This is a very American scone. It’s big, it’s triangular, it’s rich. Note, however, that it’s possible to do a lot of different things with this dough. I generally favor small scones, and indeed I normally make 12 little triangles with this recipe instead of eight large ones. You can use round cutters if you […]
READ ONThis is probably my favorite scone recipe. The ginger adds what I think is the perfect zing and textural contrast. 3/4 cup heavy cream, plus extra for the tops 12 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour 2.5 ounces sugar pinch salt 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon finely chopped lemon zest 6 ounces unsalted butter, cut into […]
READ ONIs a fry pan full of bubbling cake doughnuts not a joy to behold, my friends? If not, I put it to you that you are dead. Or vegan. Oh, I kid. You know, baseball players get a very bad rap. They’re not respected as athletes, though it’s widely claimed that the act of merely […]
READ ONI like sprinkles every bit as much as the next guy, but sometimes even the working man’s delight needs to be taken uptown for the day. Pictured above is one of my old best-sellers: the lemon-lavender doughnut. Lemon and lavender were a hip combo six or eight years ago, but I’m pretty sure I was […]
READ ONThis one is a no-brainer, save for one very important detail: never (really, never) use high quality chocolate to top a doughnut. Why not? Because truly good eating chocolate deserves to be eaten on its own. Combining high quality chocolate with a high quality doughnut ruins them both, as they compete for attention (kind of […]
READ ONThis is my favorite way to enjoy a cake doughnut, without any fancy flavors, just a good honest scratch doughnut glazed with a thin coat of icing. As you might expect, it’s a very easy thing to do. Just combine: 8 ounces powdered sugar 2 tablespoon plus two teaspoons water or milk a few drop […]
READ ONMy oh my I’ve received a lot of questions about doughnuts the last couple of days! Reader Seth asks: Joe, I notice you use liquid oil for your frying medium. I’ve heard that professional doughnuts makers use mostly solid shortening. Is that true? And if so, why? An excellent question, and one I’ve been meaning […]
READ ONReader Jordan wrote in to point out that these droppers have hit the market in recent years. I’ve never tried one, but for fifteen bucks, can you go wrong?
READ ONCake doughnuts, especially when they’re made from scratch, are extremely fussy things. I can’t emphasize enough how important temperature is to getting them just right. The most common problem with cake doughnuts is an too-high batter temperature. When the temperature of the batter goes up (usually because the temperature of the room goes up) the […]
READ ONSo here it is: one of my top secret recipes. Cake doughnuts are a batter, not a dough. In professional shops, they’re made by a machine that drops ring-shaped quantities of batter into a vat of hot oil. They look like this, or if you have a bigger operation, like this. These so-called doughnut “depositors” […]
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