We Tasted And Ranked 5 Store-Bought Apple Cider Donuts

With fall in full swing, many foodies around the country are prioritizing eating some of the incredible seasonal desserts that Autumn brings. When it comes to desserts, few seasonal items are more beloved than apple cider donuts. Often coated in icing and cinnamon sugar, and baked with real apple cider, these donuts transport you to a crisp fall day with every bite. While many choose to head to local bakeries to get theirs, or attempt to make their own apple cider donuts at home, there are also plenty of great versions available at your local grocery store for a more convenient pickup.

Not all store-bought apple cider donuts are created the same. To find out which products are the best, I tested five store-bought apple cider donuts that I found in local grocery stores near my home in New York City. Based on factors including taste, quality, and value, I ranked them all, ensuring you know where to go to find the best apple cider donuts this fall. Maybe you could even track down some good-quality store-bought apple cider to enjoy them with.

Since 1932, the New York-based grocery store chain D'Agostino has been providing delicious products at low prices to shoppers on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and beyond. This small grocery store chain was founded by the D'Agostino family after they left their home in Italy, looking to create a new life for themselves in New York City. Today, each store is known for its fresh meat section, assortment of popular brand-name items, and its incredible variety of baked goods.

In addition to their staple desserts, D'Agostino offers a great rotation of seasonal items, including its Apple Cider Donuts. For $5.99, the store offers six donuts, which are medium in size. My first impression when trying these donuts was that they had a strong cinnamon sugar taste, even though the coating was mostly absorbed into the donut. Despite looking appealing and moist, they tasted stale to me, and the flavors tasted less like apple cider and more like a plain donut with spices. While these donuts weren't bad, I could see customers being disappointed in them, as they failed to deliver a bold or noticeable apple cider flavor and tasted like they had been sitting around for too long. 

For over 100 years, Gristedes Supermarkets has been a landmark store of New York City, offering everything from fresh meats to produce to frozen foods to baked goods. Since opening their first store in 1888, Gristedes Supermarkets has expanded to have over 30 stores and has become a one-stop shop for delicious groceries in the New York City area. It was at Gristedes that I picked up some Maple Donuts brand Apple Cider Donuts, which cost $5.99 for a package of six.

My first impression was that the color of these donuts was quite dark, and each donut also came heavily glazed with a thick and sticky sugary coating. While I do love a glazed donut, I found myself missing any noticeable cinnamon sugar coating, and I felt that the sheer amount of glaze on these donuts overpowered the apple cider flavor. Another thing that I didn't love about these donuts was that they tasted dry and slightly stale, despite being covered in glaze.

CTown Supermarkets is one of my favorite chain grocery stores in New York City, as they offer a delicious variety of options for lower prices than many of their competitor stores in the city. Since opening in 1975, CTown Supermarkets has expanded to having more than 140 locations in the Metro-New York City area, with each store being independently owned and operated. I often browse the baked goods section at CTown, and it was here that I picked up a 7-ounce container of the Maple Donuts brand Apple Cider Donut Holes.

Donut holes have an interesting history, but what mattered most with these was that they were much more moist than the brand's regular donuts — something I was delighted to find. While they have a similar taste and flavor profile, the donut hole version also had a better amount of the icing glaze, helping to accent the apple cider flavor without overpowering it. While I still wish that these incorporated more spices into the recipe, I did very much enjoy the apple cider flavor of these donut holes and could absolutely see myself going back to buy another $5.99 package from CTown.

In 1983, Citarella first opened in Manhattan as a local seafood store, and since then, the business has expanded to become one of the city's most iconic and luxurious grocery store chains. With only seven storefronts open, Citarella has aligned itself with other boutique expensive grocery store chains like Erewhon Market, and become known for sourcing products of exceptional quality to stock its shelves. This mission of quality extends to the store's baked goods section, which features a variety of desserts prepared by local bakeries and brands.

I was excited to try the Jericho Cider Mill Apple Cider donuts, but was initially taken aback by the price, which was $10.99 for a package of five donuts. For being the most expensive item on this list, the size of each donut was quite small, and the texture was quite crumbly to the touch. Still, these donuts won me over in the end for the incredible apple cider flavor they packed into each bite. The apple cider used in these donuts comes from the Jericho Cider Mill, which creates its cider using only preservative-free New York State apples. Despite being so crumbly, the quality here is evident, and with such a delicious flavor, these donuts earned a place as my second-favorite product in this ranking.

Fairway Market brands itself as being "Like No Other Market," a slogan that I would have to agree with. As one of the largest grocery stores in my neighborhood, Fairway Markets comes full of a variety of products, from everyday staples to more unique branded items. The stores also offer a massive selection of fresh produce, premium meat and fish, and a delicious baked section which features fresh desserts from in-house bakeries.

It was at this bakery that I picked up a package of Fairway's Fresh Apple Cider Donuts, which come as a pack of six donuts for $5.99. At first glance, these apple cider donuts looked incredible, with a subtle half-dipped glaze on the top and lots of spices on the bottom. The rich amber-brown color of these donuts clued me into the kind of flavor I would be getting, as each bite tasted strongly of apple cider and cinnamon sugar. Despite being bought in a grocery store, you could easily pass these off as being made by a boutique bakery. For the taste, quality, and competitive price, the Fairway Market donuts were the clear winner of this ranking, and I'm already looking forward to getting my hands on the next package of them.

As a lover of food and an experienced food reviewer, I always make an effort to make my reviews as unbiased and as helpful as possible. I selected and purchased all of these products from grocery stores local to my home in New York City, and the prices given in this article are based on what I paid in-store on the day of purchase. While New York has plenty of good donut shops, I looked only in grocery stores for this list.

To ensure that the ranking in this article is fair and consistent, I purchased all of these donuts fresh and made sure to test them and make notes about their flavor and quality within 12 hours of picking them up from the individual stores. I tasted all of them at room temperature, and I compared them all to what I would consider to be the standard flavor of an apple cider donut. I then graded each on several factors, including quality, flavor, and value. This means I looked for a donut that encapsulated the taste of apple cider and cinnamon sugar while also looking at factors such as texture, moisture, and size. I also noted the price per donut as the final factor to help decide which store-bought donuts I think are the overall best to buy.