Nicholas Gavin is the Culinary Creative Director of ChefSteps, where he develops recipes and is responsible for making all the food look beautiful. Nick has worked at ChefSteps for over a decade; he and ChefSteps co-founder Grant Crilly worked together at Modernist Cuisine. Nick has worked in professional kitchens both in the United States and abroad, most notably at Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain.

Nicholas Gavin

With a soft, tender, and crumbly crumb encased in a crisp outer shell, cake doughnuts are a deliciously affirmative answer to the question, “Would deep-fried cake be good?”What distinguishes cake doughnuts from other styles, like <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-make-bulletproof-fluffy-yeasted-doughnuts-at-home">yeasted doughnuts</a> and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/crullers">crullers</a>, is the way the dough is leavened: Baking soda and baking powder give the dough lift, producing a fine-grained crumb with tiny bubbles throughout. (Yeasted doughnuts use yeast, and crullers, like other <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/choux-pastry">choux pastry</a>–based doughs, rely on steam produced by water trapped in the dough for leavening.) Toss these cake doughnuts in cinnamon sugar or give them a glaze, and you’ll be well on your way to making a doughnut display case that will put your local Dunkin’ to shame.

Cake Doughnuts