Happy Halloween! Trick or Treating with Apple Cider Doughnuts in our bellies!

Halloween is so much fun with all the treats :) I'm not so big on the tricking but I do have a two year old so...I've been wanting to make doughnuts for a while and thought Apple Cider Doughnuts sound delicious. I also fried them! Which doesn't happen often. We don't have a dedicated deep fryer so it's just oil in a pan with a thermometer. When we fry something in this house then we see what other delicious things we can fry also. We don't want to waste the oil :). So, it's like the Texas state fair up in this house when we have oil in a pan with a thermometer. I'm walking around frying up mozzarella sticks, pickled jalapenos, actual pickles, frozen ice cream might be fun, or a hunk of rice krispie treat. We can't have an actual deep fryer around here because then I would eat so much fried food my stomach would hurt and it would just not be good for anyone. But, every once in a while my husband and I feel like fried deliciousness. So, this time it was doughnuts. We haven't managed to fry anything else yet but deep fried portobellos are on my list. I didn't make the frosting in this recipe. I simply rolled them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture which was really good also :)

Apple Cider Doughnuts

Ingredients
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup milk, at room temperature
1/4 cup apple cider, at room temperature
1/4 cup warm apple cider (about 110 degrees)
3 1/4 cups flour
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons salt

apple cider frosting
3 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup apple cider

canola oil for frying

Directions:

for the frosting:
Beat all ingredients together until a spreadable icing forms.

For the doughnuts:
In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm cider in the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

Add the flour, remaining cider, milk, butter, egg yolks, sugar, and salt until you have a soft, elastic dough that comes together easily into a ball.

Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.

Flour a clean work surface. Place the dough on the surface and roll it out. Roll until it is about 1/2 thick. Cut out doughnut shapes. Do not reroll to dough.

Place them on a parchment or silipat lined cookie sheet, cover again with the tea towel and let them rise 15-30 minutes. They should look puffy but don't need to have doubled.

Meanwhile, heat (to 350) about 3 inchs of oil in a heavy pot. Fry the doughnuts (2 or 3 at a time works well) flipping at least once to insure that they are golden brown on all sides, about 2 minutes.

Drain on paper towel lined plates or baking pans. Repeat for remaining doughnuts. Frost cooled doughnuts if desired. Eat the same day they are made.


Yield: about 12 doughnuts

Recipe from Coconut & Lime

Gingerbread Ale Cookies

 Gingerbread Ale Cookies sound a little wild. I definitely got some off looks when  talked about the idea. My thought process was that if you can make a stout cake with a stout then why can't you make a cookie with a gingerbread ale. Why, indeed. I get really excited when I have an idea, a crazy idea, and I try it and it works. These cookies have a lovely hint of orange to them which I enjoy but if you don't you could always take it out. I saw this Gingerbread Ale from Bison Brewery and thought it would be fun to bake with, and drink of course. The ale on it's own I'm not a huge fan of but I would drink it. In the cookie it doesn't impart much of a flavor so you could also try this recipe with a stout probably or a different ale. I'm not really sure how a stout would change the texture though, I will have to experiment sometime. This is a really nice dough to work with, not to thick or thin, a little sticky, which can be helpful. I still added the typical gingerbread spices because I didn't think the beer could do it on it's own. I used Penzey's spices in these cookies as well as in the Gingerbread Toffee from a post a few days ago. If you're brave then you could leave out the spices and see what fun flavor you get. Oh! or you could leave out the spices then roll them in a cinnamon sugar mixture...that would be fun!

Gingerbread Ale Cookies

• 2 bottles (12 ounces each) Gingerbread beer
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 medium orange, zested
• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon ginger
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• ¼ - ½ cup granulated sugar (for rolling)

Directions

1. Put the beer, molasses and honey into a medium saucepan and reduce over medium heat until you have about 1/3 cup of liquid. If any foam appears skim it off the top. Be careful of the mixture overflowing, it will  happen very quickly, if it does happen. You will know you have hit 1/3 of a cup of liquid as the liquid will suddenly begin to aggressively foam due to the high concentration of sugar (This looks different from foaming due to carbon dioxide, the bubbles are much larger with the sugar foaming). Let this reduction cool to room temperature.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg and blend thoroughly. Then add the orange zest, orange juice and beer reduction and blend again. Mix the flour, baking soda, and spices together then slowly add to the beer mixture.
4. Fill a small bowl with the rolling sugar. Using a uniform scoop, scoop mounds of cookies into the bowl of sugar and roll until coated. (I used a #40 scoop which is about 1 ½ tablespoons). Place cookies onto an aluminum cookie sheet lined with parchment or a Silpat. Make sure you do not overcrowd the cookies; you should be able to fit about 12 cookies on a half sheet pan. Bake for 12-16 minutes. (Mine baked for 12 minutes).
5.  Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet until they are cool enough (about 10 minutes) to transfer to    wire racks to cool completely.

Recipe adapted from Food Network

Harvest Spice Cheesecake

So you remember the Pumpkin Spice Syrup we made a few weeks ago? Did you use it all in coffee drinks? With that delicious syrup I decided we could do other fun things with it, like cheesecake :) This isn't so much a pumpkin spice cheesecake because it only has a hint of the spice in it and a hint of the pumpkin flavor in it, so it's a harvest spice. The inside is super creamy and smooth as long as you mix the filling long enough to make sure to get all of the lumps of cream cheese out. I'm also a big fan of smaller portions and making less of the available portions so I'm not looking at a giant 10" cheesecake that keeps calling my name over and over...yum.

Harvest Spice Cheesecake

Ingredients:
1 1/2 sheets of cinnamon graham crackers, 6 small rectangles
2 packages cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 cup pumpkin spice syrup
2 eggs

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 375F. Spray 6 6-ounce ramekins lightly with cooking spray, or grease with butter.
2. Break the graham cracker sheets into 6 individual squares, break up each square into one of 6 ramekins.

 3. Beat cream cheese, sugar, and flour together in a stand mixer until combined well. Beat in the pumpkin spice syrup until mixture is smooth, then beat in eggs until mixture is smooth.
4. Pour mixture into ramekins dividing evenly. Place ramekins into a 9"x13" pan. Carefully fill pan with boiling or almost boiling water to half way up the side of the ramekins. Place pan in oven. Alternatively, you can put the pan in the oven with the ramekins in it, then add the hot water so there is less moving the pan.
5. Bake about 30 minutes or until the not set part in the middle of the cheesecake is no larger than the size of a dime. The cheesecakes will continue baking and setting after being removed from the oven. Remove from oven and move to a rack to cool. Once cool, chill in refrigerator for several hours.