EXTRA...

Dunkin' doesn't do donuts?

TODAY's quote: “I saw them and I said, ‘Oh my God, can I have two of those?’ ’’ - Tracy Hernandez.

French crullers disappear from South Shore

Beloved pasty gone but not forgotten

The Boston Globe reports that Eric Geoffroy calls it “the delicate princess of doughnuts.’’

French Cruller: Indescribably delicious.

Skye Gaudette even sketched a picture of it on a napkin in her quest to describe it.

Wendy Cobrda wrote to Dunkin' Donuts for an explanation when it vanished from her local coffee shop.

They are devotees of the French cruller, and pursuing their obsession has not been an easy path.

What IS it?

A French cruller is a fluted, ring-shaped doughnut made from choux pastry with a light airy texture. The name comes from early 19th century Dutch kruller, from krullen "to curl", and if you have never eaten one, they are not at all like a regular doughnut but cakey and airy and moist inside.

About Donuts:

Ring doughnuts 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.
      A disk-shaped doughnut can also be stretched and pinched into a torus until the center breaks to form a hole. Alternatively, a doughnut depositor can be used to place a circle of liquid dough (batter) directly into the fryer. Doughnuts can be made from a yeast-based dough for raised doughnuts or a special type of cake batter. Yeast-raised doughnuts contain about 25% oil by weight, whereas cake doughnuts' oil content is around 20%, but they have extra fat included in the batter before frying. Cake doughnuts are fried for about 90 seconds at approximately 190 °C to 198 °C, turning once.
      Yeast-raised doughnuts absorb more oil because they take longer to fry, about 150 seconds, at 182 °C to 190 °C.The French cruller, with its distinctive twisted ridges, disappeared three years ago from a broad corridor along Route 3 from Quincy all the way to the Cape Cod Canal, and the doughnut’s South Shore followers were left bereft, craving something they had loved and, without warning, lost.

But not "lost" to everyone, only lost to Plymouthians and their neighbors.

Hyannis has what Plymouth wants?

In 2003, the Dunkin' Donuts chain of doughnut shops stopped carrying traditional crullers, claiming that the hand-shaped treats were too labor-intensive, and couldn't be simulated with new machines for mixing doughnut batter.

The company allowed local franchisees the option of making them or not.

Tim Hortons, Honey Dew Donuts, and Krispy Kreme still sell the French cruller, while Dunkin' Donuts now sells several variations of a substitute product it calls a "cake stick" which is a simplified, machine-made version of the more elaborately twisted hand-made variety.

So if you live on the South Shore, you will have to drive to Hyannis for your "French cruller fix".

About Dunkin'

Dunkin' Donuts is an international doughnut and coffee retailer founded in 1950 by William Rosenberg in Quincy, now headquartered in Canton.

While the company originally focused on doughnuts and other baked goods, over half of its business today is in coffee sales, making it more of a competitor to Starbucks than to more traditional competitors such as Krispy Kreme and Tim Hortons.

Read The Globe story here.

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