Holey Moley: Hard Cider Donut Holes with Kerrygold Chocolate Sauce

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!

   

 

 

Not Your Mama’s Apple Crisp

not your mamas apple crisp

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?

   

 

The Easiest Bread You’ll Ever Make

angryorchardbread

The Blind Pig Apple Festival continues with one of the easiest recipes we have posted on TBP:  Angry Orchard Bread.  This bread recipe, which only requires 3 main ingredients,  will have you feeling guilty for the minimum effort and big reward to your taste buds.  Yes, we said three ingredients!!!

Rhonda had a beer bread recipe for years that was super easy.  One day when we were brainstorming ideas for the blog, we thought, “What if we substitute hard cider for beer in our recipe?”  We tried it and lo and behold a star was born.  You don’t need to take just our word for it.  Our harshest and most severe critic, Blind Piglet #2, loved this recipe, so we know we have a crowd pleaser.

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Here’s what you need.  Self-rising enriched flour, a bottle of your favorite hard cider (ours is Angry Orchard), and sugar.  We also enhanced the recipe with some chopped apples covered in cinnamon and sugar.

The most difficult part of the recipe is that your hard cider needs to be warm or room temperature.  Ours was nice and cold from sitting in the refrigerator, so we had to place it out in the sun for about an hour.  (Hopefully you won’t need to do that part.)

Place the flour and sugar in a bowl.  Add hard cider and stir.  Place in a bread pan.  Top with chopped apples covered in cinnamon and sugar.  Bake for 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees.  Out comes cinnamony, apple goodness!

If you are viewing this post in your email, visit our website www.theblindpig.blog to get the complete recipe.

Angry Orchard Bread: The Easiest Bread You'll Ever Make

Is your weekend as soggy and wet at ours is in Dallas, Texas?  If so, it is the perfect time for making a little something, something in the oven!  Are you ready to try out Angry Orchard Bread?  What are you waiting for?