I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I’m still laughing a terrible joke that the hubby made last Saturday night. We were out on a “date night,” which really meant we ran out to run errands without the kids. Sexy, right? We are one of those celebrity couples who get photographed holding a Starbucks coffee with sweatpants on and disheveled hair — we are JUST LIKE YOU.
Anyway, on Saturday night we pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall not far from our house. Right in front of us was a store called Micro Center. I’ve never been inside, but it’s a big box retailer that I think sells computer parts. The one near our house looks kind of like it was designed by Mike Brady, with flat green cedar planking and trapezoidal sloped roof lines akin to a 1960s split-level. As we got closer, the hubby, in perfect comedic timing, noticed the Micro Center right before I did.
“That store is WAY too big to be a Micro Center,” he deadpanned.
Okay, even as I’m writing this I’m giggling. I know that it’s not like, comedic genius or anything. I know this,but it tickles me so. That one line launched us into a whole back-and-forth about Zoolander’s Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and about how that Micro Center must have been built for giants, because no normal humans would consider it to be a micro-sized store. And ever since that night, I’ve had disproportionate, tiny sizing on the brain. This, of course, led me to make mini baked apple donuts with cider yogurt glaze as part of my continuing partnership with Chobani, who told me that they were looking for good tailgating recipes. What’s easier to eat than a donut for breakfast a morning tailgate? Why, a tiny donut, of course. An apple cider yogurt for dipping is also mandatory, because I feel like all fun tailgating foods should have a dip.
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My mini donut adventure started out like all of our adventures this fall seem to be — with a visit to another apple orchard. This time, we managed to wrangle the kids a little bit better and came back with a manageable 16 pounds of apples (as opposed to the first time, when we acted like apple-starved hooligans and lugged home a loot of over 35 pounds). I love this time of year — the weather is crisp, the apples are bountiful, and my kids can spend hours outdoors running around to their heart’s content.
Or, in the case of some, furtively sneaking in a bite of a freshly-picked apple.
Once we were home with our apple bounty, I started messing around in the kitchen trying to figure out a good flavor combination that would incorporate some freshly baked apples right into the batter and settled on some very light gingerbread spices to do the trick. You’ll need a specialty baking pan for mini donuts to make these guys, and they’re baked, not fried, so you can feel somewhat less guilty for eating them. Plus, you can eat more of these donuts because they’re tiny.
I love the Chobani yogurt cider glaze that goes with these donuts. Instead of using milk as the base for the glaze, I threw in an entire container of Chobani with some powdered sugar, molasses and apple cider. The result is a tangy sweet dip that’s perfect for coating the fluffy, cake-like mini-donuts. Think of it like having all the flavors of fall wrapped up into one miniature bite. Tiny bites of fall! Clappy hands!
One word of warning, though — don’t “pre-glaze” all of these donuts before you go to the big game. I did that to one of my batches, and the yogurt glaze soaked into my mini-donuts, creating kind of a gooey mess by the time they were eaten. This yogurt glaze is best served as a dip alongside the donuts. Dip, eat, repeat. That’s what you should tell your fellow fans so that you can preserve the cake-y goodness of the donuts.
Of course, you could forgo the game altogether and stand next to your stove eating these in batches of 12 as they come hot out of the oven. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the sexiest way to eat them, but it’ll guarantee that you get to savor them while they’re piping hot and so amazingly tasty.
Oh, heck. What do I know about sexy, anyway? I was at a Micro Center on a Saturday night.
Check out Chobani’s recipe section for more awesome tailgating recipes!
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baked apple donuts and cider yogurt glaze
Ingredients
- For the donuts:
- 1 cup flour
- 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- Pinch of ground cloves
- Pinch of ground allspice
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon molasses
- 1/4 cup Chobani Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (chopped plus one extra tablespoon of unsalted butter, melted)
- 1 small apple (peeled and cut into a fine dice)
- 2 cups hot water
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- For the apple cider yogurt glaze:
- 1 cup Chobani Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons apple cider
- 1 tablespoon molassses
Instructions
- Make the glaze: mix together all the ingredients in a nonreactive (i.e., glass or plastic) bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes and up to 1 day.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put apples (they must be finely diced, almost minced) in a small bowl. Add lemon juice and hot water so that the apples are fully covered and let set while you’re making the batter.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, salt and baking powder (i.e., all the dry ingredients). Using your fingers, work in the cold butter like you would for pie crust or pastry dough until the mixture is fully incorporated.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, yogurt and molasses until well-blended. Slowly and carefully fold in the milk mixture in with the flour mixture; be careful not to overmix.
- Spoon batter into a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and cut off a tiny 1/4″ corner to use it like a pastry bag.
- Drain the apples. Grease your mini-donut pan with the melted butter, then sprinkle a few apples (no more than a 1/2 teaspoon) into each donut cavity. Pipe the donut batter over the apples into the donut cavities so that the donut cavities are filled about 2/3rds of the way full. Be careful not to overfill, or you’ll end up with puffy muffin-donuts (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s just not a donut).
- Bake in the oven for approximately 7 minutes, then remove the donuts from the oven. Let cool slightly, then invert the pan on a wire rack to let the donuts cool completely. Serve with yogurt glaze.
