Welcome to the Bon Appétit Bake Club, a thriving, nationwide community of curious bakers, culinary enthusiasts, and dessert lovers who gather virtually each month to explore the science and craft of home baking. Spearheaded by senior Test Kitchen editors Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic, the club’s mission is to demystify complex techniques, share must-make seasonal recipes, and dive deep into the culinary mechanics of why certain ingredients and methods work so well together. Members of the community are encouraged to bake, learn, ask questions, share photographs of their culinary triumphs, listen to the accompanying podcast, and connect directly with fellow bakers through the Bake Club group chat hosted on Substack.
As the autumn air turns crisp and the seasonal rhythms of fall settle in, the culinary conversation naturally turns to one of the year’s most beloved traditions: apple picking. For millions of families, the quintessential autumn weekend involves driving out to a local orchard, wandering through rows of heavy fruit trees, and topping off the afternoon by standing in a long, winding line for a bag of piping hot, freshly fried cider doughnuts. That unmistakable sensory experience—the faint chill in the air, the heavy scent of frying dough and cinnamon sugar, and the comforting warmth of a paper bag cradling grease-spotted sweets—captures the very essence of the season.
This month, the Test Kitchen editors have designed a brand-new recipe explicitly intended to recreate that nostalgic orchard experience right in a home kitchen, entirely eliminating the need to wait for yeast to rise or plan a weekend road trip. Capturing the complex profile of a traditional cider doughnut requires hitting specific notes: an apple-sweetened dough, a delicate hint of satisfying grease, and a sharp jolt of sugar and spice. To achieve this without the lengthy fermentation times typically associated with yeast-raised doughs, Szewczyk and Uskokovic turned to a clever combination of ricotta cheese and baking powder.
Drawing inspiration from certain traditional Central and Eastern European pastry doughs, the inclusion of fresh ricotta delivers an extraordinary level of tenderness and a rich, moist crumb, while baking powder provides the necessary lift as the dough hits the hot oil. By cleverly combining the best structural elements of a classic cake doughnut—known for its wonderfully crumbly and fluffy interior—with the generous, fruit-forward profile of a state-fair fritter packed with big, juicy chunks of fruit, the resulting pastry tastes remarkably like a freshly fried apple pie. In fact, shaping and frying these chubby little sweets in your own kitchen may actually prove to be significantly quicker than packing the car and driving out to a crowded orchard on a busy Sunday afternoon.
Central to achieving that deeply authentic, robust autumn flavor is a deliberate pre-cooking technique for the fruit. Rather than tossing raw apples directly into the batter, where they might remain too firm or release excess moisture and destabilize the dough, the recipe calls for cooking the apples in a generous amount of butter and sugar before they ever meet the batter. This crucial preliminary step accomplishes two distinct and vital effects simultaneously. First, the fruit is allowed to become luxuriously tender, melting softly into the pastry rather than offering an unwanted crunch. Second, the sugar undergoes a natural caramelization process as it heats with the butter and apple juices, introducing a deep, full-bodied, complex flavor profile that mirrors the rich taste of a classic, long-baked apple pie.
For home bakers looking to expand their autumn repertoire beyond this month’s featured Bake Club project, the Bon Appétit culinary team curates a continuous rotation of seasonal baking inspiration featuring the harvest’s favorite fruit. Among the standout recipes recommended by the Test Kitchen editors are the comforting Caramel Apple Snacking Cake, the wonderfully moist and Buttery German Apple Cake, and the visually striking and richly flavored Apple-Walnut Upside-Down Cake. Each of these recipes builds upon the same foundational appreciation for seasonal produce, offering community members endless opportunities to experiment, learn, and share their kitchen creations with fellow bakers around the world.
