Holey Moley: Hard Cider Donut Holes with Kerrygold Chocolate Sauce

November 2, 2018November 1, 2018 / theblindpig11 / Leave a comment

hard cider donut holes

How was your Halloween? Did you try one of the Six Great Drinks for Fall this week? Our final post for our Apple Fest series is an easy recipe for making Hard Cider Donut Holes. We know you are thinking that donuts seem like a lot of work and really hard to make. We thought that at first. Rhonda remembers making homemade donuts with her mom when she was a youngin’, but she hasn’t made them in years. Craig? Well… if you know Craig he’s eaten plenty of donuts in his life, but never made any. After reading this post, you will see how easy it is to make your own donuts. By the way, these donuts are not for breakfast. No way. These donuts are drizzled in a delectable chocolate sauce, to be served as a dessert!

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To get started you will need 1 bottle of hard cider. (We used Angry Orchard Rose’ for this recipe.) You need all-purpose flour, wheat flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cardamon, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, eggs, melted butter, and oil for deep fat frying.

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Bring cider to a boil in a saucepan and cook over high heat for about 12 minutes.

Whisk together flours, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and spices. In a separate bowl whisk eggs, melted butter and cooler cider. Stir into dry ingredients until moistened. Beware the dough is very sticky at this point, but the spices make it smell so yummy. Cover and refrigerate for about an hour.

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Divide the dough in half. On a floured surface, pat the dough into 1/2 inch thickness. Flour a donut hole cutter and cut holes.

In a iron skillet, heat oil to 325 degrees. Fry donuts a few at a time until golden brown. Ours only needed to cook for about 1-2 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels. Sift powdered sugar over the tops of donuts and continue to cool. Now wasn’t that easy?

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To make the donuts even more delectable, we decided to drizzle Kerrygold Chocolate Sauce over the top. Yummo!

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If you are viewing this post though your email, visit us at www.theblindpig.blog to view a full recipe.

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Hard cider donuts have a nice, spicy flavor and the chocolate sauce only adds to the overall yumminess. This recipe was a simple delicious hit in our house. Make them this weekend, and let us know what you think!

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Not Your Mama’s Apple Crisp

October 21, 2018October 21, 2018 / theblindpig11 / Leave a comment

Hey, good news. It finally stopped raining in Dallas! We have had more rain in the past two months than we sometimes receive in a whole year. It has rained almost everyday for 8 weeks, and this weekend we get to finally see the sun. Alleluia!

To commemorate sunshine, fun and the kind of fall weather that we wish we could have, we are continuing our Apple Festival with a great apple crisp recipe: Not Your Mama’s Apple Crisp (sorry Ruth). Apple crisp is so great, because it is easy to make. In fact, Rhonda has been making apple crisp since the good old days of 4-H cooking class. It is one of those recipes that makes us feel at home. Of course, this time we twist it up a bit with a little Blind Pig magic.

For this recipe, we use our favorite caramel sauce recipe that we introduced in our Zaya Bananas Foster. Empty the contents of a jar of caramel sauce into a 10 inch saute’ pan and place over medium heat. Add a pinch of cinnamon, butter, orange liqueur and rum. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer the sauce a few minutes. Remove from heat and cool.

Next mix old fashioned oats, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut in slices of softened butter until crumbly.

Press half of the mixture in a 13 x 9 inch baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Spread a layer of thinly sliced apples.

Drizzle the apples with caramel sauce, and then sprinkle again with a layer of oat mixture. We continued with three layers. Drizzle 1/2 cup of Angry Orchard Apple Cider over the top.

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Drizzle with 1/2 cup of hard cider, and bake an additional 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Apple crisp tastes best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream over the top. What doesn’t????? If you want to be extra indulgent, drizzle more caramel sauce over the ice cream.

If you are viewing this post in an email, be sure to visit our site at www.theblingpig.blog for a printable recipe.

This dish is hands down a winning recipe on a cool fall evening! This recipe is large and makes enough for about 12 people. It’s the perfect dessert to bring to a friend’s house when invited over for a cozy fall evening. Maybe you should try it tonight?

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Autumn Salad with Hard Cider Dressing

October 6, 2018October 6, 2018 / theblindpig11 / 1 Comment

autumn salad

When you think of fall you think of definitive sights, smells and flavors. Maybe you think of colorful leaves falling on your lawn. Perhaps you think of the fresh smell of cooler morning air or piles of burning leaves. We think of the distinct flavors of pumpkins and apples.

We are back this week with a great fall salad that will have your mouth enjoying a bountiful harvest. Our salad is made with hard cider dressing, which goes well with the flavors of the season. We occasionally like to drink a hard cider. It has a crisp refreshing taste that you can’t get with a beer or a glass of wine. Our favorite hard cider is Angry Orchard, so we used Angry Orchard in our dressing recipe.

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We served our salad with a nice pork chop that Craig cooked on the grill, but this salad can also stand its own with a hearty steak or with grilled strips of chicken.

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To make this salad we used mixed greens as the base. We sprinkled chopped apples, chopped pears, dried cranberries, and pumpkin seeds over the top with a few thinly sliced onions. We topped the salad off with our special blended hard cider dressing made of olive oil, dry mustard, brown sugar, hard apple cider, salt and pepper.

If you are viewing this post in your email, visit our website for a complete printable version of the recipe.

This salad is easy to make and easy to eat. Try it this weekend with your favorite fall grilled meat and let us know what you think! We are going to make a few Rojos and sit by our chiminea this weekend. What will you be doing?