Eat This: A deep dive into donut business!

I have a donut problem. Scratch that: I have several donut problems. One problem is that I love donuts. Not a problem, you say? Reader, I confess, I love donuts too much. My dog’s veterinarian is a block from one of my preferred donut shops, and I am incapable of taking Winnie in for a checkup without popping in for a quick snack on the way home. “Just one old-fashioned donut,” I say to myself, “Lunchtime is hours away!”. Then I look at the donut case and find myself ordering a fritter too, might as well get a boston creme for my son, and gee, that blueberry glazed looks good. I have the same problem when I pass by the donut shop near Kaiser Permanente after my own doctor’s appointments. And when I’m driving home from a hike from Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park - Donut Tyme is right there, I might as well stop in. I treat myself too often, perhaps, but it can be difficult to resist temptation when there are so many superb donuts available.

Donuts in Riverside (and in southern California as a whole) are remarkably good. The worst donut in Riverside is better than most of the best donuts in any place I’ve lived before. It is one of the great joys and dangers of living in the region. Credit may be due to Ted Ngoy (aka “The Donut King” ); according to the 2020 documentary on his life, after learning the trade at Winchell’s “donut school,” he built his own donut empire. Ngoy was personally responsible for training and financing several generations of Cambodian donut shop owners in the region. It could be that we owe our donut luck to the fact that so many shops share a common progenitor and follow the donut business model that he sold to his donut proteges.

This consistency, ironically, leads to my other donut problem, a problem which also provides the kernel for today’s column. My wife, Kerensa, cannot eat dairy. When I go to a donut shop, as a way to salvage some possible virtue out of my vice, I often ask whether any non-dairy donuts are on offer. That way, I can bring home a treat for her, thus tempering my selfish gluttony with a veneer of generosity. There are almost never any non-dairy options - milk is one of the usual suspects in the rogues gallery of donut recipes, but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?

On a recent visit to Steve’s Donuts, a shop that is frequently cited as one of Riverside’s best, I asked about non-dairy options and received a surprising answer from the owner, Linda Ke. “No, we don’t have any donuts that don’t have dairy. In fact, if any donut shop ever tells that they have non-dairy or vegan donuts, don’t believe them. No donut shop offers anything but regular donuts because every donut shop uses a pre-packaged mix of dry ingredients to make their donuts. If they tell you they don’t, they’re lying!”

I was agog. “Really!?,” I asked, “nobody makes donuts from scratch? Where does the mix come from?” She gestured to a calendar on the wall featuring a photo collage of baked goods and smiling bakers - “Bakemark!” she responded pointing to the logo on the calendar.

“They make a few different mixes, some that are better and some that are worse but they all have milk and eggs. You just add water and mix it up to get the donut dough”. Her husband, Steve Chhour (the shop’s namesake), emerged from the kitchen to confirm, “It’s true! Different donut shops use different mixes - it’s possible to make a bad donut from the premium mix, but it’s not as easy to make a good one from the cheap mix”. “That’s right,” Linda confirmed, “not all mixes are the same, but every donut shop in Riverside uses them, 100%, so good luck finding a non-dairy option.”

I felt deflated. My romantic vision of artisan donuts made to order by independent donut chefs was punctured. I had brought home putatively non-dairy donuts in the past for Kerensa - had I been bamboozled by unscrupulous bakers? Or was Linda’s claim that all donut ingredients come premixed in 50-pound bags from a giant Bakemark warehouse inaccurate? 

And why did I care? It’s not like donuts are some pristine health food that I expect to have only natural ingredients with impeccably sourced pedigrees. A donut’s a donut. And the donuts I eat are uniformly good. So what if the bakers aren’t cracking their own eggs and measuring out milk from jugs each time they mix a batch? Does it really matter?

In her Eater article, “Christ in the Garden of Endless Breadstick,” New Yorker correspondent Helen Rosner has a great line about America’s favorite Italian fast-casual chain:

“I love that I can walk in the door of an Olive Garden in Michigan City, Indiana, and feel like I’m in the same room I enter when I step into an Olive Garden in Queens or Rhode Island or the middle of Los Angeles. There is only one Olive Garden, but it has a thousand doors.”

This relates to the question of why it might matter to me that all donuts in Riverside are made exactly the same way. All these donut shops have different names, different owners, and different specialties. Can it all be an illusion? Are they all the same shop with 1000 different doors? Am I really eating at the Olive Garden of donuts? 

I needed to assess the veracity of this claim and know for myself: Are all donuts mixed from the same bag? Is the general high level of donut quality in Riverside due to the fact that all the donuts are actually exactly made from the exact same mix? Could I salvage my childlike innocence and naivete, or had they been swept away permanently in a cloud of powdered milk and eggs? 

I started working the phones. Within Riverside city limits, there are 29 donut shops with phone numbers listed. A few were willing to speak on background, and agreed that all shops (including theirs) use the same set of Bakemark mixes. A few claimed on the phone that they made their donuts “from scratch” and denied the use of packaged Bakemark mixes. However, In person, I was able to visit those same shops and pose the same question: face-to-face, each confirmed that their donuts are made with Bakemark products. While I couldn’t get definitive answers from all 29, my research led me to conclude that Linda and Steve’s claims about the ubiquity of donut mixes are credible.

I returned to Steve’s to learn more about why shops lean so heavily on ready-to-mix powdered batters instead of making products from scratch. Bakemark mixes, Steve told me, are easy to use, inexpensive, and consistent.

Steve insists, the fact that all donuts are made with a similar mix doesn’t mean that all donuts are the same, notwithstanding my experience of general donut consistency across independent shops. There are lots of factors, he says, that make one shop’s donuts better or worse than another. Ingredients matter. Linda and Steve say they use the highest quality mix that Bakemark offers (ominously named “Master Mix” ): though it’s more expensive, it produces a richer, higher quality pastry. 

Lower-priced mixes from Bakemark don’t make quite as good a product, Linda tells me, nor do the cheaper mixes from Bakemark’s competitors Dawn and Sunrise. Linda also points to experience: “Some bakers need to measure water when they mix dough. Bakers like Steve, with 30 years experience can tell by looking when the dough is correct. The donuts are better because of it.”

My donut research uncovered another way that donut shops make themselves stand out: by offering additional treats beyond the Bakemark basics. I’ve highlighted a few shops below that offer excellent renditions of the mix-made donuts as well as extra items worth a taste.

Steve’s Donuts

Steve’s Donuts (7201 Arlington, Suite C), in addition to being an excellent journalistic source for donut truth, is an exemplary spot for delicious mix-made donuts. In addition to the usual assortment of yeasted and cake-style donuts, they offer a few different variations on laminated pastry - their cronut twists are flakey and light. When pressed, Linda concedes that she receives her laminated croissant dough in frozen sheets, ready to thaw, shape, proof, and bake. Like everything else in her donut case, they’re made with care and taste terrific. I also like their chocolate glazed twists and crumb-topped yeasted donuts. 

Solares Donuts

Solares Donuts (5145 Jurupa Ave # H, in the Jurupa Grand Center Shopping Center) offers a full line of Bakemark-sourced donuts but also offers a selection of Guatemalan pastries. If you’ve never tried a Guatemalan quesadilla, their rendition is worth a try. Unlike Mexican quesadillas, this is a rich gooey butter / cream cheese cake topped with sesame seeds. It’s a decadent treat.

Better Be Donuts #3

Better Be Donuts #3 (7026 Magnolia) has fresh and crispy Bakemark mix donuts, including conveniently sized apple fritters and a fun variety of eggy French crullers topped with colorful flavored glazes. They also offer fresh juices, with fruit and vegetables juiced to order. 

Epilogue: Hayet Albi

I did talk to one baker in Riverside who I believe is making donuts from scratch - Nizar Aridi of Hayet Albi Bakery. You may remember him from my column a couple of months ago: his worker co-op bakery is teaming up with Redland’s worker-owned Slow Bloom to open up a new coffee roastery, tasting room, and bake shop in Downtown Riverside. For his Lebanese-inflected donuts, Aridi starts with fresh butter and eggs and milk and flour; no Bakemark mixes.  He even offers credibly vegan donuts. “All of our hole-punch donuts are made with unsweetened soy milk and Violife plant-based butter.” I have enjoyed his vegan pistachio rose-water yeasted donuts in the past; his filled doughnuts are made with traditional dairy / egg recipes. 

If you want to try one out yourself, get down to Slow Bloom / Hayet Albi’s weekly Saturday popup from 9 am - 12 pm at Pain Sugar Gallery (3635 Ninth St.)

Earlier this year, I wrote a review of a University Avenue Chinese restaurant called Meat Lover BBQ & Fried Chicken Kitchen / Greedy Cat. In my review, I offhandedly suggested a get-together for readers of the Raincross Gazette to explore the menu in depth. I’m finally getting around to putting this get-together on the calendar! 

My proposal: on Wednesday October 23, let’s meet up for dinner at Greedy Cat at 7:00pm. If you’d like to join us, please RSVP by Monday October 21 at 10pm by emailing seth@raincrossgazette.com.

If we have enough attendees to justify it, I’ll arrange for a preset menu. I expect the cost of the meal to be between $25 and $35 per person. If you have dietary restrictions, please mention them in your RSVP.