Cider doughnuts so good, they warrant a second posting

So in a fit of online self-congratulation for a near perfect execution of cider doughnuts yesterday morning, I promised our FB peeps that I’d finally break my long blog silence and post the recipe.

Later, as I was enjoying my second cup of coffee, and slowly recovering from the previous nights escapades in wine and ABBA (if that sounds fun, it is: but I caution you on mixing the two), I began to have an inkling of a memory of posting this recipe once before. Almost exactly a year, ago, in fact.

I wish I had remembered that I had already developed a cider doughnut recipe, when, 3 weeks ago, I started developing a cider doughnut recipe. You know what I’m saying? Anyhoo, this latest version is much like last year’s (nothing like re-inventing the wheel), with just a few little changes. The changes, I think, warrant this second posting. The resulting pastry is dark and crunchy on the outside, and soft, buttery and apple-y fragrant on the inside. But if you can’t find boiled cider (read a great article on boiled cider here), and don’t have any apple sauce on hand, the recipe from last year will stand in as an almost-as-delicious substitute.

Apple Cider Doughnuts, redux

1 cup sugar (I use organic evaporated cane juice)

2 eggs

1/2 cup boiled cider

3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

3-3/4 to 4 cups flour

Roughly 6 cups vegetable oil for frying (I use safflower oil)

About a cup of superfine sugar

Method:

With an electric beater, the paddle attachment of your stand mixer, or by hand, beat together 1 cup sugar and the eggs until the mixture is light in color.

In a medium size bowl (or a large measuring cup), mix together the boiled cider, apple sauce and the baking soda. Don’t let all that foaming and frothing worry you. That’s just the baking soda reacting to the acid in the apples. Beat this mixture into the sugar and eggs.

Next, stir in the melted butter, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and vanilla. Finally, add 3-3/4 cups of flour and mix just until the batter is combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

When you’re ready to fry the doughnuts, heat the oil in a large cast iron pot to 375 degrees. While the oil is heating, turn your chilled batter out onto a well-floured countertop and pat or roll the batter to about 1/2-inch thickness. Cut as many doughnuts as possible with a 2-inch doughnut cutter. Scrape the scraps together gently, re-roll and cut one more time.

When the oil has reached the correct temperature, fry the doughnuts, a few minutes on each side, until they turn a burnished golden brown. Remove them to a cookie sheet lined thickly with paper towels and allow to drain.

Mix about a cup of superfine sugar and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon in a paper lunch bag. Before the fried doughnuts are completely cool, toss a few at a time into the bag, and shake to coat.

Cider, pumpkins and the final week of the season

The last of the good stuff: Cafe cider doughnuts

It is not unusual for me to go all summer without eating a single morsel of my own baking.  But the last two weeks of the cafe season comes, and I’m like a bear getting ready for the starvation of hibernation: I totally pig out.

My latest weakness?  The fleeting decadence of New England cider doughnuts.  Theses babies are great consolation for having to keep the cafe open through Columbus Day weekend.  It’s painfully quiet around the island right now.  Our cafe workers have left for the season; Amy is off to New Zealand, and Sarena is has just begun her first year of college in Vermont.  The schooners have sailed into their home ports for the winter, and so have stopped their very welcome shore trips to the cafe.  The violent remnants of southern hurricanes, followed by the sudden drop in temperatures, have chased off day-trippers and would-be campers.  And the Sunday mailboat service has stopped for the season, making Sundays feel like, well, Sundays, minus the newspaper delivery.

All this adds up to a trickle of cafe business, leaving lots of time to plan the winter, catch up on my much ignored bookkeeping, bake-off apples and pumpkins for the seasonal batches of our Northern Apple and New England Pie Pumpkin truffles, and contemplate an entire counter  full of fresh pastries.  There are only so many tasks to keep me away from my own cooking, and since there is just one short week left of temptation, I have gleefully surrendered to the cider doughnuts.  Great with coffee and bill paying.

Cafe Cider Doughnuts

Ingredients for batter:

• 2 eggs
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 t. baking soda dissolved in 1 c. fresh apple cider
• 3 T. melted butter
• 1 T. vanilla extract
• 1 t. baking powder
• 4 c. flour
• 1/4 t. cinnamon
• 1/4 t. nutmeg
• Roughly 6 c. vegetable oil for frying (I use safflower)

Ingredients for glaze:

• 2 c. confectioner’s sugar
• 1/4 c. cider
• 1/2 t. vanilla

Method:

Beat together eggs and sugar until light.  Beat in the cider/soda, butter and vanilla.  Add baking powder, flour and spices all at once.  Place this loose batter in the refrigerator (or freezer if you’re in a hurry), bowl and all, until it firms up a bit.

Meanwhile, heat your oil  in a deep cast iron kettle.  Keep a close eye on the temperature.*  When it reaches 290 degrees, take out your batter and pat it out onto a well-floured board.  cut as many doughnuts as possible with a 2-inch doughnut cutter.  Check the temperature of your oil again, and when it reaches 375 degrees, start frying doughnuts in batches, flipping once.  Remove the doughnuts with tongs from the oil, and drain on paper towels.  The doughnuts should take only a few minutes to cook, but you might have to check one from your first batch to make sure it’s cooked completely through.  Make sure the oil returns to 375 degrees before you plop in the next batch of doughnuts.

Scrape together and re-pat (or roll)  and cut the dough once more.  After than, you may roll any remaining dough into ropes and form doughnuts that way.

While the doughnuts cool, make the glaze by stirring together all ingredients in a medium size bowl until completely smooth.

When doughnuts are cool enough to handle, dip one side into the bowl of glaze, and allow them to crystallize on a cooling rack.  Best served warm, but the other day, my neighbors gave me 3 lobsters from their day’s haul for the day-olds.   Hope you’re so lucky!

*Note: In deep frying, the right temperature makes the difference between the sickening and the sublime.  Do take the temperature of your oil.  For super accurate results (and more fun in the kitchen), I use an $80 refractometer (purchased from Chef Rubber), which gives me an instant surface temperature read on everything from oil to ganache to caramel.  Arguably, the best thing about this handy little tool, is the fact that you need never stir around a clunky candy thermometer again.  Oh no wait: the BEST thing about this tool is taking the surface temperature of everything in sight.  I’ve always said, there’s a little OCD in all of us.

Chiliquiles from Michele Levesque of El El Frijoles

El El Frijoles. Photo by Michael Rossney.

On the edge of a forest in Sargentville, Maine, right off Route 15, and about a 1/4 mile from the Eggemoggin Country Store, is a tiny Mexican restaurant called El El Frijoles. This place is the very best kind of California-style cantina–squashed into a classic Maine farmhouse barn, it creates a ironic kind of harmony perfectly suited to its quixotic owner/operators, Michael Rossney and Michele Levesque.

Michele is the magician in front of the stove at El El Frijoles, and whether she’s in the restaurant or next door in her home, Michele always seems to be cooking up something fabulous–and more than willing to share a plate with a friend.  Her recipe for Chiliquiles is a simple, hearty breakfast which, she claims, is perfect for those mornings when getting out of bed seems totally beyond one’s capacity.  Sounds like a great breakfast in bed to me!

Ingredients:

• 1 T. olive oil
• 4 (6-inch) corn tortillas torn into strips, or 24 tortilla chips (Michele says she prefers to use chips for “added crunch.”
• 5 eggs, lightly beaten with a T. of milk
• 3/4 c. favorite salsa  (If Michele doesn’t have any of her homemade salsas in the fridge, she always has a can of Herdez on hand.)
• 1/2 c. shredded Cheddar or Monterey jack cheese

Method:

Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat and fry the tortilla strips until lightly browned and crisp.

Add the eggs to the skillet, and cook, stirring, until eggs are scrambled and fluffy.  Stir in the salsa and the cheese.

Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with a wedge of avocado and a dollop of sour cream.

If you like your eggs spicy, Michele recommends Cholula hot sauce.

Serve the dish with some refried beans and a good, strong cup of coffee!

Baked Pancake with Berry Sauce and Melted Ice Cream from the Inn at Isle au Haut

On the east side of the island, there is a lovely inn run by my friend and culinary comrade, Diana Santospago. While Diana is much more than just her inn, the Inn at Isle au Haut is a perfect manifestation of Diana’s many talents.  Because there are no other restaurants on Isle au Haut, the inn offers three delicious, fresh, and beautifully presented meals every day, accompanied by some of the best shorefront scenery in the world.  So good, in fact, that the Inn at Isle au Haut was just listed by Yankee Magazine as one of Maine’s top ten “Dinners with a View.”

Here is Diana’s choice for Mother’s Day breakfast:

“Baked Pancake with Berry Sauce and Melted Ice Cream is my choice for a breakfast recipe for your blog for a couple reasons. First, it’s practically foolproof for kids(with Dad’s help of course)to make for Mom for that special breakfast in bed, and it’s totally yummy.

First make the sauce.

Berry Sauce

• 1-1/2 cups of fresh or frozen raspberries, blackberries, strawberries or blueberries or a combination of any or all. (If using fresh berries, mash half of them.)
• 1/3 cup sugar or honey
• zest of 1/2 a lemon

Combine the berries, sugar/honey and zest, tossing gently. Let sit at room temperature until the berries release their juice and the sugar is dissolved.

Meanwhile, scoop out about 1 cup of good quality vanilla ice cream and set aside to melt.

Baked Pancake

• 2 eggs
• 1 C. milk
• 3/4 C. all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt pinch of cinnamon
• 1 T. unsalted butter

Here’s where Dad comes in!

Preheat a cast iron skillet in a 425-degree oven. Beat the eggs. Add the milk, flour salt, and cinnamon and mix well. Add the butter to the skillet. When melted, pour in the egg mixture. Bake for 15 minutes then lower the heat to 325 degrees and bake until puffed and golden-about 6-8 minutes. Slide onto a serving platter, slice into wedges, spoon on the berry sauce and drizzle with the melted ice cream.”