bake - April 2018 - 42

sweet goods

delicious donuts
Selling donuts for $4 apiece might not make sense to some

Using ﬂavors creatively makes a huge impact. Crampsey whips

bakers. But when there is huge demand for donuts in your

up glazes made of beer, Nutella, honey, tres leches (a popular

area, especially for uniquely ﬂavored varieties, you leverage the

Hispanic cake ﬂavor made with three milks) and Mexican

opportunity into a proﬁtable business model.

chocolate ganache - just to name a few.

This is the success story of Rachel Crampsey, owner of Montclair

Today, the bakery menu at Montclair Bread features three tiers

Bread Co. in Montclair, New Jersey. Crampsey is a serious baker

of donuts (classics like apple cider for $2, specialties like maple

who trained with some of the top bread bakers in the country

bacon and Boston cream for $3, and premiums like Nutella

and always wanted to open her own bread shop. When this

for $4), in addition to offering "duffins" (donut-muffin hybrid

dream came true in 2012, she soon discovered that donuts -

pastries for $3), croissants, Danish and artisan breads.

somewhat to her surprise - became a big money maker.
Her catering menu takes donut choices to the extreme, with
About six months after her bakery opened, Crampsey and a

such options as 10-inch specialty or premium donuts in various

friend started experimenting with breakfast items and decided

ﬂavors for $40 or $50 and a donut tower for $99. The donut

to make brioche donuts covered in cinnamon sugar one Sunday

tower is described as three dozen mini donuts and four dozen

morning. She wasn't sure what to expect because she had

donut hotels "to construct a tower of yum!"

taken over retail space in Montclair from a bakery that had
not been open on Sundays, and she didn't know whether her

It wasn't easy getting started, particularly because the original

customers wanted donuts.

space of Montclair Bread was 200 square feet (she has since
expanded to a central kitchen). "We had to unplug the freezer

"We made three dozen brioche donuts the ﬁrst day, and

while we were frying donuts," Crampsey recalls. For those

they were gone in a second," Crampsey said recently, while

bakeries with similar space restrictions, "I recommend buying

instructing a donut production class at the Bread Bakers Guild of

a tabletop fryer, so you don't need a hood." In 2014, Crampsey

America's WheatStalk conference in Providence, Rhode Island.

won The Cooking Channel's Donut Showdown and, by then,
never looked back.

tors including Crampsey, who taught a full-day lab on how to
make creative donuts, crullers and churros. Crampsey shared

Training for the ﬁnish line

her inspirational story of how her bread bakery developed a

Crampsey switched career aspirations early in life when

"donut addiction" to the class.

she decided to forego a master's degree in education (she

42 < APR 2018 | bakemag.com

JOHN UNREIN

Montclair Bread was making donuts every day. Crampsey has
WheatStalk participants learned many techniques from instruc-
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