Recipe: Cinnamon Sugar Baked Apple Cider Donuts as seen on Local 12!

This morning I'm making an appearance on Local 12 - Star 64 morning news with my favorite news anchor Bob Herzog! I love going on the air and creating fun and simple recipes. This one is a little more complicated - but I bet Bob can handle it! ;-) 

Now that Halloween has passed - maybe we can move past the pumpkin. So I was thinking what else screams FALL?! I landed on Apple Cider. Then I thought - what's good in the morning? Donuts! Boom!

I got the recipe from Foodie Misadventures - normally I try and create my own but with time being of the essence - I just found a simple one and went with it.

First you take the dry ingredients and mix them together (flour, sugar, baking powder, apple pie spice and salt).

Then in a separate bowl - mix together the wet ingredients (egg, milk, apple cider, vanilla & butter). The recipe didn't say you needed to use separate bowls but I thought it would be easier.

Then put them together - I'm always unsure if there will be enough of the wet to take in all the dry...

But there always is. The mixture is very thick - you definitely can't pour these into your donut/muffin pan. I spooned the mixture into a ziploc then cut off the corner. It was super simple and most definitely the way to go.

I bought a mini-donut pan this weekend. Since I was splitting up the batch to make half the night before and half on air - I only used one pan. I filled these a little more full than I should have - so keep that in mind if you're making the full batch. Half the mixture would probably fill 15-18 mini-donuts. You could also use mini-muffin pans.

Here are my 12 mini-donut/muffins - the more full ones were definitely more muffin like. They smelled delicious. I let them cool for probably 10 minutes.

Then I brushed them with butter and coated them in a mixture of white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon.

I did sneak one donut - just for a taste test! I had to make sure they weren't terrible before I had our local celebrities eating them!!! They were delicious and you could definitely taste the cider - so VICTORY! They are dense little suckers - so I think mini-donuts or mini-muffins are definitely the way to go.

CINNAMON-SUGAR Baked APPLE CIDER DONUTS

• Recipe from FoodieMisadventures.com

• 
  
• INGREDIENTS
• 
  
• ¾ cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ tsp apple pie spice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup apple cider
• ¼ cup milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Cinnamon-Sugar Topping:

• ¼ cup white sugar
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons butter, melted

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease two mini-donut pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, apple pie spice and salt. Stir in cider, milk, eggs, vanilla and melted butter. Beat together until well blended.
3. Fill each doughnut cup ¾ full. Bake 8 to 10 minutes until doughnuts spring back when touched. Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan. (My oven isn't the best - it took a couple minutes longer for me.) 
4. In a shallow bowl mix together white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon until well combined. Brush each doughnut with melted butter then toss in cinnamon-sugar mixture until evenly coated.