These baked apple cider doughnuts are easy to make and packed with delicious apple flavor and warm autumn spices. The doughnut baking trays make it easy to make delicious mini donuts at home.

Miniature apple cider donuts next to a glass mug filled with fresh apple cider, with fall leaves scattered around the white wooden surface. Text overlay reads "Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts."

Apple cider doughnuts are a delicious fall treat in the apple-producing parts of the United States. No apple picking outing would feel complete without a stop at the cider mill for some freshly pressed apple cider and apple cider donuts.

Closeup of hands holding an apple cider doughnut and a small cup of freshly pressed apple cider in the autumn sunshine.

There is no more perfect, nostalgic fall food for me! I can't be bothered to deep fat fry things, generally, so this year, I decided to develop a recipe for making baked apple cider doughnuts.

Ingredients for apple cider donuts on a white wooden surface.

Heads-up, I forgot to put the egg in this photo of the ingredients! And if you'd like a one page, printable version of this recipe, scroll down to the bottom of the post. For step-by-step instructions, read on.

Baked Apple Cider Donut Recipe:

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (I always use freshly grated nutmeg--it makes a huge difference!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all purpose flour

Batter for apple cider donuts mixed with a wooden spoon in a glass mixing bowl.

How to Make Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts

Start by mixing all of the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients, and mix to combine into a wet batter. No mixer or special equipment or techniques required! I told you this was an easy recipe.

And yes, I am using applesauce (my homemade applesauce, in fact!) instead of apple cider as the liquid in the recipe. I find it adds a more robust apple flavor to the donuts. I do use apple cider to make the optional glaze, though!

Apple cider doughnut batter in a glass mixing bowl and in a disposable piping bag on a white wooden surface.

To make baked doughnuts, you'll need a doughnut pan. And though you can technically fill them using just a spoon, I found it much easier to put the doughnut batter in a disposable piping bag and pipe it into the cavities in the pan.

Batter for apple cider donuts being piped from a disposable piping bag into a doughnut baking tray.

I find this technique especially helpful when making mini donuts like these. The larger donut pans are a little easier to fill using a spoon, but I always grab my piping bag even if I'm making bigger doughnuts.

Baked apple cider donuts in donut pans.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 6-8 minutes, until a test skewer comes out of the donut clean.

Freshly baked apple cider doughnuts cooling on a white wooden surface.

My trays are non-stick, but this is a pretty moist recipe, so the donuts did stick a bit. It was pretty easy to remove them from the pan once cool, but you can also grease your pan before baking to make removal even easier.

You can roll the cooled doughnuts in cinnamon sugar at this point, but if you want even more apple flavor, make an apple cider glaze while your doughnuts are baking.

Ingredients for apple cider glaze on a white wooden surface.

Apple Cider Glaze for Apple Cider Donuts:

One cup of apple cider
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Apple cider reducing in a small saucepan.

Place one cup of apple cider in a small saucepan, and boil on high heat for several minutes to reduce the volume by about half. This concentrates the apple flavor amazingly.

Add half a cup of sugar to the reduced apple cider, and cook a further one minute. Stir constantly to make sure all of the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Freshly baked apple cider donuts dipped in apple cider glaze, and drying on a golden cooling rack.

Dip the top of your mini donuts in the apple cider glaze. These apple cider donuts are very moist already, so let the apple glaze soak in and dry for about an hour before rolling the doughnuts in cinnamon sugar.

Baked apple cider donut being dipped in cinnamon sugar.

If we were frying doughnuts, we'd have to toss them in cinnamon sugar while they were still blazing hot, straight out of the hot oil. For these baked doughnuts, it's better to do it when they're completely cool, so the moisture doesn't melt away the cinnamon sugar coating.

Overhead shot of four mini apple cider donuts on a wooden surface next to a glass mug full of apple cider. Colorful fall leaves are scattered around on the dark brown table surface.