A look at how Edwards Orchard makes apple cider donuts

POPLAR GROVE, Ill. (WTVO) — It’s apple season, and what better way to celebrate than with an apple cider donut.

Andy Smith, 4th-generation owner of Edwards Orchard in Poplar Grove, said it’s so much fun making apple cider donuts.

“Oh, I absolutely love what I do. We get to make a fantastic product, we get to do it with people that we love, and we get to serve that to our community. It’s really great,” he said.

Smith showed us how the team makes the tasty donuts.

“What Jack is doing here is he’s mixing very special flour in precise measurements, and then, you know the magic, he’s adding our fresh-pressed apple cider to create this really fantastic dough,” he explained while walking us through their kitchen.

The dough is mixed at different intervals before moving on to the next step.

“He’s going to put that dough into one of our three donut machines,” he said. “The donut machine is set at a very precise temperature, going at a precise interval and the right speed to fry those donuts to perfection.”

It’s at this stage that the thousands of donuts they make a day start to take shape.

“Each of the donuts is fried at a very specific temperature for a specific amount of time to give the perfect crisp on the outside and that doughy texture on the inside,” he said.

“As soon as they come out of the fryer, they are sent down our cooling rack here, where every single one of our donuts will be hand-sugared by one of our fantastic donut ladies,” he explained. “One of the reasons I think the donuts are so special is because this is a recipe that my grandpa created 50-something years ago, and one that we’ve stuck to very, very closely. And we stick to that recipe because we feel it has the perfect texture and the perfect flavor, and I think the majority of our guests will agree that when they come to Edwards, getting one of our apple cider donuts is really something special.”

Smith said he’d like to honor the orchard’s past when looking to the future.

“We want to continue to share this with our community, share this with people we love, with the hopes that we’re able to make new memories and share old traditions with families all over the area,” he said.