Old fashioned apple cider doughnuts

Homemade doughnuts are easy to make. You don’t need any special equipment, you just need a frying pan deep enough to hold an inch or an inch and a half of very hot oil and a candy thermometer. The fall is the perfect time for homemade old fashioned apple cider doughnuts.

The recipe that I have always used for doughnuts is not one that I created but rather one that I adapted. I got the original from my Betty Crocker Cookbook shortly after I got married in 1968. I have modified it a little but it is just about the most perfect old fashioned style doughnut you would ever want to make. what I mean by old fashioned is a non-raised doughnut, there is no yeast in this recipe. I used to make this recipe for my children especially in the fall, for some reason in our house Halloween and fresh homemade doughnuts seem to go hand in hand. 

I now have a whole new generation of children to delight with homemade doughnuts and they certainly enjoy being allowed to help by cutting out the doughnuts. I never allow them anywhere near the hot oil but they love to help with the cinnamon sugar after the doughnuts have cooled.

Apple Cider Doughnuts

• 3 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup apple cider ( if you don’t have cider use milk)
• Vegetable oil for frying

  Coating

• 1/4 sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Mix the flour with the baking powder and salt. In a large bowl mix the eggs, sugar, and shortening with an electric mixer. Add half the flour mixture and beat. Add the spices and the rest of flour. If it gets too thick use your hands to turn it out onto a floured board. Knead it lightly. Roll it out with your rolling pin. Don’t roll it too thin, you want chunky doughnuts.
If you have a doughnut cutter, that is perfect but if you don’t have one don’t despair. All you need is a glass and a pill bottle. The glass is the doughnut and the pill bottle the hole. Follow the same directions for the glass and pill bottle as you use for the doughnut cutter.

Dip your doughnut cutter into the flour and start cutting doughnuts. Keep dipping it into the flour every few cuts so it won’t get stuck. Let the doughnuts sit while you get some oil, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep up to 375 degrees in your pan. Use your candy thermometer to determine the correct heat. If you don’t have one you can test the oil with the doughnut holes to make sure they don’t brown too slowly or too quickly.

Carefully place the doughnuts into the fat, I like to use a long handle fork to avoid getting burned. This will also help you turn the doughnut when it has browned. Have a plate prepared with paper towels so that you can absorb the grease from the doughnuts.

Allow to cool. These are very good plain, they are even better tossed in some cinnamon sugar. Serve these with a glass of apple cider on a cool fall day and impress your family and friends.

I save the oil in a jar to reuse, once you try these you will want to make them again soon.