dear october.

please be good. be bright and shining. full of rich, colored leaves and cool weather. with a good dose of fairs, pumpkins, family time and halloween fun.

october is a strong contender for my favorite month. but we move into our new house next month & the new twilight movie comes out as well, so november kind of takes the cake there.

the house is suffering from the weekend and my to-do list keeps growing longer, but today hasn't been the best so instead of handling that i'm here with a yummy recipe!

because we can all agree that's more fun, right?

i declared that i needed to watch 'when harry met sally' and make apple cider donuts to make the weekend a good one. only one of those things happened but it still turned out really good. 

for those who asked, here's the recipe i used for the donuts. i made them as the recipe said but next time i will make them a bit thinner. some of them cooked too fast on the outside and were a bit doughy on the inside. 

 

ingredients

2 cups sugar

1 tbsp, plus 2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 cups apple cider

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 1/2 cups flour

4 tbsp butter, melted

2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk

6 cups vegetable oil, for frying (i just poured however much i thought i needed)

paper bag

1| line baking sheet with parchment. line a large plate with paper towels. in a paper bag, combine 1 cup sugar and 1 tbsp cinnamon; shake to mix well & set aside.

2| bring cider to a boil over medium heat. cook, stirring occasionally, under cider has reduced to 1/2 cup, about 20 minutes. let cool.

3| in a large bowl, whisk baking powder, salt, 1 cup flour and remaining sugar and cinnamon until well combined. in a small bowl, whisk butter, eggs, yolk and cooled cider until well combined. add cider mixture to flour mixture, whisk until smooth. add remaining 2 1/2 cups flour and mix until just combined. dough will be slightly stick, refrigerate 10 minutes.

4| pour oil into a large pot. heat oil over medium-high heat until it reaches 375, watching so it doesn't overheat. *i don't have a candy thermometer, i let mine heat up for about 5-10 minutes and then my awesome hubby handled the frying part!

5| turn dough out onto well-floured counter top and coat fingertips with flour. pat dough out to 1/2-inch thickness. using a donut cutter or 2 round cookie cutters (one large & one small), cut out donuts and holes. transfer both to lined baking sheet. gather scrap, re-pat dough and keep cutting out as many donuts as possible. *i only had a egg shaped cookie cutter so i used that and a bottle cap.

6| working in batches, carefully slide donuts into hot oil. after about 1 minute, donuts will rise to surface and begin to brown. at that point, turn over & fry 1 1/2 minutes longer. transfer to lined plate to drain. when donuts have cooled for 1 minute, add to bag with cinnamon

 & sugar and shake to coat. remove to a clean plate & serve!

yum! m loved these and lia won't stop asking to eat them. seriously, she has eaten more donuts than anything else the past 24 hours.

 

this week is full of play dates, doctor appointments, packing up more boxes, cleaning & prepping for a yard sale. hopefully my patience will return & we'll have an awesome week!