Maui chef uses brioche to elevate the doughnut

KAHULUI » With Krispy Kreme’s deep-fried delights and Komoda Bakery’s famed doughnut-on-a-stick, does Maui really need another doughnut?

Yes, it does. Even at $3 to $4 apiece.

You will gladly pay that price and more for one of Madame Donut’s brioche-style pastries because, quite simply, it is the best doughnut you will ever taste.

Parked alongside other food trucks at Kahu­lui Harbor on a recent Saturday, Madame Donut — as Desiree Parada prefers to be called — dispensed an assortment of artisan pastries from her colorful Donut Dynamite bake shop on wheels. They included bacon maple doughnuts with bacon and apple folded into the dough and bacon bits sprinkled over a maple glaze; brown butter doughnuts with vanilla bean glaze and brown butter streusel; and her Black Market KroNut, a glazed croissant-doughnut hybrid with macadamia nut crunch.

Other selections: Parada’s Samoa Kine homage to the Girl Scout cookie, made with coconut brioche, a caramel glaze, toasted coconut and shortbread cookies. Locally grown Meyer lemons amplified the citrusy kick of a cream-filled doughnut topped with a toasted meringue swirl. She is also on trend with her Hammy Cheesy Donut and other savory options.

While many doughnut shops seem content to dazzle by piling toppings on a ho-hum platform, Madame Donut pours her classical culinary training into turning out perfectly balanced brioche dough, fondant-style glazes and dainty decorations, all made from scratch — even the sprinkles, which she applies with tweezers.

"I’m kind of ridiculous like that," she said.

Brioche is a classic French bread rich and golden with butter and eggs. It produces a soft, light texture and a tender "crumb" — the term for the interior of a bread or pastry.

"The major difference is the way you incorporate butter, little by little," said Parada, who resembles an anime character with her perky enthusiasm and Day-Glo pigtails.

"Brioche takes more time and effort to make, but the result is that the dough tastes better. It’s enriched with more eggs and butter, but if you emulsify it, it’s not greasy, contrary to what you would think because it’s an enriched dough, technically, that’s so much fatter. But if you make the dough correctly, what it does is coat each particle of flour."

The proof is in the pastry. As with other doughnuts, Parada’s are deep-fried but nowhere near as sweet or greasy.

PARADA, 40, grew up in a small village in the Philippines without electricity. From cooking over a wood fire as a youngster, she went on to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa, Calif., with a focus on baking and pastry arts. She worked at such noted San Francisco restaurants as Aqua, Jardiniere and Tartine Bakery & Cafe, and was executive chef for Infusion Lounge in the Bay Area.

Her husband, Frank, who helps with the business, has a similar background that includes a six-month stint at Ferran Adria’s El Bulli in Spain, known for pioneering molecular gastronomy. The couple moved to Maui in 2011, mostly for the weather, Parada said. She worked a "day job" as a resort massage therapist until making the transition into Madame Donut full time this year.

Parada prepares her dough at the commercial kitchen at the Lokahi Pacific Business Incubator in Wai­luku, frying it up there or in her "donutmobile." Because she makes each pastry by hand from start to finish, Parada is able to produce an average of only 40 dozen doughnuts a week.

They are available daily at Memphis Belle Coffee House in Kihei, and she has a growing list of accounts at some of Wai­lea’s swankiest resorts. Most Saturdays, Parada hauls her Donut Dynamite trailer to the Maui Swap Meet in Kahu­lui.

She sees her business expanding to Hono­lulu, but in the meantime you can feast your eyes, if not your taste buds, at Donut Dynamite on Facebook via donutdynamite.com.