Every year my family and I drive to beautiful Hood River, Oregon and go on the “Fruit Loop.” The Fruit Loop is a route dotted with farms, fruit stands, and orchards. We always load up on apples and enjoy the charm and character of the little farms. This year, I was on a mission to find apple cider donuts…..but NONE of the farms we stopped at had them.

I couldn’t get them out of my head, and decided we had to make them. During our Johnny Appleseed study, my two oldest children and myself found a recipe for donuts, and tweaked it a bit to get the donuts we were craving. The result? Delicious!

Baked Apple Cider Donuts

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • ¾ cup  sugar
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • ½ cup REAL apple cider (*Apple juice would work just fine, but the thicker cider will yield the most flavor.)
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 T applesauce
  • a mix of sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon for the topping (*We did NOT measure. You really can’t go wrong here!)

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I LOVE that these donuts are basically fool-proof to mix up and they’re baked, so you can feel just a bit better about eating them. (Don’t get me wrong…they’re still donuts, and not a bowl of carrot sticks, but they’re not fried, so count that as a win.) =)

I hope you enjoy this delicious taste of fall! Enjoy!