Adventures in Doughnutland.
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« May 2019 | Main | July 2019 »
A little inspiration from Mel Robbins on this gorgeous summer Sunday.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I am currently smitten with large, classic slice sized, pizzas. As luck would have it, our friend Andris, the creator of the Baking Steel recently released a 16 inch round baking steel. My fascination with large pizza happened to coincide with his need to make the tools available for large pies in a home kitchen. He sent us one to begin bringing my fascination to fruition. I know what I want my large pizza to be. Unfortunately translating the idea from my head to my mouth will take more time than I had planned. (I am still not patient.) Our first runs of large pies were good. The crust was crisp with too much chew. But I realized that the ingredients that top the pie are as important as the pie itself. The longer cooking time meant toppings can and will dry out. I did not plan on that. So our first pie, plain cheese, was sub-par. The second, with ham and cheese, was moister and better. By improving the toppings I highlighted the flaws in the dough. Thankfully, even with mistakes, we are dealing with pizza.
Years Past
June 29, 2010
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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chocolate yeasted, cruller, vanilla yeasted
sourdough, spiral, not quite vegan
new fashioned apple cider, potato, angel
not pictured: supercake
We produce 10 different doughnut doughs daily. Nine are pictured. The cuttings and leftovers allow us to produce nine spare parts doughnuts, eight of them are pictured. The variety allows me to harness my crazy. It allows me, on any given day, to have the doughnut I am in the mood for.
angel pillow, cider stick, potato twist
cluster, thumbprint
doughnut bread pudding, beignets, marble
not pictured: sourdough bar
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Last year we adopted stainless steel straws for drinks at home. Amaya loves a straw and we love eliminating some of our plastic waste. Unfortunately they are hard to clean well and I'm always wondering what's lurking inside that narrow metal tube that I just can't see. Then we found these wide, rainbow colored stainless steel straws on Amazon. I still can't see down inside them but they came with a nifty little brush and they are wide enough that I can actually scrub around inside them. Small improvements make everything a little bit better.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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It's not funny, it's apple syrup.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Observing the process of the reverse sear has me wondering if low temperature cooking could be improved by using low temperature dry heat. The low temperature oven allows the meat to cook slowly and the exterior to dry. The dried exterior, a pellicle, sears quickly and evenly. It dawned on me that the greatest improvement to low temperature cooking might be removing the moisture, rather than confining it.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Bread
Cheese
Fat
Three ingredients with a limitless upside. There is no right nor wrong. But there are as many opinions on the proper arrangement of the ingredients as there are ways to combine them.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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It's officially summer. That means we are busy transforming iconic summer inspirations into doughnuts. This week we coated our potato twists with lemon glaze and strawberry crumbs.
(Potato chips washed down with strawberry lemonade.)
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I like doughnut fusion. From our initial successes with the marble doughnut and into the doughnut clusters we have seen that doughnuts have the ability to bond together and to other ingredients. Our Tiger Crunch was created because we knew we could stick cornflakes to a doughnut. I have tried sticking other ingredients to the outside of our doughnuts but have not been enamored with any of the results, besides the cornflakes. Today we started to entertain my newest fascination, phyllo crusting. Years ago we crusted artichokes with smoked phyllo dough. In our current playground I started crusting the doughnuts with ribbons of phyllo and topping them with our honeycomb crumbs. The doughnut and its crust will continue to evolve.
Years Pasts
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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The blend of habanero peppers and yellow mustard is a flavor base I would not have originally considered. After having "Lottie's" in our kitchen I can't figure out how we had gone so long without it.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Proximity leads to breakthroughs.
Years Past
June 19, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Too often I dither about the perfect way to cook and feature a seasonal ingredient. The inspiration comes from action.
Years Past
June 18, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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If the most delicious parts are the ones that are either cut, trimmed or discarded perhaps we need to change our approach.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We salted the steak 24 hours in advance and let it air dry on a rack in the refrigerator.
We cooked the steak on a wire rack in a 200° oven until it reached 110°F.
We let the steak rest for longer than you think, an hour this time around.
We seared the rested steak in sunflower seed oil in a cast iron pan turning it often.
We let the steak rest for 10 minutes on the cutting board before carving it.
How was it?
Tender, flavorful, juicy and delicious.
Totally worth the effort involved.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We roll our potato dough into a rectangle. We cut it into 1 inch wide pieces. We cut each piece 7/8 down the middle. From here we can fold the dough over itself and create the classic twist. This process appears simple. It is. But it took us too long to finally get here. I even went so far as to buy a twist cutter before we got to where we are today.
Years Past
June 15, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Our sake strozapreti take time to cook. They took a good 13 minutes in this shape. To me that was too long. I need to roll the dough thinner to shorten the cooking time. But when they were cooked they had a fragrant aroma and delicious chew. I dressed them with salted butter and black pepper. The combination of the three was delicious. So delicious that I didn't even miss the cheese.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Today we put our doughnut poprocks into play. The poprocks have a toasted doughnut flavor, reminiscent of nilla wafers. Cynthia connected the dots and said we should do a banana cream pie style doughnut. We coated our cluster doughnuts with our Banana-Yuzu glaze and sprinkled the doughnut poprocks on top. The doughnut coating adds flavor and protects the candy from crackling until you bite into the doughnut. The doughnut delivers a smile with the first bite and is crushworthy to the last.
Years Past
June 13, 2008
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Sake Strozapreti
450 grams durum flour
6 grams salt
230 grams sake
Put the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Pour the sake into the flour and use your fingers to disperse the water and bring the flour into a crumbly mass. Keep working it with your fingers, squeezing the flour into a rough and shaggy ball. Fold the mass onto itself, beginning to knead the dough. It will feel both dry and moist. Keep kneading the dough until it forms a ball and all of the flour is absorbed. Put the ball on the counter and continue to push, pull, and rotate the dough. It will resemble a rough semi-smooth pasta dough. Put the pasta dough into a vacuum bag and seal on high pressure.
When the dough is vacuum sealed it becomes fully hydrated and ready to roll.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I coated blank poprocks with our doughnut magic shell. The magic shell coats the rocks and keeps moisture at bay. This is both a doughnut and frozen custard topping.
Years Past
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I have spent a fair amount of time tinkering with the trimmings from our Angel Doughnuts. The babka was delicious but frying it destroyed our oil. We started rolling the trimmings into large squares, then rolling them around cannoli tubes and frying them. They were named "Holey Rollers," thanks to a bit of help on Instagram. The second day we fried them one roller came unwound and fried flat. I glazed it and topped it with crumbs and brought it to Aki. I explained what our process was. She loved the un-roller and asked why we didn't just fry them as squares and be done. I did not have a clever response. The next time we were making the Holey Rollers I decided to try Aki's idea. The Angel dough puffed into giant pillows. We glazed them and topped them with a secondary fruit glaze and doughnut crumbs. The giant angel dough pillows were incredible. They were also insanely delicious. The simplest solution is often the smartest. So holey rollers are on hold and Angel Pillows are in the rotation.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Today we started serving our sourdough bars. To make them we fold and then roll the trimmings from the sourdough doughnuts into a wide strip. We cut the strip into bars. We are still working on the bar sizing. Today they were small so in doughnutland 2 bars equaled a doughnut. We topped them with maplecomb crumbs and chocolate chip shortbread, allowing guests to mix and match flavors.
Years Past
June 9, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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A year ago we introduced the Earl Grey Glazed Doughnut. When I was tasting the glaze the other day it reminded me of Fruity Pebbles. We recently brought strawberry crumbs back into the rotation. The two pieces clicked. The strawberry would amplify the fruity cereal notes of the Earl Grey. Today we unleashed the not Fruity Pebble doughnut into the world.
Years Past
June 8, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Chocolate chip shortbread took on a life of its own in the digital culinary landscape. I became intrigued by the idea because it became part of the food worlds pop culture. We made our chocolate chip shortbread by combining pulverized masa shortbread with 1/3 the amount of ground dark chocolate. The crumbs have an intense toasty, nutty chocolatey flavor. They are crunchy and decadent. They are destined for doughnuts.
Years Past
June 7, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I have been looking for a corn-centric topping for doughnutland. We have made a popcorn glaze and a corn chip and white chocolate crumble. Both were exciting, delicious and fun in the moment. But they didn't stick. I'm not sure if it was convincing customers that corn belongs on a doughnut or that the actual audience was too small. In reflection I wonder if we could have improved the delivery. Today we adapted Aki's home version to make masa shortbread. The masa is nutty, toasty and corny. As a shortbread it is delicious. At first I thought we should add more masa to the recipe because in doughnutland we make our toppings with a combination of white chocolate and crumbs. But then it occurred to me. We don't have to make every crumb with white chocolate. Pulverized masa shortbread is the simplest answer and most flavor forward. The answer is to eliminate the white chocolate for this topping. The shortbread stands on its own.
Years Past
June 6, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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We have not made sourdough waffles in years. How many years? Since we wrote our first book. But with sourdough on my mind and abundant in the kitchen it was worth revisiting. We modified our original recipe utilizing the feeding method Ken Forkish outlines in his book The Elements of Pizza. The point was not the adaptation. The point is if you are making sourdough, sourdough waffles should be in your arsenal.
Years Past
June 5, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I was certainly overzealous with the toppings. The dough held up to my heavy handed approach. The bottoms and sides were crispy. The interior was light and fluffy. The tops were, as I noted and can be seen, over the top.
Years Past
June 4, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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I opted to use our 100% hydrated pizza dough as the framework for a sourdough square pie. I have been using the feeding model for sourdough that is outlined in of Ken Forkish's brilliant book, The Elements Pizza. I doubled our pizza recipe, mostly, cutting the water by 100 grams. I added 500 grams of sourdough base to the dough. I hand mixed the dough and let it rise throughout the day, folding occasionally. I shaped the dough 4 hours before cooking and let it rise to fill the pans. I baked the dough on a baking steel for 10 minutes and raised it off the steel for 5 minutes. I topped the par-baked pizzas and finished them under the broiler for 5 minutes. My achilles heel is too many toppings. I was overly generous on these pizzas. They did not deflate. They dough with its delicate network of bubbles supported my toppings. The pizzas were delicious, messy and over the top. The sourdough added character to the dough and enhanced the pizza experience. Now I need to show some restraint as we tinker through the variations in search of dough nirvana.
Years Past
June 3, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pizza and Pasta
Waffles and Pancakes
Batter for Frying
Cakes and Pastry
Crepes and Popovers
...
Years Past
June 2, 2008
June 2, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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It has taken me too many years to appreciate and begin to understand the skewer. It has allowed us to increase surface area, create bite size pieces, decrease cooking time and allow for more flavor coverage. We should have been skewering for years. Thankfully we are open to daily learning and realizing that what we don't know is a vast playground for ideas.
Years Past
June 1, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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