Daring Bakers: Apple Cinnamon Buttermilk Donuts

My house now smells of deep frying, I have a pot of oil cooling on the stove that I have no clue what I am going to do with, and a sink full of sticky dishes.  On the bright side I have a rack of apple cake donuts and donut holes covered in cinnamon glaze awaiting consumption.  I guess I can’t complain.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

There were quite a few donut options for this deep-fried challenge.  All the Daring Bakers could choose from a yeast donut, a buttermilk cake donut, filled bomboloni or pumpkin donut.  I was quite close to choosing the pumpkin since I have been on a pumpkin kick lately, but chose the buttermilk cake donut and added some grated apple and cinnamon to the dough.

The recipe says the dough will be sticky.  I was not prepared for the level of stickiness.  Use as much flour as you need to keep the dough from sticking to the cutters and your counter.  I even found that after my first cutting and re-rolling the donuts cut and handled much better thanks to the additional flour that had been incorporated.  Do not be shy with the flour.

After frying these beauties to a golden brown, let them drain on paper towels.  After cooling you can glaze them.  I used a simple glaze of powdered sugar, cinnamon and milk.  If you don’t want to glaze, you could dip the donuts in cinnamon sugar while they’re still warm and get a nice crunchy exterior.  Or just sprinkle them with powdered sugar. (more…)