Malasadas: Doughnuts for People Who Don't Like Doughnuts

B. doughnut suggests, per their website, their pastries are, "Doughnuts for those who don't really like doughnuts." But I love doughnuts, on a molecular level, and I also love their malasadas, so it might just be a matter of expectations.

Titi Phommachanh is originally from Laos. His parents immigrated to England when he was young, then in 1997 moved the family to Virginia, where a cousin, Brian, opened the first B.doughnut shop pedaling these Portuguese pastries with Hawaiian and Asian influences. Phommachanh moved to Dallas in 2015, and while holding down a career in IT, wanted to see if these treats would do well in the North Texas market. So, in 2018 he started B. doughnut of Texas.

Malasadas are yeast-leavened no-holed doughnuts, deep-fried, glazed, sprinkled and/or filled with custard. They're a common indulgence on Fat Tuesday, which is actually called Malasadas Day in Hawaii. According to the cookbook Kau Kau: Cuisine & Culture in the Hawaiian Islands, “Portuguese immigrants would use up all of their lard, butter and sugar prior to Lent by making large batches of malasadas.”

Firmer in texture and not as sweet as, say, a hot plain-glazed from Shipley’s (my molecular-level connection), these go a lot further in terms of sustenance. One is sufficient for breakfast.

The process for making them is very difficult. We tried making them at home last year, but we weren't successful. At all. Had to throw everything away.

“It’s kind of like a science experiment,” Phommachanh says. “It took me a year to get the dough right. We tried to stay true to the original B. doughnut recipe in Virginia, but the environment is different here and required [a]  few tweaks in order to create a consistent product."

B.doughut makes all of their dough and fillings in-house, from-scratch, free of preservatives. Rotating flavors on the menu pay homage to a wide range of Hawaiian and Asian foods as well as American doughnut culture with the Homer, which has a pink glaze and rainbow sprinkles. Phommachanh says the most popular item lately is the sugar-coated malasada filled with ube pastry cream. An ube is a purple yam from the Philippines.

For now, they’re renting space in a commercial kitchen, meaning they can only make about 240 malasadas at a time, which are sold at two pop-ups on Saturdays and Sundays (this weekend, Feb. 20 and 21, they will most likely not have any product because of local power outages).

For savory fare, B. doughnuts has bagel malasadas, including one filled with bacon-infused whipped cream cheese and covered in an everything bagel mix ($4). Bagels for people that don't like bagels?

B.doughnut, online orders for pickup from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays at The Drawing Board or 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays at the Shed at the Dallas Farmers Market.