4 Levels of Doughnuts: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi I'm Shane and I'm a level one chef I'm Anthony and I'm a level two chef hi I'm Tracy from the Institute of Culinary Education and I'm a level three chef what I love about Donuts is that everybody likes Donuts when people come over if they're gonna enjoy it I guarantee it my favorite thing about these Donuts is that first bite oh good your eyes roll back in your head it is incredible what I love about Donuts is they can be an appetizer your entree or a dessert all right I'm gonna get started on my batter I have my all-purpose flour I'm gonna put this in first I'm gonna begin by adding my high gluten flour the point of this is that you want a nice even soft consistency the next step is to use the whole wheat flour the two different types of flours just give it more flavor or instant rice yeast the yeast will help the donuts rise they'll get caught in the dough and I'll start expanding and that's what makes the donuts go whoo all right next my baking powder salt in there sugar as well nutmeg know I'm whisking this all together you want to make sure you don't get any big pockets of salt if we add liquid and we didn't mix up the dry stuff you could have clumps of salt which sounds gonna bite into probably wouldn't be in a doughnut it goes No and the vanilla we're gonna mix this on low for just a minute or two we're using a fresh east today because it has more flavor than just a regular East like a dry or an into East and you want to crumble it up so what kind of hydrates and becomes this liquid before we add it to our dough just mix it I'm gonna whisk together my use to my water and I'm gonna add it to my eggs for my liquids and now we're gonna turn it off and just add our whites to our dries now it's time to add our eggs I'm gonna throw my butter in one down time for number two one for third and last but not least grab the butter take a little clump at a time and work it in what this butter is gonna do is gonna give structure to your batter it's also gonna give your batter a lot of richness and flavor next I'm gonna put in my milk my yogurt my egg and my vanilla move the mixture around until everything is evenly distributed we're gonna bring this up to about us medium speed for about six to eight minutes and we're gonna let it sit at room temperature for the first bulk ferment which is gonna give our dough some flavor we're just putting flour down so it doesn't really make a mess and gets stuck to our work surface I'm gonna flour my hands as well so it doesn't stick to me and then we can't do anything and I'm just gonna pull one side fold it over on itself like a letter for the young people out there those were early days emails so we're just gonna wrap this up we will don't want our Jo to dry out now we're gonna let this rest for about 45 minutes so we're gonna let this proof for an hour during which the yeast will start to activate and start chewing those sugars and you'll see this bad boy start to rise and then we'll let it chill in the fridge overnight all right looks like our dough is done resting we're gonna release the gaps from our dough so we kind of just want to push it down and then we are going to wrap it right back up I'm put in the fridge overnight all right my batters ready you want to make sure that you don't ride up too high on the edges you also want to make sure that you don't get anything on that center pin or they won't look like doughnuts so now our dough has sat overnight I'm gonna just lightly flour my bench and we're looking to roll this about 1/2 inch so because I'm looking to keep the bottom of my donut hole I'm just gonna take my round cutter and essentially mark it because I'm gonna poke it out after I fry it you know I don't know who first pulled a doughnut but I'm very thankful that that person did I think that's something to do how it cooks a little bit more surface area means that you can get a crispy outside and a more tender inside I don't fill these all the way up to the top because when you bake them they're gonna rise and you don't want them to overflow the pan make sure you leave enough room for them to grow because you don't want them to knock into each other as they will rise again alright my batter is all in the pan we're gonna let these rest for about an hour and a half alright we've got our six donuts and our six holes we're gonna let these sit at room temperature for about an hour I'm gonna be filling my donut with a lemon curd so I'm gonna have one egg yolk and then I'm gonna have three whole eggs and I'm gonna whisk that together with some sugar so I have some fresh-squeezed lemon juice and I'm gonna add my eggs and my sugar into that and we're gonna set this on top and let it cook until it thickens and you want to make sure you're whisking continuously as you do this because your eggs will curdle if you don't so now that this has thickened we are going to remove it from the heat and we are gonna add our butter in and we are gonna use a hand blender it's an emulsifier lemon curd we're gonna put this in the fridge for about two hours and then we're gonna use it to fill our doughnut I like to bake my Donuts because you get a soft tender crumb and it's a lot less messy than other methods also it's a lot less greasy than frying so at least you can pretend that it's healthier the proper donut is fried there's no way around it cake or yeast it should be frightened now I'm gonna bake this for 10 minutes at 350 degrees I like frying as my method because it's an incredibly efficient way to cook donut I look for these little dimples that are on the dough that's why I can usually tell they're ready so I like to do usually just a few at a time and I drop them in and I give them a little flip we'll start with three we don't want to overcrowd the pan because if we do that then they might stick together and then they won't cook touching touching I'm looking for these to be a nice golden brown so once they're nice and golden brown we can give them a flip that indicates that it's been well fried I like to shove them around a little bit to help mix up that oil I don't think you have to do that it's just kind of fun this guy needs a little longer I don't want to overcook them I want them to get stale and hard I want that oil just to drip down into the pan instead of straight onto my table what are you thinking no the canola oil brings a nice neutral flavor which means it doesn't relie add much flavor just the fries so we have a nice golden brown and most importantly we have a proper ring around our doughnut all right my doughnuts are onto the oven there you've got some nice little golden brown sections that's definitely what you're looking for all right and these are done frying all right let's get these bad boys into some sugar and cinnamon now time to make my glaze in front of me I have sugar and absent milk the consistency of this should be quite thick I choose cinnamon sugar because it's a classic pairing a little bit of the sweet from the sugar and then like that flavor kick from the cinnamon goes well with a fried flavor of the doughnuts I'm gonna let my doughnut sit for a little while longer to get cool because when I put the glaze on top I don't want it to run off the donuts I'm gonna make a toasted meringue that's gonna go on top of my donut I'm gonna take my egg whites and I'm gonna whisk these with sugar and we're gonna set this over a double boiler we need to cook this until the egg whites reach about 160 fahrenheit so my egg whites are nice and frothy and they are warm and they're gonna whip up cool down and become stiff I'm just gonna add a little bit of vanilla extract just for a little more flavor and some sweetness now I'm gonna put the ring in this piping bag all right time to assemble our doughnuts I'm going to put my doughnuts on this cooling tray I'm going to spoon the glaze on top of the doughnuts maybe a half spoonful at any one time and it is okay of course if some drips over you have a quick swirl to make sure that they're nice and evenly coated I like to shake off the excess as well I want to be able to have the entire doughnut feeling like it's sticky sweet and gross now the first thing I need to do is cut out my centers I don't want to go all the way at the bottom because I want a little nest for my lemon curd to sit in and I don't want to go all the way to the top now I'm going around with my Swiss meringue I'd like to toast my meringue because it's not only gifts flavor it also gets to mention with our color this is a standard patricide which is a flaky pie crust I took my scraps from a standard type of making pie I rolled them out really thin and then I put some fresh lemon sugar on top the last thing I'm gonna do before we finish our donuts is add some fresh lemon zest just to really bring out that lemon flavor and these are my doughnuts and these are my doughnuts these are my lemon meringue pie doughnuts [Music] it's gonna try really good moist sweet but not too sweet people think you can't possibly make generous at home but you can clean up as simple and it doesn't take much time there's nothing quite like having a donut that has come fresh out of fryer and straight into the sugar and then straight into your face my favorite parts definitely the pie crust it's something really unique in a donut and I think texture is really important when you have a soft dessert like a donut let's see how each of our chefs made their doughnuts Shane made a cake style donut which relied on baking powder a chemical leavener to raise this batter as opposed to use baking powder is double-acting which means it produces carbon dioxide at room temperature when moisture is added and then again when the batter is heated through the baking process releasing carbon dioxide twice as a safety net for ensuring leavening especially if you forget to preheat an oven or your oil the structure of Shane's doughnuts came from the combination of all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour which is low in protein and contains the bran the germ and endosperm of the wheat kernel Anthony and Tracy made yeast-raised doughnuts which were much lighter than Shane's cake doughnuts baking yeast creates and releases carbon dioxide through a slow biochemical reaction that occurs as it ferments sugar and starches in the dough this ensures a light pillowy dough texture Anthony used an instant yeast for instant rice yeast which is quick-acting and can be added directly to dry ingredients it's been commercially dried becoming porous and soaks up water very quickly which is why you don't need to hydrate it prior to mixing tracy used fresh her Donuts sometimes called cake yeast it comes in small compressed blocks and is very high in moisture about 70 percent it is minimally processed and develops more complex flavors than the instant yeast that Anthony used she also used a high gluten flour which contains more glutenin and gliadin which are the two proteins that when needed together with water form gluten gluten traps the carbon dioxide from the east fermentation and creates a lighter fluffier donut after 45 minutes of proofing Tracy's dough doubled in size she punched it down and lightly kneaded it allowing the yeast be redistributed fermenting all of the available sugars and producing additional carbon dioxide after they finished proofing Anthony and Tracy both needed to shape their Donuts shape however was able to just pour his batter into a special donut pan this molded the batter into standard doughnut rings and ensured the interior of his batter would be heated he baked his doughnuts for 10 minutes much like you would a cupcake mayor drowning and carmelization also happened imparting sweet roasted notes to his doughnuts both anthony and tracy fried their doughnuts canola oil is genetically modified and has a high smoke point it's a neutral oil so it didn't impart any additional flavors beautiful three of our chefs cooked their doughnuts at a similar temperature but all conducts heat much faster than air so while anthony and tracy only needed to fry their doughnuts for a minute or two shane required a longer baking time Shane made a simple glaze by heating confectioner sugar with milk it sounds almost too simple but trust me it tastes really great with heat the sugar dissolves quickly creating a translucent sweet glaze Anthony made a classic donut coating from crystallized sucrose or table sugar and cinnamon this mixture adds a satisfying crunch and a warming sweetness to his Donuts it's taking every bit of self-control I may not eat these red as a chemical Tracy made a complex and delicious variation on a lemon meringue pie with her toppings the lemon curd that she made from fresh lemon juice eggs and butter added a lemony sour note from the naturally occurring citric and malic acids in lemon she also made Swiss meringue which was done by whipping egg whites with sugar over heat making them white and fluffy she toasted the meringue with a propane torch adding caramel color and a very slight thin crunch finally she added some flaky pie crust to tie together all of the toppings donuts are a delicious treat whether they're simple or more complicated next time you're making donuts I hope you'll consider some of these tips

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 2,165,613

Rating: 4.9199862 out of 5

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Id: quyj70RogxI

Length: 13min 8sec (788 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 26 2019