The Fried Dough Ho

The Seattle people are pretty fortunate. Not only do they have Top Pot Doughnuts, but another hand-crafted gourmet offering, Mighty-O Donuts. First off, the biggest difference is that while Top Pot is “hand-forged” and all that, they are a chain so their delicious is available all around the city. Mighty-O, on the other hand, is a singularity in this large metropolis and required a bit of a trek (thank goodness for GPS systems!) to get to during my brief visit. I was pretty excited when I arrived. It was relatively early and mid-week so the selection was ample and varied, although mostly of the cake variety.

I liked that the conveyor belt fryer is out for the public to see and also, they have a pretty fun website where the doughnuts twirl around. What I didn’t realize until I started penning this review is that they only use “organic ingredients. [Their] donuts [sic] contain no chemical preservatives, no hydrogenated oils, no colorings or artificial flavors, and no animal derived ingredients.” Does that make them vegan? I’m not exactly sure, to be truthful.

As usual, I ordered more than I could possibly eat, but I did get a good taste of each one. The Lots O Chocolate stole my heart early on; thick and opulent and overtly chocolate with a good quality, moist crumb. This was not a wimpy doughnut by any means. Made with the same base doughnut and a change of frosting was the Chocolate Raspberry and Don King (a chocolate doughnut topped with coconut). I really enjoyed the fresh, bright raspberry flavor which was demonstrated in the frosting that complemented the rich chocolate cake. The Don King — hilariously named — was equally well-prepared, fresh, and moist.

Of the more exotic flavors, I tried a Lemon Poppyseed and French Toast as well as a raised Cinnamon Sugar Twist. Oddly, that twist does not appear on the website but I imagine it is not much different than their Classic Raised Doughnut. While the raised was good, it was not quite as transcendent as their cake doughnuts which I found truly exceptional. The Lemon Poppyseed acquired a nice balance between a bright citrus note and the dusky poppy seeds. The French Toast is what confuses me. What makes French Toast flavorful is the fact that it is an egg batter on bread and I’m not sure how the folks at Mighty-O create a rich eggy flavor without the use an egg, but it was rich and did taste like French Toast!

My biggest regret during my Seattle visit was not being able to conduct a side-by-side taste test between Mighty-O and Top Pot. It would have been a tough call to pick between the two and I am quite thrilled to have experienced both within a few days of one another.

I’m sorry – I really wish I could tell you who is responsible for this brilliant piece of Photoshopping. But every now and then in my warm, sweet, glazed idyllic doughnut world, I stumble upon doughnut images that are just too stunning and I want to share them.

There is no doubt that one can have a transcendent experience — dare I say, a religious one? — in the consumption of a perfectly prepared fried dough offering. And to extend that religious experience to one of iconographic import seems the next logical step.

I love that Mary’s frosted, sprinkled doughnut is whole and emitting a radiant light of grace for all the world to share in, yet Baby Jesus’ glazed doughnut, while emitting a lesser glow of radiance, already has a bite taken out of it; his holy host is partially consumed. But there is more; a small sugared doughnut hole is being offered forth in Baby Jesus’ hand. For you, perhaps? I think under duress. Baby Jesus wants that doughnut hole for himself and it is the Virgin Mary who is guiding his hand — almost forcing it! — in a symbolic offering to the brethren.

“Here, little saviour,” chides Mother Mary. “Be a good little god-incarnate and share your bounty!” Or maybe I have it all wrong! Maybe a miracle has just occurred; he calmed a stormy sea, he raised Lazarus from the dead, he changed water into wine, and he changed a rock into a doughnut! Well, probably not. Because if it were true, we know darn well that he would not have bothered changing water into wine, but instead the water would have been changed into coffee or milk to go with the miraculous doughnut…

Doughnuts in the News – this is a report from The Chicago Tribune:

A Linn County judge has sentenced a 25-year-old Cedar Rapids man to 15 years in prison for a shooting that started over a powdered sugar doughnut.

Prosecutors say Derrick Roberts shot and seriously injuring Delores Smith as she sat in a parked van in April of last year. They say Roberts had a confrontation with the owners of the van earlier in the day because one of them had accidentally tossed the doughnut on his pants leg.

Roberts was found guilty by a jury in May of assault with intent to inflict serious injury, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, assault causing serious injury, going armed with intent and going armed with a concealed weapon.

Now in no way am I condoning a violent action, but that last paragraph made me laugh; “intimidation with a dangerous weapon” could be misconstrued as the DOUGHNUT being the dangerous weapon. This is more of a commentary on poorly written journalism with a doughnut bent to it.

Or it is a commentary on how seriously we doughnut fans take our powdered morsels… I’ll let you decide.

Some time ago, I stumbled on a short mockumentary about doughnuts by filmmaker Jaxon Defa. One of the interviewees was Canadian poet, Ben Hart (pictured above, visiting San Francisco), who waxes rhapsodic that if he had his way, the doughnut would be representative of modern Canadian poetry in sonnet form. I was intrigued and I started hunting around. Well, Ben got his poems published by a small hand-crafted publishing house, Frog Hollow Press in an edition entitled Dough Rolled Perfect. I went for the less expensive model, An edition of 60 numbered books, Smyth-sewn with a cover of mould-made Saint-Armand; flyleaf; approximately 30 copies are offered for sale. Although expensive ($30) for a thin paperback, it has been more than worth it for the joy it has brought.

The introduction poem, which sets the stage is entitled Finer Things:

At my most foolish, I believe confit
can teach me about being duck. I slip
Dvorak into the CD player
and pretend my ear is an instrument
built to hear the full sweep of crescendo.
I look deep into the bull’s eyes
in Guernica — see the world there,blown
to smithereens. Sure, there are lessons
gleaned from poetry and innuendo,
but what cultivation of taste explains love
of cream filling, chocolate sprinkles,
sugar glaze, a dough ring? One bite tells me
all I need to know about sweet. Truth is —
there is no finer things, only these:

I started with this and had to know more about this guy. Ben and I have been corresponding a bit as I continue to investigate Canada’s obsession with doughnuts. For example, Canada has more doughnut shops per capita than any other country on earth. Hamilton, Ontario, home of the first Tim Hortons, has approximately one doughnut shop per 300 residents. The mind boggles! Read the rest of this entry »

Bugia is an Italian cookie, also known as Liar’s Cookies.Why? Because when your Italian grandmother made a batch and hid them away in a cookie jar, if you stole one she would know because the ample powdered sugar which coated the cookies would leave a tell-tail trail. Grandma would know when the kids were lying about stealing cookies.

Classically, it is a pasta dough that has the addition of orange juice added to the dough. That is what makes Bugia different than Zeppole – that addition of orange.  Rolled and deep fried, the subsequent thin, light cookie is dusted with powdered sugar. A company known as Dolce Italia Cookies in North Beach are producing these for sale. For a mass-produced, deep-fried cookie, they aren’t that bad. Not exceptional, but unless you are at the store on Folsom when they are being packaged and sold and one knows what they taste like fresh, you are bound to experience a slightly stale, wimpy offering. Also, there is not enough orange flavor in Dolce’s version to entice me. But they certainly are popular and I can understand why they sell out early every day.

Instead, I offer Michael Chiarello’s recipe for a much more satisfying and authentic Bugia.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting work surface
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled briefly
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brandy
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon ground anise seeds
• 4 to 6 cups peanut or vegetable oil, for deep-frying
• About 2 cups powdered sugar

Directions