I absolutely love this time of year! The crisp chill in the air and leaves turning every shade of golden. Apples and pumpkins are at their prime and ready for picking. Now that we live in Florida…. most days are sunny, bright and about 85 degrees. Warm skies and palm trees do not make for a typical fall. Don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining about beautiful weather. After spending several years in Illinois, I certainly do not miss the zero degree, grey-skied winters. But I do miss sweaters and tall boots… the smell of leaves burning in the distance and the feeling of Autumn.
Last fall, we took advantage of our northern locale and hit the local orchard for some apple picking fun. We came home with a bushel of fresh-from-the-tree apples and a box of freshly fried apple donuts. Oh my goodness! I’m not sure what was gone first. Okay, truth be told…. we enjoyed apples for weeks but the donuts were gone fast! This year, we can’t just gaunt over to the nearest apple orchard. So I was thrilled to see the large displays of Honeycrisp Apples at the market. Into my basket went many large, gorgeous apples with the intent of recreating those delicious apple donuts at home. So that’s what I have for you today! Baked and delicious. Soft and tender on the inside with a serious cinnamon crunch on the outside. Filled with cups of grated apple, cinnamon and nutmeg. My recipe for Fresh Apple Donuts!
After several variations of less apple, more apple, apple juice, applesauce, apple chunks… frying verses baking… I finally narrowed it down to this. A batter packed full of grated apple goodness with a serious cinnamon kick. I see it this way. If you’re going to the effort of making donuts at home, they should be noticeably different than something you can easily pick up at Dunkin.
My original plan for these donuts included a salted caramel glaze. Which I still think would be absolutely incredible. But somewhere along the way, I decided less was more. I wanted this to be a recipe that you could easily make for breakfast. Without waking up at 5am to get started. So the end result is a recipe simple enough for your kids to help. My two year old daughter assisted me from beginning to {almost} end. Once the first batch came out of the oven, she was more interested in sampling than baking up the remaining batches. But hey, can you blame her?
Funny thing about these apple donuts. I’m not about to call them healthy because the words donut and healthy just aren’t meant to be together. But, they are filled with a cup and a half of fresh apple (fiber and all) and unsweetened, natural apple sauce. And they’re baked not fried. So I guess if you stretch it… you might be able to say these are a little better than something you pick up at the store. Can I call them healthy? Probably not. Can I call them delicious? Absolutely!!
Baked Apple Donuts
Homemade apple donuts, packed with fresh apple and apple sauce. Coated with a crunchy cinnamon sugar. Baked and perfectly delicious!
- Yield: 22 - 24 donuts
- Category: ✽ ✽
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce, from jar
- 1 ½ cup fresh apple, peeled and grated
For the Coating:
- unsweetened applesauce OR melted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- dash of ground nutmeg, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- In another large bowl, stir together melted butter, eggs, sugar, buttermilk and applesauce. Stir in fresh apple.
- Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Stir with wooden spoon. Add another 1/3 of flour mixture and stir. Add remaining flour and stir just until combined.
- Spoon batter into a large ziplock bag. Seal and snip the corner off one end. Squeeze batter into the cavities of a donut pan sprayed with non-stick baking spray. Fill each cavity 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. To help donuts keep their pretty shape when baking, use a clean finger to gently even out the batter in each cavity and clean off the center knob of the pan. Bake at 375 for 12 to 14 minutes, until the tops of donuts spring back slightly when touched. Let cool 5 minutes before removing from pan.
- For the outside coating, combine sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. Using a pastry brush, cover each donut with a light coating of applesauce, or alternatively, dip quickly into melted butter. Then dip into cinnamon sugar and toss to coat. Let cool completely before eating, if possible. A second dip into the cinnamon sugar creates an extra crunchy coating. Best enjoyed the same day!
Package donuts in individual brown paper bags for a special treat at your next picnic or football tailgate. They’d be equally delicious served with a cup of hot coffee or a cold beer. Surprise the kids with apple donuts this Halloween! Or simply celebrate an ordinary Autumn morning at home with this fresh taste of fall. Perhaps I’ll try a salted caramel version in the future. But for now, I hope you enjoy these simply delicious Fresh Apple Donuts!
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:
Apple Crumb Cake
Apple Butter Cupcakes
Apple Pie Cupcakes
Apple Toffee Crunch Cake
Apple Pie Cake
Apple & Goat Cheese Cake
I made these into baked donut holes. Good but apple flavor is sadly mild.
I added a splash of vanilla 😉
★★★★★
I would love to try this recipe. I don’t have a donut maker and would like to purcase one, the kind that looks like a muffin tin or donut tin. How can I purchase one.
Georgeanne
I finally gave in an bought a donut pan and this was my first go at them! They were perfect! My kids devoured them, I sent some to work with my husband and everyone raved! Thank youuu!
★★★★★
Hi, What could I used to replace the eggs? Thank You.
Made the pumpkin donut holes today and dipped half of them in the apple cider glaze and some in the cinnamon sugar. They are delicious!
I made this recipe and substituted finely grated zucchini for the apple. I didn’t have a donut pan so I made muffins. I followed the tips about not overworking the flour into the batter. I baked the muffins for 12 minutes which was perfect (at least for my oven). Lightly golden brown, still moist and not overdone. The muffins had a mild flavor (which my husband prefers) and not overly sweet. I did brush butter on the tops followed with a dip in cinnamon & sugar. The recipe made 2 1/2 dozen muffins. Delicious!
★★★★
We just got these out of the oven…. WOW they are amazing!! So springy and full of flavor. Just delightful! Bookmarking this recipe to make again and again. Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
Can you freeze these?
I haven’t tried freezing them Ann but I don’t see why you couldn’t. However, they do taste best the first day. Just be sure seal them up well!
These were amazing…will hastag my pic on IG and share your website on FB beside my pictures!
★★★★★
I have never written a review before but these were soo good I had to. I made donut holes in a mini muffin pan for 10 min. They came out perfect. Super soft and airy. WAs not expecting this since I’ve made donuts in the oven before and they were more dense for sure. THANK YOU
★★★★★
Finally going through my saved recipes for donuts and sadly this one will get deleted. Easy to make but fell short on flavor. The donut plain really had no taste and once coated in the cinnamon/sugar mix…well that was all that was tasted.
★★
I make these donuts every fall – they’ve become a family tradition of sorts. Everyone loves them! Thank you!
★★★★★
I attempted this with my daughter tonight and it was an utter fail. 4 cups of flour is a lot for 1/2 cup of butter milk. We ended up with muffin batter so made muffins. As this failed i looked up another recipe and it only called for 11/2 cups of flour. Who is wrong here? I would like to try again but don’t want it so thick. HELP!!
Just made these yesterday, and the recipe is 100% a keeper! My husband and toddler LOVED them. I like how the apple flavor is so strong. Thank you!
★★★★★
Wow! Super easy and delish! I just chopped the apples finely instead of grating. Ended up with a little extra so just added a little more of everything. Used regular milk and extra butter instead of buttermilk. Also, threw in a couple scoops of vanilla protein powder, try to offset the sweet a little! Lol! I have a set of pans, one is donuts, one is muffin tops, both turned out excellent. Took your advice about eating them warm, and only made one pan of each and sealed up the batter for the next day. Thank you so much for the recipe.
★★★★★
The taste is really good but for some reason the top of the donuts came out really pale. Do you have any idea why this happened? I really like this recipe
OMG…..I just made these and they are fantastic. I did replace the 1 1/2 c of shredded apple with 1 extra cup of applesauce. They turned out great. Thanks so much…
The donuts turned out great, but I liked them better without the sugar and cinnamon at the end. It was way too sweet! This is a fine recipe but I will not be making it again.
★★★
We made this with gluten free flour and they turned out amazing! I was trying to make half the recipe, but mistakenly used the original 1/2 cup of buttermilk and they still turned out really nice and fluffy. We will definitely be making these again!
★★★★★