Have I written before about working in a doughnut shop? Long ago in college I worked at The Donut Gallery. Brad worked with me there for a while, but he was too smart to continue to stay under our harsh working conditions, so he left. I stayed because even though the pressure was high, there was the promise of fresh donuts at the end of the torture.
After a while I got the hang of it and made them all myself, released from the watchful, distrustful eyes of the owners. Mix the raised dough, let it rise while the cake donuts were mixed and fried. Then roll out and cut the raised dough. There’s a method to the madness – every re-rolling of the dough produces a slightly tougher doughnut since a little more flour is mixed in. The order went something like this (vaugely – I have a bad memory):
First roll – glazed doughnuts, twists, long johns and doughnut holes (Which I would eat like candy when they came out of the glaze. Serious profit loss there.)
Second roll (slightly tougher) – rosettes, bear claws, kolache knock-offs, jelly doughnuts
Third roll – apple fritters
Apple fritters are made of all the dough scraps – toughened up nicely due to all the rolling. I’d chop them up, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and a couple of scoops of apple stuff from the bucket in the fridge. I was given numbers of each kind of doughnut to make, but would often wind up with too many fritters. That would result in a stern note the next night from the owners, saying that I was making the long johns too small. “Let the dough rest! They’re shrinking when you cut them!” (Quiet, Jackie!!)
Hey, if shorting the long johns means more delicious fritters, I say, “Hello, Short Johns.”