lightly browned. Test by poking with your finger, they should bounce back. Cool for 2-3 minutes in pan before transferring to the cooling rack.

To coat, dunk both sides of the donut in the melted butter mixed with the reserved cider, then dunk in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Best warm, so good. Enjoy! 

I used hard cider but any cider of your preference works.