The Baker's Blog

Delicious Yeast-Raised and Cake Doughnuts– a Delicate Balancing Act

7-19-12

Doughnut production is a time-honored tradition – and the baker who can create fresh, light, and moist creations truly has a gift. It’s a delicate balancing act that requires perfect timing, patience and artistry.

But it has big payoffs. Doughnuts are back in a big way as consumers look to doughnuts as affordable, delicious comfort food. According to Information Resources Inc., fresh doughnut sales for the 52 weeks ending March 20, 2011 were $678,723,600.

Some are wondering – is the doughnut the new cupcake? Mom and pop shops are springing up all over, and while glazed and chocolate will always be favorites, bakers are trying out new and exciting flavors. For example, Miami-based Mandarin Gourmet Doughnut Shoppe offers Lemon Chamomile Crème Custard, Black Raspberry Tart Filled, and Guava and Cheese Filled Custard, among others. Blue Collar Joe’s out of Daleville, VA has a wide variety of off-beat doughnuts – everything from Chai Spice Cake to Blueberry Pancake Breakfast – complete with smoked bacon dust.

If you ask doughnut lovers, you will find that customers have pretty strong opinions when it comes to their favorite kind of doughnut – yeast or cake. The big difference is in the leavening technology – yeast doughnuts are made light and fluffy with (you guessed it)—yeast—and cake doughnuts require chemical leaveners to achieve their light and delicious bite.

Yeast-Raised Doughnuts

• Not all yeast is the same. Fleischmann’s Traditional Compressed Yeast is cultivated for optimal uniformity, activity and stability, as well as for consistent baking performance. It gives your doughnuts the required tolerance that they need to withstand the shaping and frying process, and it maintains activity for a minimum of three weeks.
• In a retail shop, your best proofing conditions are between 105° and 110°F and 45 to 55% relative humidity for bench cut doughnuts.
• How can you tell if your proofing is perfect? If you touch your proofed doughnut with your finger, you will leave a small indentation. If you don’t leave a mark, you need more proofing time. If you leave a large mark with your finger, the dough is over-proofed, and won’t hold its shape – either in the fryer or just after it comes out.

Cake Doughnuts

• Cake doughnuts are usually denser than yeast-raised doughnuts and are made from cake-like sweetened dough. Notably, they are leavened with baking powder as opposed to yeast – which adds to the dense bite and cake-like texture.
• Baker’s Best Double-Acting Baking Powder provides strong gassing power for optimal gas activity before your doughnuts head into the fryer and as the doughnuts are fried, which gives your doughnuts a light texture. Cake donuts are generally round, balled or sometimes stick-shaped with glaze or sugar coating.
• It’s important to know when to turn your cake doughnuts—the best time is when the leavening bubbles reach the surface of the unfried side.

While the debate continues – yeast vs. cake—the two types of donuts have a lot in common when it comes to quality doughnut production:

• Fat is king when it comes to all kinds of doughnuts, and a little tweaking can go a long way to creating a delicious product. At temperatures above 80°F, you need more solid fat – meaning that your fat can’t be too soft. If your fat is too soft, while your doughnuts may show less fat absorption, they may appear to be greasier, or have an outer oily film. To make matters worse, this film may eventually be absorbed by the additional fat in your coating, which can change the color of your doughnuts.
• While a little oiliness can be good – it can help your sugar stick to your doughnut –too much can mean disaster for your coatings.
• Keeping free fatty acids within the optimum range in your fat (0.4 to 0.5 percent) is important to your doughnut quality as well. Check for excessive free fatty acids by looking for a dark fat color, excessive foaming and smoking above your fat.
• For cake donuts, keep your depositor 1 to 2 inches from your frying fat—not too close and not too far away.
• Keep your fryer screens 2 to 3 inches above the bottom screen.
• Your cake donut batter temperature has a big impact on your final product. Warm batter means vigorous leavening action which results in more fat absorption. If your batter is too cold, you can also create the problem of excessive fat absorption.
• Know your mix times. A long mix time can make for a tough doughnut, but can reduce excessive fat absorption. And cold batter can mean under-mixed batter as well.

For more information on yeast and leavener technology or doughnut production, please contact your AB Mauri ® local distributor.