I made some successful brrioche dough into donuts yesterday, for the first time, but I have questions for anyone with more frying experience.
Is there a way to get a stronger crust without overcooking it? It is very easy to put a finger through the outside of these while icing, and I can't go darker without affecting taste.
This may be related: these float up when flipped, which is great for volume but leaves this pale ring around the "equator". It is visible in the picture. They are fully cooked so it is cosmetic only, but I would like to have an even color. Is it perhaps worth finding a grating and using it to push all the donuts down into the cooking vessel a bit, to cover that?
otherwise the donuts would be under proofed. How soon after frying are you icing them? We found when icing them with fondant they really needed to cool for 45 minutes or so otherwise we had the same issue as you describe. The other thing is if the fondant is too cool it has trouble sticking or may even be too heavy causing you too apply enough pressure to the donut to leave imprints of your fingers. When glazing them we could do it straight out of the fryer, rings we would put on aluminum rods and then slop the glaze over them and other shapes where lined up on a basket and the glaze would be poured over them. It is actually important to do the glazing when the donut is warm because other wise the glaze will never dry. If the person doing the glazing was ham fisted you could get collapsed donuts but most people are careful enough to prevent that.
Gerhard
I know it's the sufficient proofing that gets that ring, but I have a vague memory of seeing a commercial donut shop hold them under, for a consistent brown. It might help with structure, it might not. It's one of those things where I want to experiment with it, but that comes with the potential of messing up the donuts... and that would make people sad.
The prep work done on the icing varies from week to week, and it's not always the same consistency... it may be solvable by regular stirring, so that the icing doesn't get a chance to set up. I'll keep trying and see how it goes; this is something I may need to just learn through experience.
What is your icing? Is it basically a powdered sugar and water glaze dissolved in cold water, or is it more complex and requires heating and contains fats and maybe gums of some sort or is it fondant heated to about 100˚F for dipping?
Gerhard
It's mostly powdered sugar/water with either cocoa or vanilla worked in, as far as I know. I've been around when it's being made, but I'm usually occupied with a different activity. It does definitely solidify when left still - so stirring helps.
easy to maintain a reasonably even consistency. What we did at start of the shift is use a bench to scrape settle solids off the bottom and work them back in the mixture with enough hot water to get it to the right thickness. Every 3 or 4 days we would scrape everything out of the dipper into a mixing bowl of the Hobart. Then when the next shift started they would use that plus fresh powdered sugar and water to make the glaze. When training new people sometimes we had inconsistent days but after a short period they would know how much water to use to thin it out at the beginning of the day, it is always easier to thin it out than try to thicken a glaze that is too thin.
Gerhard