User's blog

Category: Curiosity Doughnuts

  • Driven By Dough

    My morning starts at around 3:15 am. From then on, I have my head down and am running non-stop for about 12 hours. I have my eyes on the path in front of me and block out the rest of the world as I strive to create. The other day a regular customer asked Aki if we were closing. He overheard a conversation in Wawa that made him think that this was a possibility. She told him it was a baseless rumor and not true. What is true is that we have a small, tight, hard-working staff that makes magic on a daily basis. It’s hard. It’s really hard. And when people ask me how it’s going, I don’t bother to sugarcoat it. My blunt answers when sharing the hardships of creating on a daily basis and the insane unpredictability of our business flow have probably led to the rumors of imminent shutdown. When we have too many doughnuts left over, we are crushed. When we run out of doughnuts early, customers are disappointed and we are too, because we want everyone to get what they came looking for. Finding a balance between sales and leftovers when it comes to a perishable product is a delicate balancing act. We need to sell out every day in order to make money, but we are also here to make people happy.

    Two years into our current location, we are creating more different items than I ever imagined. Besides doughnuts, we have tapped into our dough-driven creativity and incorporated a focused selection of naturally leavened breads (sourdough, focaccia, and bagels) and pastries. We continue to evolve and refine our croissants and their derivatives. Cinnamon rolls on the weekends are developing their own following. We (finally) brought back American Noodles in the form of take-home noodle kits for two, designed to make dinner simple and delicious. It’s a constant evolution at the shop.

    With that in mind, here is our current lineup:

    **The Doughnuts:**
    – Crullers
    – Angel Pillows
    – Chocolate Yeasted
    – Vanilla Yeasted
    – Cloud
    – Hot-Cake
    – Condensed Milk
    – Not Quite Vegan
    – Lemon Cake
    – Apple Cider
    – Super Cake
    – Dark Knight
    – Chocolate Babka
    – Brown Sugar Babka
    – Savory Zeppoli
    – Meltaway Bars

    **Naturally Leavened Breads:**
    – Sourdough
    – Focaccia
    – Cinnamon Rolls
    – Bagels, with rotating fixings like brown butter cream cheese, egg salad, and more.

    **Croissants and Croissant Hand Pies**

    **Pasta Kits:**
    – Fresh pasta and sauce for two

    If any of that piques your interest, come see us at the shop!

    800 Edison Furlong Rd., Furlong, PA 18925

  • Lime Pickle Mafaldine

    Well, here goes. Let’s see if the spaghetti sticks. As many of you know, we were at the forefront of utilizing pasta extruders in the kitchen 15 years ago. We have continued to quietly work, develop, and share our work. As we dive headfirst back into the world of noodles, I am looking to share our recipes and creations. First up is our Lime Pickle Mafaldine. We paired this noodle with brown butter chicken bolognese and a Calabrian cucumber condiment in our second American Noodles Pasta Kit.
    So here goes, rough and ready to be explored:

    Lime Pickle Semolina Pasta Dough

    – 600 grams water
    – 125 grams Indian Lime Pickle Condiment
    – 2000 grams semolina flour
    – 600 grams lime pickle water (30% water plus potentially a little more)

    Put the lime pickles and water in a blender. Puree them together until the mixture appears smooth. Strain the lime mixture through a fine-meshed sieve. Reserve for making noodles.

    Put the semolina into the pasta machine and mix to distribute in the hopper. With the machine running, drizzle the lime pickle water into the machine. Mix the dough for 6-7 minutes. Check the consistency of the dough after four minutes. It should begin to resemble coarse streusel. Squeeze the dough together in your hand. Break the dough apart. If it breaks cleanly, the dough has enough water. If it crumbles, add additional water in 20-gram increments. Once the dough is the right consistency, let it knead in the machine for a few minutes. If you are in a hurry, you could begin extruding immediately, but it’s better to let it rest in the machine for 10 minutes for ideal hydration.

  • Naturally Leavened

    We have been having more than our fair share of fun exploring the potential of using a stiff sweet starter in dough, from panettone to brioche.

  • Nothing is Original

    I love this quote. I am thankful to have come across it years ago. I believe I have posted it before, but as I am just getting my fingers warmed up and my brain functioning again, it is a wonderful happy place to begin.

  • Caramelized Cream Croissants

    Cooking with cream is currently my thing. It’s been this way for a number of years. I could probably write a book on the idea. I certainly have a few chapters created by now. But the act of writing a book often finalizes an idea. I am currently enjoying the ongoing flow of thoughts on the simple idea.

    If you look back at our grated croissants, you’ll see we coated the croissants with a slurry of cream and sugar and then roasted them in the oven. I reapplied that idea to slices of our croissant loaves. I brushed the slices with our cream slurry and cooked the croissant slices in a non-stick pan, flipping occasionally to evenly cook the cream and allow the sugar to caramelize on the bread.

    (We used to do something similar with butter and sugar. The use of cream instead slows down the process and adds steam. The steam warms the croissant slices throughout and makes them warm and buttery.)

    When the croissant slices are caramelized, we transfer them to cooling racks to allow the sugar to harden into a thin glassy sheen. The caramelized croissant slices are delightful while still warm and still delicious when cooled down.

  • Grated Croissants

    I wanted to be frugal and not waste unsold croissant bread. We started with caramelizing croissant croutons. We cut our croissant loaf into cubes and coated the pieces in a slurry of sugar and heavy cream. We put cream and sugar coated croutons onto a sheet pan and cooked them for about an hour until the croissants and sugar caramelized and formed an almost toffee exterior. We cooled the croutons down and snacked on them. They were delicious. But in their crouton form, they were only a dangerous snack. I looked at the croutons and saw an opportunity to turn them into crumbs for topping our doughnuts. We put them into a food processor and pulverized them into a coarse crumb. We used these on top of our Dough-knots, a new shape of doughnut using our meltaway dough. (Our meltaway dough is laminated in the style of a croissant, so the connection made sense.) The dough-knots with caramelized croissant crumbs were delicious and fun to create, sell, and indulge in.

    After looking at the crumbs in action, I had a further idea. I wanted to grate the croissants onto our croissants. We took the croissant crumbs and pureed them with Blond Orelys Chocolate and brown butter. We set the mixture into pint containers and refrigerated it. We baked off our croissants and when they were cool, we used a microplane to grate the croissant mixture onto the croissant. The end result was a buttery, rich, caramelized nest of delicious topping our crispy, flaky, and buttery croissants.

  • Mayo Marinated Five Ingredient Fried Chicken, Plus Vegetables

    Okay, so fried chicken is a thing that lots of us have played with over the years. Recently, I saw our friend, Kenji, post about updating his 5-ingredient fried chicken recipe, swapping pickled jalapenos for his pickles in the recipe. He was smitten with his swap. I can agree with the move, as we did our pretzel-crusted fried chicken with cherry pepper caramel sauce for years. The spice is nice. I love the idea of simple, but, as anyone who knows me knows, I will make simple hard. My one hang-up with the 5-ingredient fried chicken sandwich is the lack of mayonnaise on the bun. Then it dawned on me. We could create a brine blending mayonnaise and cherry pepper brine. (We made a second version using giardiniera, for those who aren’t feeling the spice.) We scored our chicken and put it in a zip-top bag with the mayo brine and refrigerated it overnight. The following morning, we dredged the thighs, dripping in thick brine, in self-rising flour seasoned with salt. We refrigerated the coated chicken on a parchment-lined sheet pan for 6-ish hours (you could also leave it overnight and prep a day ahead) and then fried it at 375°F for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. We seasoned the fried chicken with salt. While I fried the chicken, Aki chopped up cherry peppers and giardiniera and added them to two separate containers of heavy mayonnaise to make tangy condiments for the buns. This way, we could match the mayo to the brined chicken thighs. We toasted our buns, in this case, they were brioche-esque, and smeared the appropriate mayo onto the buns. Then we added sliced tomatoes and romaine leaves along with the chicken. We could have just put the chicken on the bun with the mayo to stay true to the 5 ingredients. But why stop there? We wanted to explore and enjoy. The 5-ingredient mayo model is magnificent. The final addition of fresh vegetables, a slaw, or something else bright is a no-brainer in our kitchen. You could definitely taste the difference between the two brines. The chicken had a great tangy flavor with a hint of spice. The crust was tender and crispy, while the meat was juicy and flavorful. And if you were wondering, a kimchi-mayo version is next on the list. One more idea to explore and expand upon: what flavor is your mayo? There is such a variety of delicious condiments on grocery shelves these days, both spicy and smoked, that it’s easy to add yet another layer of flavor without increasing the size of your ingredient list.

    Ingredient Guidelines:
    – Brine: 100 grams mayonnaise, 100 grams cherry pepper (giardiniera, kimchi, pickle, etc.) brine
    – 6 boneless and skinless chicken thighs, scored
    – Self-rising flour seasoned with 1% salt
    – Chopped cherry peppers (or whatever pickled vegetable was in the brine)
    – Mayonnaise
    – Toasted buns
    – Sliced and salted tomatoes
    – Lettuce leaves

  • Down the Rabbit Hole

    Roughly 7 years ago, Curiosity Doughnuts began with a question, “What can we do with doughnuts?” The answer is still being written. Curiosity Doughnuts gets its name from our own restless curiosity. We are always thinking about new flavors and textures, bouncing around different ideas, and rotating our offerings, because we’re never satisfied with the status quo.

    Curiosity Doughnuts began as a part-time passion project in the Stockton Market that grew into a full-time business with shops inside Whole Foods Market and beyond. We were moving from NH back to PA, and we wanted to try something new. The idea of doughnuts came up, then a space magically appeared, and the rest is history. Our history began with Alex making a ridiculous 14-hour round trip commute each week for seven months while we sold our house and made the actual move, and a whole lot of skepticism from everyone we knew. We’ve built a flourishing small business that makes people happy. Our goal is always to make people happy with doughnuts. We strive to do that every day we are open.

    Our customers are the most important ingredients in our success. They are smart and inquisitive. They talk to us, asking questions, and sharing thoughts. We appreciate every one of you. It’s been such a pleasure to share our doughnuts with the world.

    We have the best staff ever. We couldn’t have developed, shared, and eaten so many delicious doughnuts without them. Whole Foods Market has been a solid base of operations. They gave us the opportunity to share their space, and we have met many incredible people throughout our relationship with them.

    Curiosity Doughnuts has come to a crossroads, and we are choosing to go off-road. The last seven years have been incredibly delicious, creative, and inspiring. They have also taken their toll. We are hitting pause and shutting down our current locations. Our last day at Native Café will be Saturday, June 25. Princeton will be Sunday, June 26. White Horse Coffee will be July 1. Our final day will be at Spring House on Sunday, July 3.

    Change is necessary, and we are embracing that. We are brainstorming new ways to bring the doughnuts back, but it’s a work in progress. Any new developments will be posted here and on social media. So keep an eye out. You never know where the rabbit hole will lead us…

  • Curiosity Doughnuts: Six Years and

    We opened Curiosity Doughnuts six years ago this weekend. I look back at what we were doing and how we did it. It was difficult and exhilarating. It was unknown. Six years later and our days still feel the same, except now we have a few more doughs under our belts and have developed a unique style. Not knowing and being constantly curious has allowed us to discover, create, and evolve. Thank you to our incredible staff and passionate customers for keeping us moving forward.

  • Cornflakes Crullers

    I loved this idea. Our first attempts proved to be an epic fail. That said, I may have to revisit this again soon. Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table