Who wants a mouthful of fall? Anyone?

It seems like fall always does this to me, and to my kid, too: sets me back on my heels, makes me a little melancholy. This fall is the first where we have been completely settled in two and a half years. The past two and a half years have been spent first in total shock, then next in planning and moving and renovating a house. Maybe that is why I have spent the last two weeks re-evaluating everything I am doing and coming to the really terrifying realization that the true grief for my departed husband has not yet quite begun. 

Fall should come with caution tape.

So I have doubled down on yoga, practicing every day, usually at a class but at home if I can’t make one, asked for recommendations for therapists, attempted to re-design this website to make it a little more interesting (ha. that has been a process that is still ongoing), and gotten my affairs in order, the better to not clutter my head with things that really don’t matter as I try to figure out what. the. fuck.

Oh, yeah, and I made gluten-free apple cider doughnuts.

Baking, cooking, and preserving is the one thing that always gives me a small bit of joy. It has been that way for as long as I can remember. I love the process of baking itself. The creativity of flavors and substitutions for gluten-free or vegan baking, the mixing wet and dry ingredients and watching them smooth and wrap themselves around my beaters. 

The house smells delicious, and in the end I have something I can share, something that I know will be better than anything I can buy.

It is fall, and it’s time for apple cider. Last week was caramel apple cocktails, and this week is gluten-free apple cider doughnuts.

These are cake doughnuts that are highly spiced with cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg.  They are, as always, gluten-free, but regular all-purpose flour works here, too. 

Enjoy.

Oh, and if anybody is a Blogger pro, get in touch, would you? I have some free stuff to give away to subscribers but can’t figure that particular magic out. #KThanks

Apple Cider Doughnuts

Ingredients

Doughnuts:
2 cups apple cider
2 eggs
1 stick butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vinegar
3 tsp. vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour blend
1/4 cup oat flour OR almond meal
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum (optional if your blend already has it. I use it anyway) 
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 T ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves

Topping:
1 stick melted butter
1/2 cup sugar 
1 T cinnamon
optional: add nutmeg, ground ginger, and cloves to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 and grease two doughnut pans (either full size or mini).

Before you begin, you need to reduce the apple cider from 2 cups to just 1/2 cup. Place in a medium saucepan over medium heat and bring to a lazy boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until reduced, then cool to room temperature. The mixture will resemble simple syrup and is, indeed, DELICIOUS in a bourbon cocktail. This can be made the night before, but bring it to room temperature before adding.

You also need to combine the milk and the vinegar to make a buttermilk, of sorts. I chose this method over purchasing buttermilk because most people don’t have buttermilk handy. If you do, feel free to substitute 1/2 cup of buttermilk. If not, add the vinegar to the milk and let sit for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine the following dry ingredients: flours, baking soda and powder, salt, and spices.

In a medium bowl or stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs and beat, then add vanilla, milk mixture, and reduced apple cider. Beat until combined, then add the flour and continuing mixing until it is smooth (just a minute or two).

If you have a pastry bag, use that to pipe the batter into the waiting doughnut tins. If not, scoop the batter into a Ziploc baggie, snip off a corner, and use that to pipe the batter into the tins. Fill about halfway up.

Bake for eight to ten minutes. Doughnuts are ready when they spring back from a light touch.

Turn out onto a wire rack. As soon as they are just cool enough to handle, dip each doughnut into melted butter and then roll in spicy sugar mixture. 

These may keep, but I have no experience with them lasting past noon on the day they are made, so let me know if they do.

Recipe notes:

• Doughnuts are just as delicious without the sugar topping, and you can also just use it for the top if you want to keep sugar in check.
• There is a very good chance that you could make this vegan by subbing apple sauce for the eggs. I haven’t tried, but it seems like it would work. #reportback

 

This was on point. For realz.

When I post links on Friday, they are usually some interesting technique, tip, or piece of gear that I want to try. When I post recipes, I have not always tried them before posting but am interested in what they have going on and think maybe they are worth a shot. 

This was the case with the caramel apple martini I posted this past Friday. I posted it and planned to make it Saturday. And I did.

And it was awful. 

Awful like already-drunk-sorority-girl-shots awful. 

Even when I went to buy the two boozes for the drink, the liquor store lady looked at me and said, “Um…are you putting these two together?”

So while apple vodka and butterscotch schnapps make perfect sense on paper, on the palate they are cloying, nauseatingly sweet. Did it taste like a caramel apple? Yes, but with an extra coating of syrup.

Envisioning the headache and illness that would occur were I to finish the drink, I dumped it out. 

I also had yoga in a winery (with a wine tasting) on Sunday morning, which makes for the booziest weekend (with the beer at a party and the glass of wine with a friend Saturday night) I have had planned in awhile.

Sunday I vowed to do better. For the three people that regularly read the blog, I made another recipe, one that is not GODAWFULLY SWEET but still tastes like  a caramel apple. Don’t get me wrong: it’s sweet. If you have issues with sugar, stay away. Just sip your whiskey neat and watch everyone else play. It’s cool.

But if you want a drink that acts like dessert, tastes like a boozy fresh apple slathered in caramel, this drink’s for you.

I am listing the ingredients in ratios because A) I used a shot glass to measure with, and your shot glass may be larger or smaller, and B) I am newly obsessed with ratios due to the book Ratio by Michael Ruhlman (review later this week!).

And, for those of you who would take umbrage with Buffalo Trace being used in such a fashion, stuff it. Julia Child said don’t cook with anything you wouldn’t drink, and I am following that credo here. Life’s to short to drink rail bourbon, in any form. 

At least I didn’t use the Pappy.


(Full disclosure: I did also make this with one part Tito’s vodka instead of bourbon, and that was okay, too. I like the slightly fuller, richer taste of the drink with the bourbon, but if you have some good vodka in the house, that works, too.)

Caramel Apple Martini (serves 1)

One part Buffalo Trace bourbon 
One part Dekuyper Buttershots (butterscotch schnapps)
Two parts fresh apple cider (no sugar added. Jesus.)

Mix all ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake until very, very cold. Pour into a martini glass and garnish with a  fresh apple slice. You could also rim the martini glass with caramel and dip it into chopped peanuts if you want some protein with your drink.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

And if anyone wants a bottle of Smirnoff Sour Apple Vodka with one shot missing, just let me know.