Tables for Two Tango #8: Hannah Goldfield's "Fan-Fan Doughnuts" and Helen Rosner's "I'm Donut ?"

Photo by Shawn Michael Jones, from Hannah Goldfield's "Fan-Fan Doughnuts"

Descriptions of doughnuts: three by Hannah Goldfield from her “Fan-Fan Doughnuts” (March 15, 2021) and three by Helen Rosner from her “I’m Donut ?” (December 1, 2025). The challenge: pick the best one. Okay, here goes. First up – Goldfield:

1. I was especially delighted by La Donna, featuring an irresistibly fuchsia-hued, refreshingly tart, juicy black-currant-and-raspberry glaze, crowned with crisp shards of meringue and dried rose and cornflower buds.

2. An oblong, éclair-inspired number wore a long squiggle of torched meringue and oozed with yuzu curd; another paired guava and a sweet, salty cream cheese.

3. But it’s the basics I crave: Gerson’s yeasted, brioche-style dough, which contains flour, butter, and eggs and is fried to the color of honey, is a marvel in itself, not much heavier than cotton candy, and is perhaps best coated in an inky slick of Valrhona chocolate or braided and lightly lacquered with the simplest white icing. 

Now, Rosner:

4. There are chocolate and matcha variants, their subtle flavors baked into the dough, and filled doughnuts, whose puffy centers are pumped with vivid creams: custard, more matcha, fragrant sake gelée with Chantilly, an airy swirl of peanut-butter and tart Concord-grape jelly.

5. There are some New York exclusives, like a ring doughnut glazed in neon-pink strawberry icing, freckled with bits of freeze-dried berry that crackle and melt on the tongue, or a chocolate variety with a caramel-espresso cream filling that was unexpectedly, thrillingly bitter and complex. 

6. The somewhat controversial scrambled-egg doughnut features a sugary original doughnut piped full of soft curds and a squirt of a sweet-savory tomato mayonnaise—a bold and bizarre breakfast manifesto that refuses to be definitively sweet or definitively savory.

These are all delectable descriptions. But, for me, the contest comes down to #1 versus #5. I love that “irresistibly fuchsia-hued, refreshingly tart, juicy black-currant-and-raspberry glaze, crowned with crisp shards of meringue and dried rose and cornflower buds” in Goldfield’s #1. Rosner’s “like a ring doughnut glazed in neon-pink strawberry icing, freckled with bits of freeze-dried berry that crackle and melt on the tongue,” in her #5, is pretty damn good, too. 

Based on these two ravishing descriptions, which doughnut would I choose? It’s a close call, but I think I’d go with #1. I’m tantalized by that “refreshingly tart, juicy black-currant-and-raspberry glaze.” Sorry, Rosner. I’ll make it up to you in a future post.