Have you ever had a doughnut with too much sugar or too much frosting on it … your old backyard problem solver has again devised several infallible methods to deal with this problem ….. yes …. In my lifetime of experiences and experiments I have come up with some sure fire methods.

Vendors visit my place of employment  …. In an effort to increase sales, some of them bring doughnuts fairly often  …  well maybe not fairly often but fairly occasionally … wait saying fairly might be construed to mean that the distribution is fair … it isn’t … the distribution is first come first served …. Sometimes swing shift gets what is left  …. I live on swing shift … sometimes what is left for swing shift is the same as what was there before the salesman benefactor dude came … you got it … zilch … so zilch is what swing shift got  … then on other rare occasions two sales people brought doughnuts the same day and there was a smorgasbord for swing shift  ….

and then there is the matter of birthdays … there is a tradition that a person should bring doughnuts to share on their birthday …when it is my birthday I opt to bring cookies …  I won’t go into all the reasons … just be comfortable knowing that bringing cookies is better …  some folks haven’t figured it out yet … it seems most folks still bring doughnuts … tradition is strong, even in the face of truth  …

So then …  let’s get right to the discussion …..  one of the problems with doughnuts is excess sugar …. (We won’t discuss the chocolate problem)  …  I have tried many different solutions to this difficult problem … I do mean the excess sugar problem ….

Method # 1     The warm rinse method.

Sugar on donuts is like salt on watermelon … some folks get the idea that  ….  “if a little is good a lot is better”  …. I am often faced with the problem of removing the excess … now with salt and watermelon you can just do a quick rinse in the sink … if the watermelon is too cold you can use warm water and solve two problems at once … well I guess one problem is solved and the other is dissolved … it all works out quite well  …. except you might lose a little juice  ….   But of course if there were piles of salt on the melon and it was left for a while  ….  all that salt would really suck the juice out of the melon  …. You remember …. that diffusion thing we learned about in biology and chemistry …. And if the piled salt was left a long time, the salt would begin to permeate the melon  …  eventually it might be too late to rescue it  … of course leaving it even longer than too long could cause a condition known as rottification! … but then nobody I know would try such a silly experiment.

Oh wait we were doing a comparison ….

Rinsing the glaze off of a doughnut works fairly well …  getting just right amount of moisture is an art that requires some practice … the results are influenced by the water temperature and the grease content of the doughnut hide … be careful  ….   the dragon of sogginess is just waiting for you to make one little mistake  … usually a little warm water is a pleasant addition to the doughnut …. Water that is too hot or too little grease in the doughnut hide can cause problems ….. it melts in your hands not in your mouth …. if this happens you should eat the doughnut immediately.

Method #2      the scrape method.

When you don’t have access to the proper equipment you have to improvise … you take a quick inventory of the tools at your disposal … yup right there in your pocket is the ole Swiss army knife  … you pull it out and wipe off any evidence of your last experiment … you should also remove any debris left behind by the Swiss army … now that you have a sanitized instrument at hand you use the scrape method … this is usually quite effective at removing excess frosting yet leaving a palatable amount of sweetness … you do need a place to deposit the scrapings. …  you wouldn’t want onlookers to perceive you as unrefined  … Any rational onlooker would be aware that the frosting was made from sugar which had been refined.

The scrape method works well with most kinds of frosting  … a good example is maple …. Without even considering the sugar content, A fully loaded maple bar would easily kill a person with just the maple  …. Now a well scraped maple bar can be quite good … just a hint of maple and slightly sweet … now that is good.

Method #3      the scalp method  (only for chocolate frosting)

The scalp method is quite wasteful but may be better than complete disposal ….

You should never try the scrape method on chocolate frosting … it is just not possible to remove all of the chocolate … I have to resort to the scalp method on chocolate  … that’s right scalp not scrape … scalping requires the removal of doughnut hide  … once the doughnut is properly flayed there isn’t much left …. You must eat it quickly before it is contaminated by chocolate … to prevent the cross contamination problem you must be very careful … you must repeatedly sanitize the instruments and wash the hands in order to maintain a sterile field.  ( I learned about that when studying surgical techniques) … cross contamination negates the benefits of using the scalp method instead of the scrape method …. It would be a shame to loose all of that good doughnut hide and then still have to suffer the taste of bitter chocolate.

Method #4     the scrape and rinse method.

An extension of the scrape method is the scrape and rinse method … this is used for doughnuts with fancy frosting  … the kind with added ingredients like nuts or shredded coconut or other delightful items …. The correct way to do this is to place all the frosting scrapings in a fine sieve then rinse the sieve contents with warm water …. The warm water dissolves the sugar and leaves the nuts. … you can relish the nuts after the doughnut has been consumed … the scrape and rinse method is not quite as efficient when the frosting contains candy … some candy is not as hardy as it should be  …. Warm water has a tendency to melt the candy in your sieve and not in your mouth.

Method #5        the paper towel method.

I have recently discovered a new method which I have only used a little and thus don’t know all of the particulars  … it is the paper towel method … it only works when you have sufficient donuts to eat some right now and save the rest for later.   It involves wrapping the donut in a paper towel … you don’t need to complete the wrapping with a ribbon  ….  after wrapping the doughnut in the paper towel you put the package in a zip lock bag  …   As the doughnut sweats the moisture dissolves the sugar and the sugary solution is absorbed by the paper towel  ….   Be sure to remove and discard the paper towel before reheating the doughnut …. If you choose not to reheat, remove the paper towel before eating  ….  I mean eating the doughnut not eating the paper towel …. But …  if you do decide to eat the paper towel, having discarded it first might add additional flavors   ….  and excitement.

I have only tried this paper towel method on over-glazed doughnuts …. I am a little concerned at what the effect would be on frosting …. Perhaps you could begin by placing a wet paper towel next to the frosting …. then wrap the wet towel with dry towels   …. The dry towels would absorb the moisture and pull the frosting off of the doughnut …. Wow that was a thought experiment … I probably shouldn’t mention untried methods …

hmmm it might be best to scrape the frosting before wrapping in the wet paper towel .  …. That sounds like a new method sneaking up on us  …. Some sort of combination of all of the others  …    yes call it scrape and wrap and rinse … and we can’t leave out the scalping  …. I wonder if scrubbing would be better than scalping ….

Having completed the thought experiment and considered all of the possibilities of catastrophes, I hereby do not recommend the aforementioned paper towel method on frosting  … it would be a lot of excess work on a doughnut that cannot be eaten now…. Paper towels should only be used on over-glazed doughnuts!  …. And only if there are more over-glazed doughnuts than can be eaten right now  …. Either method …. Scrape or scrape and rinse methods are defiantly adequate for any doughnut with frosting …. Unless of course the frosting is chocolate.

I should mention that because of personal preferences I do not recommend de-sugaring doughnuts for others …. Some people are kind of picky … yup ….  It is  best for the eater to be the sugar remover.

I have dreamed of a doughnut steamer… you could put the doughnut on some sort of mesh surface …. Then inject steam into the chamber ….  The excess sugar  would dissolve and drip through the mesh and go down the drain … the doughnut and any nuts would be preserved on the mesh.

Yup … a doughnut steamer for free doughnuts. …. Wait …. If I had excess money to buy a doughnut steamer I could just go to the doughnut manufacturers and request donuts without excess sugar   …. Or  …. on the other hand, cookies are a good choice.