Cake Doughnuts vs. Yeast Doughnut: What's the Difference? (2024)

FAQs

Cake Doughnuts vs. Yeast Doughnut: What's the Difference? ›

Yeast donuts are lighter with a puffy, malleable quality and a slighly chewy texture. Cake donuts have a dense, more compact crumb and a sturdy, crisp exterior shell. Cake donuts are rich and buttery because of the amount of butter in the batter.

While yeast is the leavening agent in yeast doughnuts, cake doughnuts rely on baking powder. Cake doughnuts are typically made with a mixture of butter, sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder.

Most Krispy Kreme doughnut varieties are made of the same yeast-raised dough as the original glazed, but they're prepared differently. Some are dipped in chocolate, caramel or other toppings and some are loaded with filling. Some speciality doughnuts are ring-shaped original glazed coated with different toppings.

The Obvious Difference

Yeast doughnuts, as the name clearly spells out, are made from dough leavened with yeast (think brioche), whereas cake doughnuts are traditionally made from a kind of cake batter that uses a chemical leavener (i.e. baking powder or baking soda).

Raised donuts, also called yeast donuts or just "regular" donuts, are light and fluffy with the characteristic honeycomb structure of yeasted dough. They're staples at Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme, though both chains sell cake donuts, too.

Yeast donuts are made from dough that is leavened with yeast, while cake donuts are made from a cake batter that uses baking powder or baking soda. This difference creates a world of difference in terms of texture and flavor.

The yeast uses the sugar as a food source to replicate itself/making the dough rise. Eggs are also added to the dough to provide flavour, texture, and structure. The proteins in the egg coagulate when heated, which helps to set the structure of the doughnut and create a fluffy, tender texture.

What kind of batter: Donuts are typically made with either yeast or cake batter. Airier yeast donuts usually have fewer calories than cake donuts, which have a denser texture.

To know whether or not you'll like Duck Donuts, you have to understand the different types of donuts: cake, yeasted (light and puffy), old-fashioned (sour cream or buttermilk yields a craggy, crusty exterior) or eggy crullers (delicate, almost pull-apart texture). Duck Donuts only has cake donuts.

Like regular donuts, donut holes can come in many varieties. The dough itself can fall under the categories of either cake or yeast style. The main difference between the two is that cake style donut holes use a leavener like baking soda or baking powder to bring rise to the bread, while a yeast style donut uses yeast.

Why are cake donuts so dense? ›

When the chemical leaveners baking powder and baking soda produce carbon dioxide, the batter is only able to trap some of the gas, which it does in small bubbles throughout the doughnut. All of this makes cake doughnuts denser than yeasted doughnuts.

The big advantage of a cake doughnut is that the batter can come in all kinds of flavors, whereas yeast doughnuts typically get most of their flavor from the glaze (except at Curiosity Doughnuts, where Talbot also makes a chocolate yeast dough).

Nineteenth century recipes for "old-fashioned donuts" are made with yeast, but in modern doughnut shops an "old-fashioned doughnut" is usually a cake doughnut. Historically, the terms are used imprecisely, and some controversy has arisen over the meaning of the terms doughnut, cruller and fry cake.

Jelly Doughnut

These classic doughnuts are typically round without a hole in the middle, and generally leavened with yeast. The center is stuffed with jelly, jam, or preserves (and sometimes chocolate!), giving you a burst of flavor with each bite.

For example, the Old Fashioned Cake Donut has a mild vanilla flavor with a slight nutmeg finish. These donuts take about 12-15 minutes to create from start to finish. A French Cruller* has a soft, airy texture with a pleasant light “egg-like” flavor. The center of the French Cruller is wet with a crunchy exterior.

After their initial introduction to our menu, we developed a special cutting tool specifically for our MUNCHKINS®, to make sure we are able to use every delicious bite possible from our donuts. Approximately 5 cake MUNCHKINS® equal one cake donut, and a little under 5 yeast MUNCHKINS® equate to one yeast donut.

Although ingredients are basically the same for all donuts, they are characterized by their leavening agent. Cake donuts are made from a kind of cake batter which is chemically leavened with baking powder or baking soda. Yeast donuts are made from dough leavened with yeast.

With its 68-year history, DD is the go-to spot for both cake and yeast donuts.

This is why cake doughnuts tend to be very dense and much more moist than actual cake. Yeast doughnuts are more or less made of the same ingredients, plus yeast, but the ratio of ingredients is different. There's more liquid, less fat, less flour, and way less sugar.

Instead of using yeast, you can make donuts using baking powder or baking soda as leavening agents. These chemical leaveners create bubbles in the dough, causing it to rise when exposed to heat.

What is the best flour for donuts? ›

All-purpose flour works well for doughnuts since it has a moderate amount of gluten–the binding protein commonly used in baking. This gluten content helps create a dough that is strong enough to trap air, which helps create the fluffy doughnut texture we all love.

What are Cake Donuts? Cake donuts are amongst the most iconic and most popular U.S. bakery products. They are made from a cake batter that is chemically-leavened and fried to develop its traditional taste and aroma.

Regarded as a form of cake doughnut in the latter, it is typically either made of a string of dough that is folded over and twisted twice to create its signature shape, or formed from a rectangle of dough with a cut in the center allowing it to be pulled over and through itself to produce distinctive twists in the ...

What is the difference between brioche donuts and regular donuts? Brioche donuts are made using brioche dough. Brioche is an enriched dough, meaning it contains butter, eggs, and milk, making it richer.