The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

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jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Thanks everyone, solved!

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I would be searching for gluten-free bread formulations and modifying the hydration to get it to extrude the way you want it to.

Tapioca flour + potato starch + xanthan gum (I wonder what that phase diagram looks like) might be a place to go but the response to hot fat is not something I have enough experience to predict.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

yucca flour donuts, cassava flour donuts, tapioca flour donuts, manioc flour donuts recipes online  

you're using a machine....  how does it work?  What leavening is involved?   Does it drop the dough into hot oil?  I know nothing about donut machines (can you tell?)  but that doesn't mean I couldn't come up with ideas.   :)

Crider's picture
Crider

use it to translate 'tapioca donut recipe' into the language of whatever country you were visiting's language. Then visit that page and untranslate it into English. Asia is a rather huge place with many different languages, you know. So it is kind of difficult to pinpoint a recipe based on the clues you gave here. I do know that some non-gluten breads use very hot water to swell the starch and make a dough, so that may be part of the technique — or not.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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mini_maggie's picture
mini_maggie

I have no idea on how to reproduce that, but hey, if you've quit your day job to do this, maybe a business trip back there is in order to apprentice at the donut shop for a day!

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

The photo looks like it has wheat flour in it.  It doesn't stretch like a gel.

How do you know?

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

or water diluted coconut milk?  The idea of heating and making a gel, then beating in eggs one by one into the dough to get the right consistency.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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grind's picture
grind

I would track down the company that manufacters or distributes the machine and ask someone there how the donuts are made, etc.  They might be able to help you out or provide you with a juicy lead or two.  Good luck.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

Thank you!

mcs's picture
mcs

1.   If you're trying to duplicate a franchised donut (like Mr. Donut's doughnuts), then perhaps you should buy into the franchise.  Often times when you buy the equipment (like with Lil' Orbits doughnuts), you get the recipe along with all of the matching smallwares and paper goods.

2.  If you're trying to duplicate an authentic Asian doughnut, what is the Asian name for it, and in what country did it originate?

-Mark

Oh, and one more thing.  If it is something that is mass produced (like it looks like in the YT video), it's probably just a complete mix that is bought, then mixed with water to make a batter.  If that is the case, then rather than trying to duplicate it yourself, you just need to find the source for the mix.

 

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

The manual cranked donut machine has been around for at least 60 years.  The one that makes a lumpy version is just a variation on the theme (though I have not seen that particular variety previously).

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Since we have established that the recipe contains wheat flour, I now suspect that it is mostly wheat flour with some tapioca and lots of sugar.  It might be just a slightly modified commercial donut mix with the chewiness determined by the mixing process (more mixing than a regular cake donut would be subected to to develop some gluten). Perhaps there is an autolyse stage as well to allow the tapioca to fully absorb the necessary moisture either before or after incorporation of the leavening agent. You might look into a model that is based on the Portugese malasada which might be the origin of the cheese puff as well.

gerhard's picture
gerhard

In the video they were dropping crullers in the oil, could it be cruller the interior looked a little dense for that but who knows.  Éclair (choux pastry) is what the cruller is based on could it be something like that?  It has a texture totally different from cake type or yeast raised donuts and doesn't have the short texture associated with most donuts.

Gerhard

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Crullers with tapioca flour in place of some of the wheat flour might get the texture.  It should reduce the tendency for hole formation if the flour/tapioca ratio is right.  Don't know whether the tapioca should be the first thing or the last thing to get wet.  If first, you might get the gel to form early after which the flour could be incorporated.  I think I would try that as an initial approach. Another option might be to cold soak the tapioca to pre-form the gel and combine it with the cooked flour before adding the eggs.  Lots of degrees of freedom to explore in the process.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Sugar needs to be in there, it is a major component and dough will behave differently.  Look at this recipe for example:

http://www.joepastry.com/category/pastry/doughnuts/cake-doughnuts/

a good basic recipe.  Try it.   Now make some substitutions with the flour 

You could make a variety of flour combinations and use the mixed wet ingredients(with sugar & salt) to wet the various flour mixtures.  Then drop into oil and cool to check the textures.  

The flour mixtures might be calculated using triangulation with decreasing amounts.for example: wheat, tapioca flour and another flour or GF flour mixture.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

flour and then letting this cooled thin pudding work in your dough?   More can be found under water roux or tangzhong.  I think you did this but used too much flour to thicken.  

gerhard's picture
gerhard

In a cake donut recipe you avoid building gluten while the yeast type donut requires you to develop the gluten for the dough to rise.  From past donut experience, it seems counter intuitive, when you decrease the water content you increase the cook time with cake donuts.  We use to make a batter for extruding with the Belshaw hopper right over the oil and using the same dry ingredients we made a stiffer batter that could be rolled and hand cut into stick type donuts, i.e. honey sticks, walnut crunch.  The hand cut ones took about 3 minutes to cook while the extruded variety (old fashion, chocolate glazed etc.) took a minute to minute and a half in the fryer.  I think the moisture in the batter must facilitate the heat transfer to the centre of the doughnut.

Gerhard

P.S. sorry that the cruller idea was a flop

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

You may be closer than you think.  3:1 wheat flour to tapioca may be too low.  I am not surprised that at that ratio the tapioca overwhelms the wheat flour in terms of absorption.  I might try 10:1 and see if you can detect the effect of the tapioca. Since this is a commercial mix that you are trying to replicate, it will have been adjusted to include as little of the more expensive ingredients as possible to get the desired effect.  Adjusting the liquid will be necessary as well, since the tapioca ties up so much water.  The sugar should tend to thin it out, and you may not need as much as a cake donut would dictate but 0.5-4T per cup of wheat flour would probably not be too much. It may also be the case that your flour is too strong, though there are so many variables in the mix  at this point that to adjust the flour before you are close to what you want may just add complexity where you don't need it.

 

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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grind's picture
grind

Are pons similar to Chinese deep fried bread?  That could be an angle (but I have no idea if it is!).  Probably not, tho.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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grind's picture
grind

How about adding some diastatic malt as it seems to leave varying amounts of moisture depending on the percetage used.  It can also add some chewiness.  Or some other type of dough conditioner.  Just a thought.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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gerhard's picture
gerhard

The Belshaw machines are made to extrude cake batter and deposit it directly in the oil, when you make yeast raised donuts you need to let the donut rise after forming the shape. Most places put  the formed doughnut on screens for rising, if the dough is too slack the dough will go through the screen then when put in the oil it won't seperate easily from the screen.  The result is a donut that absorbs a lot of fat.  With a proofer we let the doughnuts rise 30 to 45 minutes depending on dough temperature and ambient temperature.  

Gerhard

clazar123's picture
clazar123

http://www.sonia-portuguese.com/recipes/pqueijo.htm

Is it something like this only no cheese?

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I like Mini's observation that the effect of tapioca plus soaking time is similar to pregelatinizing some of the flour (thanks Mini for another of your cool insights).  But I don't think you are developing the gluten at all.  In a batter (like a 90% hydration yeast bread) it can take 10 minutes of high energy mixing to get the gluten to really develop even with high gluten flour. Can you use a little tapioca and a lot of mixing to get the dough to develop?  Then if you need to thin it out to get it to run through the machine, add enough liquid back to get the viscosity you need.  Some people make ciabatta that way, developing the dough a little stiffer than they really want it just because it is faster to mix then adding back the water they need.  The photo showed a very fine crumb texture that looks a lot like a tangzhong result.  I am pretty sure that you should be able to develop the gluten in a soft (tangzhong-like) dough levened with baking powder. The gluten should give you the chewy texture, and you may be able to enhance it with xanthan gum and more tapioca (or not).

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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gerhard's picture
gerhard

I have been thinking about this are you running a donut business and want to add this as a variety to differentiate your store from the others or are you hoping to build a business around this product?   I think these type of niche products take a long time to build a following.

In my experience we made almost 40 different donut varieties daily but the vast majority of sales were honey glazed, raised chocolate, apple fritters, dutchies, old fashion cake and chocolate glazed.  All the remaining varieties probably only enjoyed around 20% of sales but required close to 50% of the time in the production schedule.  If you ran out of the less popular varieties it seemed as if every other customers was ready to buy them.  Over the years we launched lots of varieties and even though some enjoyed good initial sales non stuck around in our regular production schedule.

My point is you may enjoy these but unless you are filling an ethnic market demand you may never find a market large enough justify the effort.

Gerhard

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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gerhard's picture
gerhard

I am from Ontario, Canada so think a meet up isn't easily done.  My donut years are long behind me, I think October 1997 was when I baked my last donut.  We did all our baking at night and even though I tried to staff all the shifts it seemed that I always had to step in bake at the least opportune times.  

I now have a business that allows us to work 9 to 5 for about 10 months of the year, the other two months have a lot of 12 hour days, and take a vacation without worrying if the baker will catch the flu or break an arm etc.  The part of the donut business that I found least appealing was that you started every day with no inventory, long hours of operation which makes staffing a big challenge and then the market changed.  When we first started in the late '70s we sold about 50% coffee and 50% donuts by the time I sold it donut sales were less than 15% of sales and it was hard to justify the expenses involved with baking donuts.  Health concerns  caused people to be less tempted by deep fried treats, to make up for lost donut sales we started to sell bagels and lunch items which were all lower margin making it a less attractive business.  Sometimes I felt like the guy in the Duncan Donut comercial that only had time off to sleep and then back to making donuts.

http://youtu.be/petqFm94osQ

Gerhard

fotomat1's picture
fotomat1

125g tapioca   85g powdered sugar   75g all purpose flour   3g kosher salt   3g yeast  160g milk   55g melted butter   1 egg

Combine ingredients,let it sit for 30-60 minutes drop by your method into hot oil....good luck

jvlin's picture
jvlin

Thank you! I'l try this. I bought a gram scale and will try this as soon as I get it.

fotomat1's picture
fotomat1

a scale

1 cup  tapioca     3/4 cup powdered sugar     ½ cup plus 2 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. kosher salt      ½ tsp.  yeast      ¾ cup milk     4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted     1egg

fotomat1's picture
fotomat1

are we this?? Sucess or no??

jvlin's picture
jvlin

I must have done something wrong, because the batter was very, very watery. I think I used too much milk/eggs? At any rate, I'm modifying to try and get it to work. Thank you :)

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

with all this experimenting, don't be afraid to pursue it and change tracks.

mijo.sq's picture
mijo.sq

Memories.. Mr. Donuts were/are the craze in Taiwan too. (They were amazingly chewy/squishy.) 

Me and my wife are trying to recreate the donuts as well.

jvlin's picture
jvlin

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mijo.sq's picture
mijo.sq

Replicating and for a donut shop. (Their donut glazes are as amazing as their donuts.)

IIRC, their kitchen didn't have any specialized equipment for their donuts, but this is probably due to their usage of pre-mix powder. One location had an open kitchen, up until my last trip when they moved the window.


jvlin's picture
jvlin

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mijo.sq's picture
mijo.sq

Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately relocation is going to be a far ways from California. 

I have sights on Southern California as well, but that will be later on. 

Good Luck! I know the payoff will be great if you succeed.