Three Things to Eat: October 24-30

Food critic Joy Summers digs into the best doughnuts, scones, and pizza

Dukkah, doughnuts, Molly Yeh
Molly Yeh’s Dukkah doughnut. Photo by Joy Summers.

I’m swathed in the softest material right now and I’m about to attack my materials for a seriously hilarious Halloween costume. Fall is my favorite season. I’m like Augustus Gloop from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory before he took a header into that chocolate river: eyes round with excited anticipation and a generous waistline on my pants. Now is the time for baking, orchards, pizza, and cavorting in costumes.

Doughnuts from Molly Yeh
This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to the prettiest brunch party I’ve ever been to. The folks in attendance were impossibly hip: stylishly gorgeous people with dewy skin and high-waisted pants. It was like a little slice of Brooklyn was dropped into Minneapolis. The space was from A Pinch of Yum’s studio to celebrate the release of Molly Yeh, blogger for My Name is Yeh’s new book Molly on the Range. They served these incredible doughnuts spiced with Dukkah. “Honestly, I didn’t even know if they would work, I just wanted to make something called ‘dukkah doughnuts,’” Molly confessed. They were incredible! Her book is gorgeous and the recipes are so fun to follow. Check out her Apple Cider Glazed Doughnuts if you’re on the fence on whether or not you need this on your bookshelf.

Creme Fraiche scones from Sarah Kieffer
Sitting next to me at the party was the lovely Sarah Kieffer who pens The Vanilla Bean Blog, another stunning baking blog. Sarah’s desserts are exactly how I like to bake: easy classics made with quality ingredients and stuff my kids gobble up with glee. (Seriously, this party was like my Pinterest page came to life.) She told me that she makes the kinds of things that you would love to buy at a coffee shop. Today I finally got my copy of her highly anticipated first book. (I love that it’s paperback! So easy to use!) I can’t wait to bake my way through this whole book, but my favorite recipe is the creme fraiche scones (here’s a variation from her blog). They’re a perfect blank canvas for homemade jam, spreading chocolate or seasonal fruit. They’re simple enough to make that you could pull them together on a weekend morning and be the rockstar of your household. They are flakey baked layers of love.

Fried Chicken Pizza at Mucci’s Italian
But what are you to do if you aren’t a baker over there? Well, eat pizza. Okay, so we already knew that Mucci’s fries their pizza dough before baking it. Now, you need to know about how they are putting fried chicken on the pizza. It’s insanity! It sounds like a gluttonous bomb! It actually is quite reasonable. Somehow it works: little nubbins of fried crispy goodness grace the cheesy topping and it’s all dotted with sweet pickled peppers. Just like that, I fell in love with Mucci’s all over again.

Bonus: Want more pizza? Come hang out with me and Jason DeRusha at the very first Slice of the Twin Cities event this Sunday at Minnetonka Orchards from 1 to 5 p.m. There are going to be plenty of slices, beverages, family fun, and maybe I’ll wear my homemade costume and we can all try to guess exactly what I’m supposed to be!