Welcome to sweater weather
What are your autumnal traditions?
Welcome fellow knitters, book lovers and makers. There are lots of new folks here this week, and I’m so happy to meet you—and to welcome back those of you who are my regular readers!
Today is the third weekend of October, autumn perfection and ideal leaf-peeping time in many parts of the country.
In years past, I would be at the New York Sheep and Wool festival, affectionately known by knitters as Rhinebeck. I used to have simple feelings about Rhinebeck: it was part of my celebration of fall and a place to see friends who I might only see once a year. It was a place to show off and see beautiful knitting.
The pandemic prompted me to take a pause from this annual trip to think about how, or even if, this particular kind of celebration fits into the “me” who is emerging. I’m not sure it does, at least, not in the way it used to. As beautiful and special as Rhinebeck has been for me, it’s also become a bit of a fetish in the knitting world, full of exclusivity and privilege, alongside the heart-filled stories of connection and community. It is both simple and complicated.
And so, this Sunday, while some knitters are gathering at Rhinebeck, I hope that you—like me—will simply be celebrating autumn and all the delights that this season has to offer us, no matter where we are.
I hope you have something with apples: pie, cider, donuts, or a crisp juicy Honeycrisp. I hope you have pumpkins in your life: a ready-to-carve jack o’ lantern on your doorstep, a few tiny pumpkins on the fireplace mantle, or even a slice of pumpkin pie. I hope you have wool and lovely, easy, soothing stitches on your needles.
Today, I’m sharing a recipe for making your own apple cider donuts at home. I developed the recipe for the release of the Bandit cardigan booklet I published in 2020 with designer Jacqueline Cieslak’s gorgeous Bandit sweater patterns (adult and child). (Be sure to read all the way to the end for a little surprise.)
I love the apple cider donuts at Rhinebeck. Warm from the fryer, crumbling in my hands, full of apple goodness and smelling of cinnamon sugar, these cider donuts mean so much more than a donut. They are the smell of friendship, connection, and the crisp, brief and glorious fall season.
Learning to make cider donuts at home is one way to enjoy the season.
You don’t need a deep fryer or even a donut pan. With some fresh apple cider, ingredients that are likely already in your pantry, and a mini-muffin tin, you’re about an hour away from warm, crumbly cider donut holes.
There are a few tricks in here: concentrate the apple cider to boost the flavor and add some Greek yogurt to make them extra moist.
Apple Cider Donuts at home
Recipe adapted from The New York Times and Smitten Kitchen
Makes 24 doughnut holes ~1 hour
INGREDIENTS
1 cup apple cider
2 cups flour (plus a bit for dusting)
1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
3⁄4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1⁄2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1⁄4 cup granulated sugar
3⁄4 light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1⁄2 cup Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Spray vegetable oil
TOPPING
1⁄2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, melted
STEP 1: CONCENTRATE THE CIDER
In a saucepan over medium-low heat, simmer the apple cider until it has reduced to about 1⁄4 cup. This concentrates the apple flavor and really adds to the final flavor. Set it aside and let it cool to room temperature.
STEP 2: MAKE THE BATTER
Whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set them aside.
Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Then, add the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl as necessary. Gradually add the reduced apple cider, vanilla extract, yogurt, and lemon juice, mixing until smooth.
Add the flour mixture and continue to mix just until the dough comes together. It will be very wet and shaggy.
STEP 3: FIRM UP THE DOUGH
Put a sheet of wax or parchment paper on a cutting board, sprinkle a generous amount of flour on it, and then turn the dough onto the board. Flatten it with your hands or a spatula until it’s roughly a rectangle size “pad” about 1⁄2 thick. Sprinkle extra flour onto the dough if it’s still sticky. Cover the cutting board with wax or parchment paper; the exact type of covering isn’t important, just something to keep it covered and that won’t stick to the dough. Put the whole thing, board and all, into the freezer until it’s a bit firmed up, about 20 minutes.
STEP 4: ROLL & BAKE
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a mini-muffin pan with vegetable oil.
Take the dough out of the freezer and cut it into 2 inch squares. The dough is likely still sticky, which is normal. Dusting your hands with flour if you need to, roll each square into a ball and place it inside a well of the mini-muffin tin.
Bake for 14-15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time. The donut holes are ready when they’re golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
STEP 5: PREPARE THE TOPPING
While the donut holes are baking, whisk together the sugar and cinnamon for the topping. Melt the butter.
Let the baked donut holes cool
for about 5 minutes, then liberally brush the tops with the melted butter and dredge them in the cinnamon sugar mixture while still warm.
Eat immediately.
Designer Jacqueline Cieslak is offering a 25% discount on all her patterns on Ravelry and Payhip during Rhinebeck weekend (use code rhinebeck-dreams), and I thought it would be lovely to offer the same discount on the printed Bandit booklet. It’s a gorgeous 48-page booklet full of essays, both sweater patterns (plus download codes for Ravelry or Payhip), tiny illustrations by me, and more. This little booklet is a perfect addition to your knitting book(let) library, and the cardigan pattern is my absolute go-to baby gift.
It’s usually $22, and will be $16.50 in your cart, no code needed, all day today, Sunday, October 16.
Buy the Bandit printed booklet
When autumn feels like coming home
What is your favorite season? Why?
Autumn is the season for me. I feel myself start to come alive when the air turns crisp, the skies are blue, and the leaves start to turn amazing shades of yellow, gold, and red. It’s the beginning of cozy season, and it’s full of the glorious flavors of home: apples and pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
It’s also a bit melancholy, a last burst of brilliant life before the quietness of winter. Autumn reminds me of home and of how precious it is to be here, now, for it is a glorious old world.
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are without being questioned.”
—poet Maya Angelou (1951-2014)
I know I say this every week, but seriously, I love seeing how my writing lands for you. It absolutely makes my Sunday. If you’re enjoying my newsletter, please leave me a ❤️ below, tell me about your own autumnal traditions (or why you love a different season), or share this letter with a friend. All of these things support my creative work.
Thank you for your Rhinebeck comments. I’ve not been, so my sense of it is definitely from an outsider’s view. But your word "fetish" rang true for me given all the publicity it gets from people who do plan to attend. I continue to detect a desire and plan for great yarn/fiber consumerism as well, having heard the stories of running to a particular vendor's booth before they sell out, and of skeins of yarn being snatched out of someone's hands before they can complete their purchase.
That there are gatherings where yarn and fiber producers get to have a huge in-person audience for their wares, where fiber users get to meet new friends in person and gather with old friends, where the whole chain of yarn and fiber production can be demonstrated to folks who may have no clue where their skeins come from, where skills are passed on - I think is totally wonderful. I'm going to a much smaller fiber festival myself in a few days, for all those reasons.
I wish that the scarcity mentality - both the "I've got to get ____ before everyone else gets all of it," and the "I have to go to ____because it's the most holy fiber place in the universe and I shall be incomplete if I don't go," could be recognized and considered much as you are doing…by asking "Does this fit with the me I want to be, with the me that is emerging?"
Thanks for giving me a context for examining my own unease about the fiber festival world and about what the festival world communicates of what is an unsustainable paradigm of scarcity and consumption. Thanks for the cider donut hole recipe,too! Yum.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, pears and hazelnuts are the queen of fall. I get huge bags to eat raw and cook with. If you have access to Gravenstein apples, they make my very, very favorite homemade applesauce. And it's easy, which is great because I don't have much energy. Right now is Holiday and Valentine's small gift production time. So, knitting...knitting is my fall tradition!