I've spent 27 of my 33 years living in this area, so you'd think I'd be pretty familiar with all the best local haunts. (Like La Tolteca in Azusa, which looks like nothing special from the outside but serves the best tacos and homemade chips and salsa I've ever had.) Doesn't every town have a handful of those scary-looking, hole-in-the-wall type places that look like a health inspector's worst nightmare but which, in reality, serve some of the best food imaginable and have served longstanding and loyal customers for generations? Well, Donut Man is one of those places, and it's literally just down the road from our house. Yet in all these years I've never once eaten one of their doughnuts--even though I've heard friends talk about it here and there over the years. Then a few years ago my friend Christy (who is from Texas, lives in Virginia, and works in Washington, D.C.) asked me out of nowhere: "Have you, by chance, ever heard of this place called....'Donut Man'?" I was floored. As it turns out, Christy's fiance, Del, who is originally from Tennessee, went to CalTech in Pasadena. Somehow he and his friends got hooked on Donut Man's famous strawberry doughnuts and would go on regular midnight doughnut runs out to Glendora (20 miles away) just to get them. Christy wanted me to try and send her some so that she could surprise Del for his birthday, but it just didn't work out. Del's birthday is coming around again, and when Christy was here last week we hatched a plan: I'd get some of the doughnuts and try to figure out how she could recreate them at home. So here's what it looks like:
As you can see, all it is is a round glazed doughnut, sliced through the middle, and stuffed to bursting with large fresh strawberries covered in a glaze. Easy to make yourself, Christy! However, I'm hoping some of you more culinary-minded blog readers out there might be able to help Christy out on the glaze on these strawberries. It's a thin glaze--definitely not as thick as pie filling--but it's not watery, either. And while it's slightly sweeter than the actual strawberries, it's not terribly so. The overwhelming flavor of the glaze is of strawberries--not sugar. My best guess would be that the strawberries have just been sprinkled with, say, a little fine granulated sugar and left to set in their own juices. But there's got to be something added (tapioca? cornstarch? gelatin?) to give it a little bit of the glaze-like consistency. I just don't know what. Any suggestions?
I've spent 27 of my 33 years living in this area, so you'd think I'd be pretty familiar with all the best local haunts. (Like La Tolteca in Azusa, which looks like nothing special from the outside but serves the best tacos and homemade chips and salsa I've ever had.) Doesn't every town have a handful of those scary-looking, hole-in-the-wall type places that look like a health inspector's worst nightmare but which, in reality, serve some of the best food imaginable and have served longstanding and loyal customers for generations? Well, Donut Man is one of those places, and it's literally just down the road from our house. Yet in all these years I've never once eaten one of their doughnuts--even though I've heard friends talk about it here and there over the years. Then a few years ago my friend Christy (who is from Texas, lives in Virginia, and works in Washington, D.C.) asked me out of nowhere: "Have you, by chance, ever heard of this place called....'Donut Man'?" I was floored. As it turns out, Christy's fiance, Del, who is originally from Tennessee, went to CalTech in Pasadena. Somehow he and his friends got hooked on Donut Man's famous strawberry doughnuts and would go on regular midnight doughnut runs out to Glendora (20 miles away) just to get them. Christy wanted me to try and send her some so that she could surprise Del for his birthday, but it just didn't work out. Del's birthday is coming around again, and when Christy was here last week we hatched a plan: I'd get some of the doughnuts and try to figure out how she could recreate them at home. So here's what it looks like: 
7 comments:
That photo makes me want to run out and get a donut right now :-) yummy! I've only made a few fruit pies, and I used sugar (granulated) with the fruit's own juice and added quick cook tapioca for the thickener. But I can usually see the tapioca, so if you can't see the little beads of tapioca, they might use cornstarch or a gelatin/thickner.
We are going to be in Denver over July 4th...so if you and Matt are road tripping, come to CO! We are hanging out with Phil, Carol and Elaine. I'm hoping some Beau Jo's pizza is in the plan :-)
My suggestion was going to be a sprinkling or so of cornstarch...I think a glaze like this is usually boiled first, before being added to the strawberries. How about looking to a strawberry pie recipe to see how the filling is made? Whichever thickening agent they use, just use less of it to get the consistency you want.
Very good suggestions! Thanks, ladies. As I said, the glaze isn't very thick at all--if pure juice was a 1 and full-on thick glaze was a 10, this stuff would be like a 3. And it's not very sweet at all. Also, it's not cloudy, so that rules out (probably) tapioca and powdered sugar.....
I agree with Kelly. Boiled with a little cornstarch to thicken it a titch. I might have something similar in a recipe I actually just read last night. I'll take a look at it later today and see if it inspires anything!
When you say boil it, you mean boil some strawberry juice with a little sugar and cornstarch? Not boiling the actual strawberries themselves, right?
Right, D. Don't boil the strawberries. Maybe take a few strawberries and mash them up, and then boil that with the sugar & cornstarch...
Everyone,
As the person trying to make these donuts next week, thank you so much for the pictures Denise and for the suggestions for making the glaze. I'll start experimenting next week with the boiling, cornstarch, juice, sugar idea, but any additional ideas before then, please share.
I'll let you know how it goes.
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