Pumpkin Spice Cider Doughnuts

These doughnuts taste like pure fall. Since the days have started to get chilly I’ve been craving hot cider and warm cider doughnuts, and the addition of pumpkin to these classic doughnuts works wonderfully. I looked at all kinds of recipes for baked and fried and cake and yeast and I settled upon Deb’s recipe at Smitten Kitchen, she never disappoints. I tweaked it a bit and added pumpkin instead of buttermilk and woah, you need to try these.

Recipe after the jump.

Pumpkin Spice Cider Doughnuts (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup apple cider syrup or reduced cider
3 1/2 cups flour, plus additional for the work surface
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground allspice
dash of ground clove
1/2 stick of butter, room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temp
2 tbsp turbinado sugar + 1/2 tsp cinnamon for coating doughnuts (optional)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
Vegetable oil for frying

1. If you haven’t yet, make your apple cider syrup. You can reduce 1 cup down to 1/4 cup if you don’t already have a batch on hand.

2. Sift together your flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices, and salt.

3. Cream the butter and the sugar until well combined. Measure out the rest of the ingredients.

4. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the apple cider syrup, then the pumpkin puree. Mix well.

5. Fold in the dry ingredients until just barely combined, don’t mix too vigorously here. The way the dough appears in the below picture is fine.

6. Turn the dough out on your work surface and gently bring it together. Press it out with your hands until it’s about 1/2 inch thick. Transfer it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes until it firms up.

7. Cut out your doughnuts and transfer them to another baking sheet. You can roll out the scraps and freeze them again then repeat these steps for the extra dough. Put the cut out doughnuts and doughnut holes in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

8. Fill a large pot with enough vegetable oil so that it’s about 1-2 inches deep. Turn the heat on medium to medium high. Remove the doughnuts from the fridge.

9. After the oil heats up, dip an edge of a doughnut hole in the oil and if it starts sizzling, drop in 3 doughnuts or 2 doughnuts and some doughnut holes. Fry them for one minute, until golden, then flip them over and fry for another minute or so.

10. Coat them in cinnamon sugar and then leave them on a drying rack with paper towels underneath to catch any extra grease. If you want to glaze them, allow them to cool first them dip them in the glaze of your choice.