i went to portland for 1.5 seconds this weekend! what a neat-o, beautiful place. i had only been to the pacific northwest once before, a very very long time ago for like the 1997 eugene bach festival or something, so my clearest reference point for what the pacific northwest looks like was actually that zach efron movie, charlie st. cloud. it is a very weird movie but it has a wildly hunky dark moody forest-y hilly scenery, and i got to experience that in person this weekend! i totally now get why my entire instagram feed is so in love with the p.n.w.

and it was the loveliest backdrop for the hello sessions, a new blog conference that i hope was the first of many because joy and melissa did such a great job with it! when i wasn't food styling and schmoozing with the hello sessioners, i was snooping around the pearl district, touching all of the cookbooks in the middle eastern section of powell's, eating tasty quiche, and searching for the perfect full body sweater. i found an ok one, it was just a little bit too wooly scratchy.

and then! on saturday night, i ventured out into oregon wine country for an amazing meal hosted by chelsey and maggie in the newspaper printing warehouse that's been in chelsey's family for four generations. it was so cool. and tasty (thanks to letumeat!) and local. i loved it.

now i am back on the farm, adjusting to post-harvest life and working on my hotdish skills.

how was your weekend?!

i have some big news i need to share: i've surrendered to baked donuts. for quite some time, i was on the fence about them: are they really donuts? or are they just donut shaped muffins? are they hiding something? or are they real, honest desserts?

my skepticism was more or less 100% brought on by the fact that i didn't yet own a donut pan, so even if i wanted to, i couldn't join in on the fun. but all of that has changed, thanks to the good people at king arthur flour. i'm a new woman. and i have found that the shape of a donut, the ratio of surface area to glaze, and the instagrammability (😂 sorry, i had to) indeed makes the experience of a baked donut different than that of a muffin. so to begin this new baked donut phase of my life, we have a classic soft apple cider donut that goes the non-traditional route of having a white glaze. nothing against the traditional cinnamon sugar coating, i just love the texture and sweetness of a glaze and its ability to keep the sprinkles on.

glazed apple cider donuts

makes 10-12

ingredients

1/2 c sugar

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tb apple pie spice

1 large egg

1/2 c whole milk

1/4 c flavorless oil, like canola

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 c boiled cider or thawed apple juice concentrate

glaze:

1 c powdered sugar mixed with 5 tb heavy cream

decorations:

sprinkles + cinnamon sugar

clues

preheat the oven to 375ºf. grease a 12-cavity donut pan and set it aside.

in a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. in a separate medium bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients. add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and stir to combine.

Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe the batter into the donut pans, filling each cavity halfway.

Bake for 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a donut comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Remove to a rack and cool completely.

To decorate the donuts, dip them halfway into the glaze and then allow excess glaze to drip off. Sprinkle the tops with sprinkles and/or cinnamon sugar and enjoy!

i used the following king arthur products in this recipe: boiled cider, all-purpose flour, apple pie spice, donut pans, vanilla extract, cinnamon vanilla sugar, caramel sugar, rainbow sugar, and perhaps the quirkiest sugar i ever did taste, butternut sugar! these are all ingredients that i would recommend and i am so excited to be partnering with them on this post and on some upcoming posts! thanks so much, king arthur!