Who doesn't love donuts? They're the treat many of us crave. But they do have a storied history. And they do inspire a great debate: glazed (or yeast-raised) vs. cake donuts.

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We want to talk about all things donuts! We want to hear your favorites, too. We've also got a one-minute cooking tip about simple syrup. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[00:46] Our one-minute cooking tip: Consider simple syrup your go-to sweetener for drinks.

[02:44] The history of donuts and the debates they inspire: glazed vs. cake donuts.

[16:45] What’s making us happy in food this week: fresh corn and plum tomatoes.

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is

the podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark,

2

and I'm Mark Scarbrough, his husband

And this is our food and cooking podcast

3

a podcast that has come out of our 36

cookbooks Our years as contributing

4

editors to magazines such as cooking

light and eating well our years years

5

as columnists on Weight Watchers, at

Eating Well, at Cooking Light, our

6

years doing way so much in our lives.

7

Over 20, 000 original copywritten recipes

so far in our career and it's ongoing.

8

We appreciate your being here with us

for, as usual, our one minute cooking tip.

9

We've got an entire Tire podcast

dedicated to doughnuts, doughnuts.

10

Oh, indeed.

11

And we'll tell you what's making

us happy and food this week.

12

So let's get started.

13

Our one minute cooking tip,

simple syrup is the perfect way

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to sweeten Cold and iced drinks.

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It is.

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If you put sugar into an iced

coffee or an iced tea, it's

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mostly gonna fall to the bottom.

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And then you gotta get a super

long spoon to try and stir it up.

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What?

20

You don't have iced teaspoons?

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What?

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And, come on.

23

Make a simple syrup.

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Equal parts water and sugar.

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Bring it to a boil.

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Cool it, and you're done.

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Yeah, um, We all know, from those of us

in the South, the thing of, you know,

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our great uncle, or aunt, or whoever,

who put so much sugar in the iced tea

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that it was like an inch layer at the

bottom of the glass that never dissolved.

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Because, of course, it was a

super saturated solution now.

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And it's cold.

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Nothing dissolves in Cold and

simple syrups are the right way.

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And again, what is the ratio

to make a simple syrup?

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Equal parts water and sugar.

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And what do you do?

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You bring it to a boil, you

cool it, and you're done.

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Yeah, you bring it to a boil, turn

it off, and then Well, you can't

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cool it if you don't turn it off.

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You have to be clear.

40

The writer wants to be clear.

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And then you're done, and you can

store it in the fridge, and it's a much

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better way to sweeten coffee, um, iced

coffee, iced tea, in fact, hot coffee.

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And look, if Coke's not sweet enough

for you, add it to your coffee.

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Oh, my gosh.

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Okay, we're going to go on to

more diabetic topics with donuts.

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But before we get there, let's

say that we would appreciate a

47

rating or review for this podcast.

48

If you can do that, you can find a way

to leave it stars on whatever platform

49

you're listening to this on audible.

50

Yeah, on I heart radio, on on Apple

podcasts, any place that you find this,

51

what's, what's the big streaming services?

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I can't think.

53

Uh, Spotify.

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Thank you.

55

Spotify.

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Wow.

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I'm getting old.

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Spotify.

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You can find a way to give it a stars.

60

And many of those platforms

allow you to write reviews.

61

If you could even just say nice podcast,

that would be a way that you can support

62

our otherwise unsupported podcast.

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Let's move on to donuts.

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I thought it was time for us

to have the great donut debate.

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I didn't know there was a debate.

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What's the debate?

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Well, because we are a house divided.

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We are.

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I am a yeast raised donut fan,

and you are a cake donut fan.

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It's true.

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I like cake donuts.

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I'll tell you why in a bit.

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But let's just get the definitions

down first, in case you don't know.

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There are two kinds of donuts.

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There are.

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You probably know this, but, uh, there are

cake donuts, and mostly they're made with.

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baking powder.

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That's how they rise.

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There are some yeast made cake doughnuts

that often also include baking powder.

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It all has to do with the ratio of butter

and sugar and eggs and flour and all that

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stuff that get a cake batter even thicker

than a cake batter like consistency.

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It's a, it's a batter.

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You end up with a batter that either

gets dropped out into the deep fryer

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from a doughnut machine, or it's a It's a

thicker batter, one that can actually even

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be rolled and can be cut like a knife.

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When I've made them, I've always done

the, not even a pastry bag, I put it in a

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plastic bag and snipped the corner off and

then, you know, squirted it into the oil.

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Oh, nice.

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Well, it's kind of almost

like making churros.

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Yeah, kind of like churros.

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Mine were never really good.

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great.

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They didn't look, I'm

not a professional baker.

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I'm a writer.

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And so they never looked great.

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But, you know, what can I say?

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They are kind of fried quick bread.

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Yeah, exactly what I think of a

cake doughnut is fried quick bread.

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Unlike yeast doughnuts, which are lighter,

they get their rise from the yeast.

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They're fluffy, they're light, they're

It's a, it's a flour dough and sugar

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and you get eggs in it and melted butter

because it's basically an enriched dough.

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It's almost the same kind of dough.

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If you're making a hollow bread

or a Bopko or something like that,

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you have to sweet enriched dough.

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When you fry it, it becomes very light.

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It's doughnut.

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That is the foundation.

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for cream filled and jelly doughnuts.

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Yes, that's right.

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And it's the doughnut often people

think of if you're not from the U.

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S.

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when they think about U.

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S.

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doughnuts, they think about what are

indeed yeast doughnuts or what we called

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them when I was a kid, glazed doughnuts.

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And I know this is ridiculous because

you're going to tell me that there

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were jelly doughnuts at Greenville,

but we refer to all of those as

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various kinds of glazed doughnuts.

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But you also referred to Sprite

and Fanta Orange as Coke.

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So, you know, it's all Coke.

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So, yeah, I get it.

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Okay, so, donuts, listen, there's

a long tradition, just to say

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a bit about the history here.

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There's a long tradition of frying dough.

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If you've been out in the

American Southwest, you

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know about Navajo fry bread.

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You know about indigenous

people frying dough.

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Romans fried dough.

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I mean, this is Middle Eastern cultures.

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Ancient Greeks fried dough.

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Yeah, and, uh, Islamic culture.

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Caliphates fried dough back

in the 700s common era.

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There is a long tradition of

frying dough in various ways.

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But according to Michael Krundle,

who is the author of The Donut

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History, Recipes and Lore, donuts

are supposed to be communal food.

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Well, that kind of makes sense, right?

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Cause as he says, they're not hard to

make, but the thing is, you can't wait.

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They're not hard to make.

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Only a cookbook writer

would make that claim.

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Donuts are hard to make.

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They are definitely hard.

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It's just fried dough.

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No, it's not just fried dough.

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But the problem is, you

can't just make one donut.

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I mean, Well, you can, but why?

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How do you just make one donut?

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What is it, like a teaspoon of egg?

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And, so you have to make And so

they're not good the next day.

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You need a big group of people,

a nice community, to make it all

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together, fry them up, and get greasy

and fat together over doughnuts.

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Yeah, I mean, you know that doughnuts

are the tradition, for some people,

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at the end of Hanukkah or during

Hanukkah, because of the oil.

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Of course, they occur at the end

of Ramadan in Islamic culture.

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There's all kinds of traditions

of doughnuts on Mardi Gras, Fat

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Tuesday, in Christian cultures.

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And Otherwise, I mean, to me, when

I grew up, donuts were communal food

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because they were celebratory because,

and I grew up in, just to say, if you

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don't know this from this podcast, I

grew up with a grandmother, my maternal

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grandmother, who was a professional baker.

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And that's what she did for a living.

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And I never saw my

grandmother make a donut.

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So they were communal food because we

had to get somebody had to get up early.

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My grandmother, grandfather got

up early and went and got them.

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Donuts and brought them back.

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And it was this big treat

for breakfast to have donuts.

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And it wasn't like your

grandmother was afraid of frying.

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She made fried chicken all the time.

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Now, she baked in an elementary school.

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I wonder if she ever made donuts

in that elementary school.

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I don't think so.

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I honestly never saw her make a donut.

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And we would, oh, I'll

tell you this story.

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So we would, there was this place in

Oklahoma City called Frankie's Donuts.

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And it was, we're talking the sixties now.

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No, Frankie's Donuts.

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And with an IE, Frankie's Donuts, and,

um, it was this place, I mean, this is

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really back in the day, I'm old, and it

had a, a screen door that you entered and

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it flapped shut, you know, bang, bang,

bang, the screen door, so we were headed,

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oh, now it's gonna get really sad, we

were headed to Arkansas to see the fall

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foliage once, I was a little kid, I know,

it's now getting really tragic, and we

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were headed to Eureka Springs, before

Eureka Springs was anything, well, we

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were We would go to Eureka Springs when

it was like a motel and to see the tree.

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No, no, no.

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I have plenty of pictures of

lots of trees turned and, but it

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wasn't the tourist destination.

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There was no Branson.

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There was no Lake of the Ozarks.

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It wasn't anything like that yet.

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So we were going and we would leave

really early in the morning to make it.

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Oh yeah.

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There's a whole.

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The amount of the story is getting bad.

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It's getting long.

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We had to leave early because

my grandfather wanted to eat at

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a diner in Choctaw, Oklahoma.

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So we had to leave early so we

could get to Choctaw for lunch.

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Anyway, we stopped at this place,

Frankie's, to make donuts that

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we loved and were such a treat.

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And they didn't appear to be open.

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And my grandmother got out and banged

on the door to ask if they were open.

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And they came out and they weren't really

truly open yet, but they had made donuts.

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And so, she brought this box of really

hot, fresh doughnuts to the car.

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And let's just say we did not stop

in Choctaw for lunch, which that

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instead we just ate doughnuts all day.

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Probably were sick as dogs.

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Hey, that time you and I

went up to Newfoundland.

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We were on what this

14 hour ferry ride up.

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to Newfoundland, and I stopped at

Tim Hortons and got a box of glazed

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doughnuts, a dozen, and I think

you had one, maybe two, and the

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box was empty when we got there.

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Yeah, let's say that this was supposed

to be a nine hour ferry and from

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Porterbosch to Nova Scotia, and we

got in a bad storm and it ended up

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being like a 12 hour ferry ride, and

you don't want to be on a surging

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ferry, only eating sugary doughnuts.

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I remember getting my seat and

going to the gift shop and standing

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in the gift shop going, Oh God,

don't barf on the trinkets.

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Don't barf on the, on the

decorative spoon collection.

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You only had two of them.

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Oh, it was disgusting.

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But for donuts to get all the way through

Canada, they had to come to the new world

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and they supposedly came to New York

through the Dutch who were the first

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founders down in New York and kicked

the Indians out and took over Manhattan.

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And they had these.

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Ali Cox, and I don't know if I'm

saying that right, but it translates

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to oily cakes, and that was supposedly

the original donut in New York.

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Although we can really claim that

what we sell as modern donuts

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started with Russian immigrants.

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Oh, everything did.

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In New York City, in about 1920,

in which a Russian immigrant, Adolf

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Levitt, started selling fried donuts.

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And I think this is one of the earliest.

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This place is what we can say, wow,

this really was early doughnuts.

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And he also, Adolf Leavitt, invented

what we know as a doughnut machine.

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Yeah, these machines, they're still very

kind of futuristic and cool looking.

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And the machines by the 1934

World's Fair in Chicago were being

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used to sell doughnuts there and

they were billed as the first.

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Food hit of the century of progress.

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No, the century of progress is a donut.

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Homer Simpson would be so happy.

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So that tells you everything you

need to know about the 20th century.

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Um, so Donuts.

242

Yeah, donuts and atomic bombs.

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And that was the century of progress.

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So, uh, Yeah, it was a huge, big

moment of progress and mechanization

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back in the day when people were

instantly mechanizing what they

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did in the kitchen of the future.

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And of course, donut chains

began to flash across at least

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the North American landscape.

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Now, again, I grew up going

to small little donut shops.

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Even when we moved to Dallas when

I was really little, we always

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frequented an independent donut shop.

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My father, you were lucky to have them.

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My father didn't like chains.

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Oh.

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He didn't like He wanted a

hamburger from a local restaurant,

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not a fast food hamburger.

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He wanted donuts from a local

shop, not some chain, but yes,

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Krispy Kremes were coming in.

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Dunkin Donuts were coming in.

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Tim Hortons, of course, was all

across Canada, but didn't come

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to the US until Fairly recent.

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Yeah.

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When I was growing up, all

we had was Dunkin Donuts.

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I think our little local, our local

Italian bakery made some donuts.

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I think it's so did the kosher bakery, but

they weren't anything to write home about.

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And I loved when my dad, when Morty

would get up on a Sunday morning and go

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to Dunkin Donuts and just get a giant

box of donuts or that always made me.

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Yeah.

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Um, and you know, we, Bruce and

I still love the treat of donuts.

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We, uh, sometimes when we go to the

airport near us in New England, well

271

near us an hour away, the closest

airport to us in New England,

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we stop at a place called Mrs.

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Murphy's over the border in

Massachusetts and we get donuts.

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I mean, this place is so old fashioned.

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Let me tell you this, that there's a

counter and it's like, imagine a line

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Running straight across right but then

put to use in that line now imagine chairs

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all around these use and Like a snake.

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Yeah, and the waiter the woman it's

a woman Of course walks into the

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middle of the you from the inside and

fills everybody's coffee cups around

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the you It's like something in 1930.

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It is no ridiculous.

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Maybe she was there at the World's Fair

with the original Maybe so we landed

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in Portland one night and And, um,

we had a nice dinner at a restaurant

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in Portland, Oregon, one night.

285

And we had a nice dinner, and then

we had to go to Voodoo Donuts, right?

286

And you had to get a Voodoo Donut.

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I wanted the maple glaze

with the bacon on it.

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Yeah, and we did.

289

And then, um, well, let's just

say that I had a donut after a

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flight all day and a big meal out.

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You had a donut accident.

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I threw out a pair of jeans

and a pair of underwear.

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Let's just leave it at that.

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That's a good place to leave it.

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No, let's, let's actually, let's not

leave it there and let's talk about

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what makes a good donut because I

think we're very different on this.

297

I think it should be not too sweet.

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I want it to still taste like dough,

like the fried bread it's made of.

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It should taste like yeast.

300

I should taste the flour.

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I don't want to just taste sugar.

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That was always my problem.

303

When Krispy Kreme first came to Manhattan,

we were still living in the city.

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People lined up for miles and

it was just little grease balls.

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You could squeeze them down

into nothing like that.

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I'm not a fan of Krispy Kreme.

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So you can all write me and tell me how

I'm an idiot, but I'm just not a fan.

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And here's why I'm really not a fan of

Krispy Kreme is because in our house, I'm

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the guy that likes cake doughnuts and I

will tell you why I like cake doughnuts

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and it's this time in New England.

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So there are apple cider cake.

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Donuts running around

everywhere right now.

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And the reason I like them is

because for me, a donut is a dunking

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mechanism, a dunking vehicle.

315

I don't know.

316

You dunk it in coffee.

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And so I like to have a cake donut

because I dunk it in coffee and it's

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really delicious that dunk a yeast donut.

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It dissolves.

320

It just dissolves in your mouth.

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It dissolves in your mouth.

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I actually think my, the favorite yeast

donut I have ever had is one that I made

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and created for our book, Vegetarian

Dinner Parties, and it's a, it is a

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delicious fried pillowy soft yeast raised

dough without eggs and it is stuffed

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with a vegan lemon cream made with tofu.

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And before you go, we had them

out on the set and after we

327

shot that platter, the crew

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And you've since made those for Pesach, I

think you've made them or maybe Hanukkah,

329

not Pesach, because they have flour.

330

Yo, that's true, they have flour.

331

I think I made them for Hanukkah.

332

That's right.

333

Some holiday, maybe Rosh Hashanah, you

made those doughnuts once, and again, they

334

were pretty well scarfed down even after.

335

brisket or whatever else

we were eating that night.

336

I could make them to break

fast for Yom Kippur this year.

337

Oh, well, I'm for it.

338

I'm up for it.

339

Bagels and donuts.

340

It depends on how many people we

have, because we got three toilets.

341

So, you do the math on this one.

342

Um, anyway, I, well, there's a lot

of talk about that with donuts.

343

Like, why?

344

Does that indicate our age?

345

Um, maybe that's how old we are.

346

Well, anyway, we both love donuts.

347

We both think they're a grand treat.

348

I I tend to not like commercially

produced doughnuts because

349

I think they're too sweet.

350

I don't think they taste

like anything except sugar.

351

And I don't like the doughnuts that

are pre packaged in the supermarket

352

like the Drake's doughnuts.

353

It just tastes like coffee

cake and doughnut form.

354

They're often hard.

355

And I don't like them

covered in powdered sugar.

356

There's too much powdered sugar.

357

Too much.

358

I don't like a little powdered

sugar, but too much is gross.

359

Like when it's a cloud around,

like, you know, hold me onto

360

the cloud of powdered sugar.

361

It's like, I just can't

deal with all that going on.

362

So that's our banter and talk about

the history of doughnuts and our own

363

personal thoughts about doughnuts.

364

We'd love to hear yours.

365

If you'd like to talk about doughnuts,

you can go to the Facebook group, Cooking

366

with Bruce and Mark, and we will post.

367

post a picture of donuts and ask

you for your favorite donuts.

368

So please follow us there and we

will talk much more about donuts.

369

All right.

370

As is traditional, what's making

us happy in food this week.

371

For me, what's making me happy

in food this week is corn.

372

And, um, it is that time of year in

new England, late, late summer, early

373

fall, right end of August into early

September when our corn comes in.

374

I know we're really late for most people.

375

Most people, corn is like

months and months before us.

376

But our corn is in, and we had an

exceptionally rainy summer, which

377

can produce bad corn, but it actually

produced corn that is very corny.

378

It has a lot of corn flavor to

it, and it's not terribly watery.

379

So the corn we're getting

right now is really fresh.

380

Fantastic.

381

And I, I absolutely love this moment

when the corn comes into our local

382

farmers markets and places like that,

because there's nothing like corn

383

that just comes out of the field.

384

No, and Mark and I both love

corn like we like our doughnuts.

385

Not too sweet.

386

We like it to taste of the grain.

387

That it is.

388

And we don't want it to be too sweet.

389

What's making me happy is

another produce in the season.

390

The end of tomatoes are here, which

means I get to stock up on everybody's

391

ends and make homemade marinara.

392

Let's say that end is here in New England.

393

Yeah.

394

A lot of people are going to be

having tomatoes through November, but

395

we are at the end of our tomatoes.

396

We went out to lunch with some friends

yesterday, and my friend Rich, who's an

397

avid vegetable gardener, brought me, among

the box of potatoes and the braids of

398

onions and garlic, he brought me 12 eggs.

399

pounds of the end of his plum tomatoes.

400

There's a, I should tell you,

I have to tell you a story.

401

There's this little, um, snotty,

uh, up in tourist town, not

402

very far from us in New England.

403

And it's not snotty.

404

I mean, we go there a lot.

405

It's where the nicest grocery

store is closest to us.

406

And, um, there's a nice ice

cream shop that's open there.

407

And there is very pretentious,

uh, cheese shop in this town.

408

And he's got a little sandwich window and

time was, I think it's down now, but time.

409

was he had a sign on the sandwich window

that said don't even think about ordering

410

tomato on a sandwich outside of August.

411

So, that tells you about

tomatoes in New England.

412

That tells you everything

you need to know.

413

That is the only time you get them in.

414

I did.

415

We got home from lunch and I turned those

tomatoes into a giant pot of marinara.

416

You did.

417

And that will get bottled and

put in the freezer for a week.

418

Yeah, and notice when he says

bottle and put in the freezer,

419

he's not talking about canning it.

420

No.

421

He's going to put it in

containers, and then we're going

422

to drop it in the chest freezer.

423

There you go, in the freezer.

424

And, uh, right, and then you can, uh,

we can pull it out whenever we want.

425

Hey, I got a great, uh, tip for you,

and it should be a one minute quick tip,

426

but I'm going to throw it here anyway.

427

Um, if you have a chest freezer, get

yourself some of that contact paper that

428

you can write on with, uh, with a marker,

with like a whiteboard marker, and.

429

Just spread it across the top of

your freezer and stick it on there.

430

And then you can always have an inventory

right on the lid of your freezer.

431

He said that because I just made

him put a whiteboard on top of our

432

freezer to give me an inventory.

433

I just did it.

434

So we've got a great inventory

and that's a great tip for you.

435

Okay, that's the podcast for this week.

436

Thanks for being a part of

this podcast journey with us.

437

Thanks for tuning in.

438

Taking the time out to

listen to this podcast.

439

We certainly appreciate your support and

we certainly appreciate your being here.

440

Thank you for that.

441

And every week we tell you

what's making us happy in food.

442

So please go to our Facebook group and

tell us what's making you happy in food

443

this week, and we want to know about it.

444

We want to try it and talk about it

here on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.