Apple Cider Donuts

Um, yum. And um, ouch. And um, yum.

So, last week it was decided that I would take a small group of children from my class and bake/cook something with them. We looked through my new cookbooks and ended up settle on Apple Cider Donuts. We almost made cinnamon buns, but one girl was SURE she didn't like them. I don't blame her, I'm not a huge fan myself. But anyway- so this was out of my Quick Breads book that J&J&L got me for Christmas.

So today was the day to make the donuts (yesterday was shopping day- that was fun too, going to the grocery store with 6 4-year-olds). I let the kids help me chop apples (very carefully yes, and of course I had to finishing chopping everything they started because their idea of small pieces is like cutting the apple in half). I let them help me measure and pour and do some stirring, but pretty soon, the dough got to be quite a large amount, and they just don't have it in their skinny little arms to stir it then. So, I got another arm workout.

Eventually we got to this point:

(The girls were licking the bowl while I was flattening the dough and cutting out donut sized pieces.)

Then, I sent the girls to join their classmates while I did the dangerous hot oil part:

And finally, we have donuts:

I don't think I've ever tasted fried dough that wasn't delicious, but this stuff is EXTRA delicious. It's nice and heavy, and tastes like apples and cinnamon. I imagine it would be the PERFECT accompaniment to a hot cup of something in at least two of my previous home-countries where people are freezing these days. The whole thing made me think of autumn, which is funny because my sense of time and seasons and all that is SO out of whack what with the last 8 months of summer I've had. :)

I made 30 donuts, and we only need 20 (one half per student) to feed the kids, which means teachers get to have the leftovers. Between all the teachers and assistants that won't come out to more than 1 or 1.5 per teacher, but, dang, it will be good. :) So yeah, the "yum"- pretty self-explanatory- these things are good. The "ouch" though- I burnt my fingers on almost every donut as I was dipping them in the sugar/cinnamon mix- why is it that even as an adult, you just can't leave well enough alone, and wait until they are COOL to do it? Who knows. But over and over again, I burnt myself. :) So, yum, but ouch, but more importantly, yum. :)

Thanks again J&J&L!!!

Oh and by the way- bad news. We were supposed to go out of town this weekend because we have Monday off work, but Joel is not well. He tried to go back to work today and ended up chucking a couple of times. Turns out when you're laying on the couch all day, taking pills, sleeping, etc, you're ok. But when your body needs time to heal and you try to run around and do stuff, you end up feeling faint, chucking and coming home early anyway. So Joel has had to admit that he needs to take it easy, and we are not going to go this weekend after all. Hopefully someone can take our place on the trip, because it should be a good one!