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How “olykoeks” went from the kitchen to coffee shop BY BETH MAXEY I remember the exact moment I realized it was possible to make donuts at home. My mom was reading one of The Little House on the Prairie books to my sister and me. The men had gotten up before sunrise to tend to the animals and the women were making a breakfast like I’d never heard of before: bacon and coffee and eggs and pancakes with maple syrup and butter and porridge and donuts, fried at home, on the stove, in lard. Until that moment the only donuts I’d ever seen came in flat boxes of twelve. We took them to school to share with the class on our birthdays. They were perfectly round and gloriously colored, glazed, and sprinkled. I assumed they required some sort of fancy equipment. I couldn’t imagine my mother just whipping up a batch of donuts in the kitchen. I couldn’t imagine her frying anything. We were a low-fat household, the idea of boiling oil seemed foreign and scary. Actually, I did not assume wrong. The American donut is a distinctly industrial product. American donuts—the ancestors of the donuts we think of today—first came to the New World via the Dutch who called them “olykoeks” or, literally, “oily cakes.” By 1809, the word “doughnut” makes its first appearance in D. Knickerbocker’s History of New York: “an enormous dish of balls of sweet dough, fried in hog’s fat and called doughnuts.” 1861 and 1870 brought two more definitions, both of which empathized “small cakes” and “hog’s lard.” Whether lard offered a preferred cooking experience, or was simply more available than oil, is hard to know. What we do know is that, by World War I, donuts had become such a staple of American food culture that women volunteers fried up fresh donuts over an army camp stove to give soldiers on the front lines a taste of home. When the soldiers made it back to the states, bakeries could not keep up with the demand for donuts. At the time, bakers still made donuts by hand. This is not hard, but it is challenging to do with accuracy at great volume. After you make the dough, you have to roll it and cut (or stuff with jelly), let rise, and then fry, flipping once. The dough can be sticky and difficult to handle, and you have to concentrate, because the oil or lard is hot. In 1920, Russian immigrant Adolph Levitt came up with a solution: the first donut making machine that not only automated the whole process, but displayed each step for awed, hungry customers to watch. Around the same time technology and economics converged behind the hydrogenated vegetable oil industry to make it the preferred fat. Instead of frying the donuts in lard, which had been cast as contaminated and low class by horrific descriptions of large scale rendering facilities in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, this new donut machine fried in “pure, clean” oil. Levitt’s machine was an incredible success, earning him, in the 1930s, nearly 25 million dollars a year. Levitt made his money by selling this machine to bakeries across the country. Soon these bakeries were tuning out hot, fresh, delicious donuts. According to Levitt’s spokesperson they were no longer “heavy, grease-soaked,” but the “light, puffy product of a machine.” By the 1934 World’s Fair, donuts were no longer a sweet treat but a symbol of industrial promise. Customers loved watching the donut machines at work—mechanized production from dough to fryer to their hands in minutes. Donuts were efficient, and modern and clean. And at less than a nickel, even in the depression era, donuts were well within reach. Fifty years later, when my mom was reading me the Little House books, homemade donuts had practically disappeared. Instead, Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts and several other chains had spread the automated version of a donut around the world. Donut mixes were shipped to stores and recipes were kept secret, so the product would always be the same. The success was astounding. Industrialization remade the donut so efficiently that I simply could not imagine what it would mean, or look like, to make a donut at home. And as much as I usually prefer homemade, I wondered, as I assembled my local ingredients, would my donuts be any good? Was it worth the effort, or the time to make them at home? Is the donut an industrial product worth the effort to reclaim? Because we were making donuts to serve after dinner, in the place of a birthday cake, my sister and I rolled out the dough right before we sat down to eat. We floured our fingers and lightly filled the small circles with jelly. By the time we’d cleared the dinner plates, our little mounds had risen to twice their size. We checked the temperature of the oil, got a bowl of sugar ready to dip them in, and poured everyone a glass of milk. When my sister put the first donut in oil, it almost immediately puffed and turned golden brown. She turned it, removed it from the oil, coated it with sugar, and put it on my dad’s plate. My dad reached toward it, but my mom stopped him. “You have to let it cool,” she said, as if nothing had changed in thirty years. “You know you always burn your mouth.” My dad waited, but he couldn’t wait long. He took a bite, closed his eyes, and sighed. When I looked up from the donut I was frying, there was a little raspberry jelly on his face. The Essentials of Donuts: Fat—Homemade donuts are delicious made with high quality oil, but if you are up for a truly local experience—one that rings true to homemade donut history—try rendered lard from some of our local pork producers, like Seabreeze farms. The texture of your donuts will be crisper, and you’ll be surprised that there is not even a hint of porky flavor. If you are up for rendering yourself, I like the local leaf lard from Samish Bay. Flour—We’ve been growing wheat here in Washington since 1825, when the first crop was planted in Fort Vancouver. Since then it has become a major product for the state (90% of the white wheat grown in the U.S. comes from Washington). My favorite local wheat comes from Fairhaven Organic Flourmill, in Burlington. Their Unbleached All Purpose White is from Hard Red Wheat, which provides a lightly sweet, almost floral flavor. My donuts, and most everything else I’ve made with it, have been delicious. Jam—Fresh donuts may be the best place for your homemade jam to shine. I like to put a selection on the table and let people choose. Quince, fig, and raspberry are a few favorites. I also like the ready-made jams from Puget Sound Jams, especially the blackberry. If you decide to fill your donuts, make sure not to use too much jam, as it can become runny and bust the donuts in the frying. And make sure to let them cool before you take a bite. You don’t want to burn your mouth on hot jam. HOMEMADE YEASTED DONUTS A standing mixer with a dough hook is by far the best contraption for this recipe—the dough can easily become greasy from the heat of your hands or the blade of a food processor. A thermometer that can reach 375°F is also important. Ideally this thermometer fits on the side of your frying pan or pot, so you are always aware of your frying temperature. For filled donuts, place a teaspoon of jelly in the center on one of your rounds of dough. Moisten the edges of the dough with water. Place a second round of dough on top and pinch to close the two pieces together. Let rise 30 minutes or until almost doubled. Although my mom used to make filled jelly donuts, I think it’s easier to go with the regular donut shape. I like the extra crisp surface area and the flexibility to spoon different flavors of jelly on top. For frying, I recommend a 12-inch cast iron skillet for several reasons: the diameter is large enough that you will not drip oil on your heat source, and you only need four cups of lard or oil. Also, this size skillet is easy to handle, and the cast iron helps keep the temperature constant. Keeping the temperature steady is a big part of frying success—check your thermometer and adjust often. The heat of the oil dehydrates, crisps, and browns the surface of the donuts, and ensures minimal oil is absorbed. To fry at the right temperature (roughly 360°F), you want to start hotter (around 375°F), to account for the drop in temperature when you add the dough. When you are done, allow your lard or oil to cool completely and put it through a coffee filter or paper towel to use it again. If you are not a frequent fryer, it is best to dispose of the oil (in a container in the garbage, not down the sink).
Beth Maxey writes about food when she is not eating and drinking it. Read more at twentyeightletters.com |
