My brother and I have an understanding about doughnuts. If we were asked to describe our perfect heaven, a glorious paradise for the pure in heart, first on its list of attributes would be doughnuts. All the doughnuts you can eat, without getting fat. My friend Jess has tasted this paradise — it was located in her kitchen for a brief period of time, as she created and tested a doughnut cookbook in one short month. Come read about her experiences as the doughnut queen, and what it was like to cook, eat, and dispose of thousands of doughnuts.
It's Doughnut Month, and it also happens to be the release day of Jess Thomson's new book, Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker. This book recreates the beloved fried dough of Seattle's Top Pot Doughnuts for home cooks and home kitchens. Jess took the founders' concepts and recipes and translated them into recipes that any home cook can understand (and achieve). From apple fritters to chocolate-chili and chai-spiced cake doughnuts, this book has it all. It's epic.
But the point here is that Jess wrote an essay on her experience with hot oil, deep fryers, and 75-pound bags of cake flour. It's hilarious and eye-opening; if you ever wondered what it's like to be a recipe tester and a cookbook author, let Jess enlighten you. She answers the question: Is it possible to get sick of doughnuts?
• Read the essay: Tales from a Doughnut Queen at Leite's Culinaria
(And you'll never look at maple bars quite the same way again.)
Oh, and P.S. DO NOT MISS Jess's recipe for doughnut bread pudding, linked below. I mean, really.
MORE FROM JESS
• Visit Jess's blog: Hogwash
• Doughnut bread pudding: Doughnut Pudding Recipe at Leite's Culinaria
MORE TOP POT
• Buy the book: Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker, by Mark Klebeck, Michael Klebeck & Jess Thomson. Published by Chronicle Books. $10.98 at Amazon
• Visit Top Pot: Top Pot Doughnuts in Seattle
Related: Trend Watch: Are Doughnuts the New Cupcake?
(Images: Top Pot Doughnuts/Chronicle Books)
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Your post made me salivate like Homer Simpson. I love donuts too, especially a krispy cream doughnut .. mmmm.. but unfortunately they are also horribly bad for you too .. but i have to indulge once in a while. I just came across this product called Tasty Top Cake Pops you should check out i tried them last night with my daughter and she loved them.
I do love doughnuts ... sumptuous cake doughnuts with real heft and yeast doughnuts with a chewy, not-too-sweet breadiness. And thank you for spelling it with the "dough-." I always feel the "do-" spelling, which has become popularly accepted, gives their essential doughy quality short shrift.
I do not like sweets generally, and I don't like to eat doughnuts...but I love to smell them. In my old job, when people used to bring in doughnuts, I used to go and breathe deeply--the smell of fresh doughnuts is pure heaven. Then I'd go back to my office--and people always remarked on my self control.
Doughnuts!
Oh yum, Top Pot's chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting (glaze?) is the most heavenly doughnut ever created, and if there is a way to recreate it at home, I probably should not know about it! I would be eating them daily (more like a dozen a day!)