Apple Cider Doughnuts
Tender cake doughnuts flavored with apple, buttermilk, cinnamon and nutmeg, fried in two minutes and tossed in cinnamon sugar, the fall orchard and cider-mill classic made at home.
Cider doughnuts feel colonial, but Yankee magazine's senior food editor Amy Traverso traced them to midcentury Manhattan: in 1951 The New York Times reported that the Doughnut Corporation of America was launching a "Sweet Cider Doughnut", "a spicy round cake that is expected to have a natural fall appeal" (Yankee/New England Today, August 24, 2026:). Doughnuts and cider had long been served together at Halloween; the company's idea was putting the cider in the batter. Traverso allows that some home cook probably did it first, but says the publicity went to the company. Seven decades later the doughnut is an orchard and cider-mill ritual across New England, from Vermont's Cold Hollow Cider Mill to Massachusetts farms, and Traverso reports that New Hampshire fourth-graders drafted a bill this year to make it their state's official doughnut.
🇺🇸 This one is American
Tender cake doughnuts flavored with apple, buttermilk, cinnamon and nutmeg, fried in two minutes and tossed in cinnamon sugar, the fall orchard and cider-mill classic made at home.
🇳🇱 The original
The ancestor is Dutch: oliebollen, balls of yeast dough studded with currants and raisins, fried in oil and dusted with powdered sugar, which settlers brought to New Amsterdam as olykoeks. See the Dutch Oliebollen (New Year's Eve Doughnuts) recipe.
📖 Myth check: Is the Apple Cider Doughnut an Old New England Tradition? → 📖 Origin story: Why Do Doughnuts Have Holes? The Sea Captain Story, Checked →
Why it works the kitchen science
Concentrate, not cider
Plain cider is too thin to taste through the dough without boiling it down; thawed concentrate adds real apple flavor and tartness straight from the can (ATK).
Buttermilk and two leaveners
The acid in buttermilk activates the baking soda for extra lift, and a slightly stiffer dough means no long chill before cutting (ATK).
Step by step
- Step 1
Whisk the cinnamon-sugar ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Step 2
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a bowl. In a large bowl, whisk the apple juice concentrate, sugar, buttermilk, melted butter and egg. Whisk in half the flour mixture until smooth, then fold in the rest with a spatula until no dry flour remains.
- Step 3
Flour the counter heavily, turn out the dough, flour the top and pat it into a round 1/3 inch thick and 10 to 11 inches across. Cut 9 or 10 rounds with a floured 3-inch cutter and the centers with a 1-inch cutter. Press the scraps together, pat them out again and cut 2 or 3 more, for 12 of each. Set them on a floured sheet and refrigerate while the oil heats.
- Step 4
Heat 1 1/2 inches of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high to 350°F. Fry 6 rounds about 2 minutes, flipping every 30 seconds, until deep golden brown, keeping the oil between 325°F and 350°F. Drain on a paper-towel-lined rack.
- Step 5
Return the oil to 350°F and fry the remaining rounds, then all the holes, about 2 minutes, stirring often.
- Step 6
Toss the warm doughnuts and holes lightly in the cinnamon sugar and serve.
Apple Cider Doughnuts
Serves 12 (one doughnut and one hole each) · 12 doughnuts and 12 doughnut holes · 1 hr 30 min total
Cinnamon sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
Doughnuts
- 2 1/2 cups (354 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp table salt
- 1/2 cup thawed frozen apple juice concentrate
- 1/3 cup (66 g) sugar
- 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 large egg
Frying
- 2 quarts vegetable oil
Method
- Whisk the cinnamon-sugar ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a bowl. In a large bowl, whisk the apple juice concentrate, sugar, buttermilk, melted butter and egg. Whisk in half the flour mixture until smooth, then fold in the rest with a spatula until no dry flour remains.
- Flour the counter heavily, turn out the dough, flour the top and pat it into a round 1/3 inch thick and 10 to 11 inches across. Cut 9 or 10 rounds with a floured 3-inch cutter and the centers with a 1-inch cutter. Press the scraps together, pat them out again and cut 2 or 3 more, for 12 of each. Set them on a floured sheet and refrigerate while the oil heats.
- Heat 1 1/2 inches of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high to 350°F. Fry 6 rounds about 2 minutes, flipping every 30 seconds, until deep golden brown, keeping the oil between 325°F and 350°F. Drain on a paper-towel-lined rack.
- Return the oil to 350°F and fry the remaining rounds, then all the holes, about 2 minutes, stirring often.
- Toss the warm doughnuts and holes lightly in the cinnamon sugar and serve.
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen (Cook's Country), "Apple Cider Doughnuts" by Alli Berkey (August 5, 2019), as written for 12 doughnuts and 12 holes. ATK uses thawed frozen apple juice concentrate instead of cider for a stronger apple flavor; Tips gives King Arthur's boiled-cider route. The clinging sugar and absorbed oil are our estimates. America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (2)
Tips
- Orchard route: King Arthur flavors its cider doughnuts with boiled cider, apple cider simmered down until it is as thick as molasses; swap 1/4 cup of it for 1/4 cup of the concentrate if you have it.
- Keep the dough cold and use plenty of flour when cutting; it is soft (ATK).
- Toss them while warm so the cinnamon sugar sticks.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Cider doughnuts are a colonial New England recipe. Disputed: Paste Magazine ties American doughnuts to colonists frying dough with harvest apples, but Yankee's Amy Traverso traces the cider doughnut to a 1951 Doughnut Corporation of America launch in Manhattan.
- A real cider doughnut must use cider. Disputed: orchards use their own cider; ATK found concentrate tastes more of apple.
- Cider doughnuts are New England's own. Folklore: they are an orchard tradition across New England and New York, but the launch Traverso found was in Manhattan.
- They should be eaten warm at the orchard with cider. Folklore, and good advice.
Every other doughnut
Dutch Oliebollen (New Year's Eve Doughnuts)
Scoops of soft yeast batter studded with raisins and currants, fried round and golden and buried in powdered sugar, the Dutch New Year's Eve treat and a cousin of the olykoeks the Dutch made in old New York.
German Berliner (Jam-Filled Krapfen)
Soft balls of butter-and-egg yeast dough fried with their pale "collar", rolled in sugar and piped full of jam: the German jelly doughnut, called Berliner, Pfannkuchen, Krapfen or Kreppel depending on where you buy it.
Polish Pączki (Fat Thursday Doughnuts)
Extra-rich jelly doughnuts made with egg yolks, butter and vanilla, fried deep mahogany, tossed in powdered sugar and filled with plum, rose petal or raspberry jam for Fat Thursday.
Israeli Sufganiyot (Hanukkah Jelly Doughnuts)
Small yeast doughnuts scented with cinnamon, fried hot and fast for Hanukkah, filled with a spoonful of berry or plum preserves and rolled in sugar, from Joan Nathan's 1979 holiday cookbook.
Portuguese Malasadas (and Hawaii's Malasada Day)
Hole-less yeast doughnuts made with bread flour, milk and eggs, patted into disks, fried golden and tossed in sugar while hot: the Portuguese Shrove Tuesday treat that became Hawaii's Malasada Day.
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Big, cloud-soft Italian doughnuts made from a folded yeast dough, fried slow and pale gold, filled with lemon-and-vanilla pastry cream and dusted with powdered sugar, the way Tuscan bakeries and beach carts sell them.
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Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Doughnuts
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Baked Weeknight Doughnuts (Cinnamon Sugar)
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