Test Kitchen Thursday - Apple Cider Spice Doughnuts

Before starting this post I have to tell you that after being near tears (well maybe not tears - but very frustrated) with this recipe yesterday I almost scrapped it.  But I remembered when I started this blog I promised to show the flops and failures right along with the successes.  I may be a perfectionist but I am far from perfect!

You can find the recipe at Our Best Bites. Let me point out first - they taste amazing!  But here is how mine looked:

More like apple fritters (or just a big mess) than donuts.  Sigh.  Next time I'm going to remember I have the oddball looking contraption from grandma that dad tells me is for donut dough and try that instead because I obviously cannot cut donuts.  Seriously follow the link above to the original recipe for the cutest donuts you have ever seen!

The boys enjoyed drinking the leftover apple cider - yummy!  Grant's first time with cup and straw (no lid) made mommy a bit nervous though.

As always my boys are always willing to help.  In fact, this has become a new Wednesday afternoon scheduled activity that they look forward too.  They help mommy with a new recipe right after lunch and before nap time.  If all goes well there is a little pre-nap treat :)

So, after pulling them out of the freezer I was able to cut them and they looked really good.

 But, they would not pull off the clear wrap and ended up like this:

So, I just divided the dough and put lumps in the hot oil to make these:

I am not sure - maybe I needed to leave them in the freezer longer, or maybe I should have lightly greased the plastic wrap before putting the dough on.  Not sure - we'll chalk this one up to operator malfunction.  The boys sure liked them - in fact they ate their pieces so fast I didn't even get a picture!

Enjoy!