Welcome to Bon Appétit Bake Club, a community of curious bakers. Each month senior Test Kitchen editors Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic share a must-make recipe and dive deep on why it works. Come bake and learn with us—ask questions, share pics, listen to our podcast, and lots more here. And don’t forget to join the Bake Club Group chat over on Substack.
Is it even fall if you haven’t been apple picking? And have you even been apple picking if you didn’t end the day lining up for piping hot cider doughnuts? This recipe is designed to recreate that experience—apple-sweetened dough, a hint of grease, a jolt of sugar and spice—without having to wait for yeast to rise. Ricotta and baking powder deliver tenderness and lift, as with some Central and Eastern European pastry doughs. We then borrowed the best bits from a cake doughnut (crumbly, fluffy insides) and a state-fair fritter (big, juicy chunks of fruit) for a treat that tastes like fried apple pie. Making these chubby little sweets may be even quicker than a drive to the orchard.
Cooking the apples in plenty of butter and sugar before adding them to the batter has a twofold effect: The fruit becomes luxuriously tender, and the sugar caramelizes, introducing deep, full-bodied apple-pie-like flavor.
Find more great apple recipes here: Caramel Apple Snacking Cake; Buttery German Apple Cake; and Apple-Walnut Upside-Down Cake.
