Oh, great pumpkin, you served us well. You were robust, sincere, and comforting during those dreary days of rain. Your final curtain call in the Wake & Bake kitchen elicited a standing ovation, no doubt. But as we tipped our witchy hats to all Hallow’s Eve and welcome November, it’s time for us to worship a new deity: apples--or more specifically, the aromatic elixir that is apple cider.
We may not live among the fertile orchards of the Northeast, believe me, I know the adulterated cider in the aisles of the grocery store aren’t going to be the purest potions for our magic, but hey, we’re a scrappy bunch. We work with what we’ve got! Life gives us lemons, we make lemon bars. In any case, this recipe is SO mouthwatering, you won’t care about its true origins. Trust me.
A FULL (CIDER) HOUSE (and this isn’t even all the Spiderbabes who showed up to help out and eat donuts with us!)
The day began with a busy, buzzing kitchen filled with LOTS of guests! Bellied up to the long kitchen table, we had friends stamping, writing, cutting, and snacking to prepare for some really special projects happening in the spiderweb. As Caitlin whipped up a vegetarian hash and rolled out dough for a big ol’ batch of those devilish pumpkin cinnamon rolls (which you may remember fondly from our Pumpkin Pastry Party) to feed our troops, they starting putting together the *most* thoughtful care packages to show our Patreon supporters some love and update everyone on what we’ve been up to. Zines were folded, recipe cards were written out by hand, and the smell of brown butter began to permeate.
Our Apple Cider Donuts cooling next to the Brown Butter Ricotta Cookies we made for our Patreons.
Synchronized with all of this zippy activity, we started gathering up our mise en place, which is basically the French culinary term for: getting your shit together. With apple cider mimosas in hand (that’s just champagne mixed with apple cider, don’t worry about it...it’s totally a thing) we assembled and measured everything we needed to start on this week’s treat: Apple Cider DONUTS.
I really adore recipes like this, because they take minimal effort and they’re hard to screw up. Plus, these are baked in the oven using a donut pan, so you don’t even have to heat up a bunch of oil for frying. Not only that! But this recipe can easily be converted into mini muffins, bundt cakes, etc. if you don’t have an actual donut pan (which we did not! lol) We made the cutest little mini bundt cakes using the same methods and just increased our bake time by a few minutes to ensure they were cooked all the way through.
Pro tip: Most cakes are done in the middle when they reach a temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Thank you <3
Tucked nicely into our little mini bundt pan, our donuts went in the oven and we started working hard to churn out 4 dozen cookies for our lovely Patreon supporters. As a Patreon you’re our VIP guest at all Spiderweb showcases, first dibs and free access our workshops, copies of zines, and sometimes even snail mail full of love delivered to your mailbox, in this particular case including fresh baked goods from us here in the W&B kitchen! If you’re not yet a member of Spiderweb Salon’s Patreon or if you’re interested in learning more about it, we think it’s worth checking out!
A busy Spiderweb day at HQ II.
Once our donuts were fully baked, we flipped them upside down (which is my all time favorite part of baking with bundt pans) and out popped the CUTEST little things I’d ever seen. Not trying to discourage you from using a traditional donut pan, but if you want to take them to adorable new heights, play around with bundt pans. They’re so ornate and playful. To finish off our donuts, we dipped those suckers in melted butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon + sugar, adorning them with little candy coated crowns...and for just a mere moment, we found ourselves looking on the bright cider of life. <3
