Donuts

 Donuts Project

Donuts are a fried food and are popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet  snack that can be homemade or bought in bakeries, supermarkets, and food stalls. They are usually sweet, deep fried from a flour dough, and shaped in rings or flattened spheres that sometimes contain fillings, like cream or jelly.

Ring doughnuts (non-filled) are formed by joining the ends of a long, skinny piece of dough into a ring or by using a doughnut cutter, which simultaneously cuts the outside and inside shape, leaving a doughnut-shaped piece of dough and a doughnut hole from dough removed from the center. This smaller piece of dough can be cooked or re-added to the batch to make more doughnuts.

Doughnuts have a disputed history. One theory suggests that doughnuts were introduced into North America by Dutch settlers, who had also helped make other American desserts, including cookies, apple cream pie, and cobbler popular. Indeed, in the 19th century, doughnuts were sometimes referred to as one kind of olykoek, (a Dutch word, literally meaning "oil cake"), a sweetened cake fried in fat.

Here’s another story: One American, Hansen Gregory, claimed to have invented the ring-shaped doughnut in 1847 aboard a lime-trading ship when he was only sixteen years old. Gregory was dissatisfied with the greasiness of doughnuts twisted into various shapes and with the raw center of regular doughnuts. He claimed to have punched a hole in the center of dough with the ship's tin pepper box and later taught his mother how to do it. That being said, there are many possible origins on where and how donuts were invented.

The two most common types are the ring doughnut and the filled doughnut, a flattened sphere filled with jam (or jelly), custard, cream, or other sweet fillings. A small spherical piece of dough that is about the size of one half dollar may be cooked as a doughnut hole. Baked doughnuts are a variation of donut cooked in an oven instead of being deep fried. Shapes include rings, balls, and flattened spheres, twists and other forms.

Sometimes, people decide to make their own donuts instead of buying some at the store. Usually, the recipes are much healthier than a store-bought donut recipe might be. There is an example shown below. The home recipe is below the Krispy Kreme Nutritional facts.

After frying, ring doughnuts or cake donuts are often topped with a glaze, icing, or a powder such as cinnamon or sugar. The fried version of donuts may sometimes be called "fried cakes". There are many other specialized doughnut shapes such as old-fashioned, bars or Long Johns (a long rectangular shape), or with the dough twisted around itself before cooking.  

The Manufacturing Process of Donuts

Acquiring the ingredients

 Bakeries or franchises that do a brisk business (making hundreds of dozens in a day) acquire donut mixes in bags, often as large as 50 lb. The bakeries have the ingredients shipped to them from company warehouses within the area and the mixes are stored in the warehouse and used as needed. 

Measuring the ingredients

 A batch is referred to by weight of dry ingredients put into the mixture. The weight of the batch varies with the type of donut and amount to be made. The mix is poured from a bag onto a scale and the accurate amount measured. If the mix is not measured accurately, it could lead to a waste of money, time, and ingredients.

Mixing and kneading

The flour mixture is then poured into a large mixing bowl put onto an industrial-sized mixer and the appropriate amount of wet ingredients are added depending on weight of the batch and type of doughnut in production. It then homogenizes the ingredients and develops the dough by forming the basic structure of the doughnut. Using a machine/robot instead of a real person is very useful because it saves time, money, and energy. The robot can also work faster than a human so it is more efficient too.

“Resting” the yeast

It is essential that yeast dough "rests" or sits for about 10 minutes after it is kneaded. As the yeast grows it causes the dough to rise. If this does not happen, the dough yields flat, tough doughnuts and the mix has to be discarded. At the end of this period, a good-quality dough is spongy and soft.

Proofing

 The extruder is attached directly to a warm, oven-like machine, which is a hot-air, temperature-controlled warm box set to approximately 125° F. Proofing makes the doughnuts light and airy. YA machine attached to the extruder pushes the rings or circles onto small shelves that move through the proof box for about 30 minutes. The shelves are chain-driven pulley system and move down, up, and over during this 30 minute period. After 30 minutes, they are quite puffy.

Frying

 Next, the raw doughnuts fall automatically, one row at a time, into the open fryer. As the doughnuts move through the fryer, they are flipped over by a mechanism. After two minutes, the doughnuts have moved completely through the fryer and are forced into the mechanism that applies glaze.

Glazing and drying

As the doughnuts leave the fryer, they move under a shower of glaze. Here, glaze is forced through holes from a bridge running several inches above the hot doughnuts. The glaze coats the top, sides, and part of the bottom of the doughnuts. The doughnuts are conveyored out of the production area to dry and cool.

Quality Control

Packaged dry mix is made to specifications and checked at the processing plant. Perishables must be purchased fresh and quickly used. The yeast brew must be precisely mixed and used within 12 hours. It is essential for employees to carefully monitor all intervals of time for kneading, resting, proofing, and frying.

Finally, the employees can tell by the feel of the dough after it is mixed if the dough is spongy and the yeast is rising properly. Watching the doughnuts plump up in the proofer indicates the temperature is just right. They watch for the appropriate color of the frying doughnuts to ensure they're not overcooked.

Once the donut is done being fried, it is pulled off the fryer and set to the side to be put into boxes. Then, the donut is finally brought to the customer, she/he pays, and then she/he starts enjoying the sugary and tasty flavor of a donut.