Cider Doughnuts, Part 1 - The Dough Also Rises

If you don’t live in a place with apple orchards dotting the landscape, chances are you, too, are deprived of cider doughnuts in the fall.

In late September when the leaves start to change in Colorado, I start to feel the full deprivation of life in an arid state — life bereft of cake doughnuts flavored with freshly-pressed cider (not apple juice!) and lovingly, abundantly coated in cinnamon sugar. <sigh>

There’s only one farm anywhere near me that sells cider doughnuts on Saturdays for a few hours, for maybe 5 weeks. And it’s an hour away. I mean, yes — maybe I have recently traveled to Michigan under the guise of attending a “family reunion” so that I could buy cider doughnuts — but it seems outrageous to drive an hour up I-25 on a Saturday when I’m not even sure whether the goods are legit.

All of these photos were taken by my cousin and bestie Stacy, of Michigan – land of cider doughnuts – who has the luxury of living less than twenty minutes away from Leaman’s Green Applebarn, a place that all of my relatives agree is The Gold Standard for cider and cider doughnuts and cider slushies. Leaman’s has a long history of growing the apples, making the cider and baking the doughnuts themselves, which of course warms the cockles of my heart. Stacy suffered to head over there and snap some photos for me – I really had to twist her arm. HA!