March 6, 2018 - 6:25am
Problem making Donut shop quality
I have been experimenting with numerous donut recipes. I have yet to prepare a doughnut like you could buy in a donut shop. I do not think this is unusual. I have seen a video where there was a comparison between donut shop and homemade donuts. The consensus was that the donut shop was better. Store bought seems more fluffy, more yeasty, lighter in color, and a longer shelf life. There must be a secret that donut shops use. Does anyone know their secret? I have tried dough enhancers, improvers, soy lecithin, citric acid, Non-fat dry milk, and other methods. Please any help? Thank you
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Donut shops use premixes, it makes it easy to make the dough by minimizing scaling errors but it won't be from scratch baking.
Gerhard
Make a brioche donut. They take a bit of time but are easy to make and definitely are donut shop quality.
Recipe:
500g bread flour
75g Sugar
8 eggs
15g fresh yeast
19g salt
482g Butter
In a mixer with dough hook mix bread flour, eggs and sugar. Mix until dough climbs up hook and cleans the bowl
Add fresh yeast, mix for 2-3 min
Add salt, mix 1 minute
Add softened butter and mix until butter is gone.
I like to let this bulk ferment in a fridge over night.
Next day on a floured service roll out to about half inch thick. From here you can freeze it for 20minutes to make it easy to cut out OR use a ring cutter dipped in flour to punch out.
Put on a sheet tray or rectangular cake pan oiled parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap.
Proof at room temp about an 1hr,
Fry at 375 turning every so often to keep the cooking even.
Immediately toss in sugar, cinnamon sugar, drizzle with chocolate YOUR CHOICE!
And I'm sure it's a lovely recipe. One I wish to try myself. And what's more it's not too complicated. Just one question though. 19g salt for 500g bread flour? That's almost 4% where the norm for bread dough is 2%.
I use instant yeast. Would you know the equivalent in grams?
Rule of thumb is to use 1/3rd by weight when substituting the fresh yeast for instant yeast.
The recipe calls for 15g fresh yeast so use 5g instant yeast.
Some say a little more and others a tad less by I find 3rd is a good average and as long as you watch the dough etc.
Yup! 19g, with the amount of butter in the recipe the fat eats a lot of it up. Plus once it's tossed in sugar or coated in something sweet it has a nice balance.
CristinaMTK, I wanted to update on my attempts at using the recipe you provided. It was very good. It was different than what you will find at a doughnut shop, but very good. I would say heartier. I adjusted the recipe because i was unsure how wet the dough should be. It was pretty wet so I ended up adding 135 g of bread flour. It was still pretty wet, but it was manageable. I only used three sticks of butter since my Target was out of unsalted butter. Also, I did use 41 grams of water since I was using active dry yeast versus fresh yeast.
For those interested, this was a very good recipe if you are making a high quality doughnut at home. Definitely give CristinaMTKs a try. In the meantime, I am still looking to know the secret to the donut shop donut.
I found this one from King Arthur to be a really close comparison- https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/yeast-raised-doughnuts-recipe
I'm with you. There's something special about a doughnut shop doughnut.
I'd also check a Krispy Kreme copy cat recipe.
Brioche doughnuts are NOT even close to the solution. I hate brioche doughnuts- they don't taste right at all. They're so heavy.
Surely donut shop recipes don't use butter?
"Bravetart" adds cooked potato to her yeasted donuts and claims it increases fluffiness. I add potato flakes to my dinner rolls to accomplish the same thing and that probably can be done with donuts, too. The potato starch serves two roles: 1) weakens gluten so that the donuts are more tender, and 2) retains a lot of moisture.
So long that I forget the recipe I used in spite of making 12 dozen doughnuts a day but I do remember this. .it took me about 2 months to figure out how to get the best results. The key was that doughnuts would float on to of the oil one they sprung. I'd flip them in the fryer about 1/2 way through cooing and up with 2 beautifully golden sides separated by a white stripe down the center. one key to getting there was the proofing. I wish I could remember that recipe. The other thing if doing cake doughnutsthe dough MUST be room temp...otherwise you end up with something akin to a soggy brick