Matt Feiner Photos
Watch out, Dunkin’: Tony Poleshek, Jr. has started churning out his own brand of powdered and cream-filled doughnuts at his downtown deli on Orange Street.
Poleshek’s version comes cut in a square and born out of a family tradition.
Poleshek (pictured) started making the doughnuts for the first time this week at the Orangeside Luncheonette at 135 Orange St., not far from City Hall.
He’s handing out free samples Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Monday, he’ll start selling the powdery treats behind the counter, where he works with his mother, wife and son. The East Haven family took over the deli two and a half years ago.
Poleshek, who’s 44, has experience in the fried pastry business: When he was growing up in East Haven, he worked for Mister Donut, which at the time was a popular American franchise.
Since he started his deli in New Haven, “a lot of customers were asking for doughnut products,” but he couldn’t find any, he said. There are no homemade doughnut shops in the city, and he said he couldn’t find any good ones to resell wholesale.
“My wife said, ‘Why don’t you just make your own?’” Poleshek recalled.
So he did.
All week, Poleshek has been handing out free samples to customers. He calls his new product a “throwback” to the days when his grandfather ran a soda fountain called Palace of Sweets on Grand Avenue in the 1940s and 50s. He sees himself continuing a family tradition of giving New Haveners a homey place to gather and chat over old-fashioned food.
Unlike many New Haven inventions, his doughnuts are square.
“Everybody has a round doughnut,” Poleshek said. “I like square. It’s less waste when you’re cutting them.” The shape also represents the nine squares of New Haven, he pointed out.
Poleshek gave Independent reader (and nearby bike shop owner) Matt Feiner a sneak preview of the doughnut-making process this week. Feiner sent in the following pictures.
The doughnut action starts in the back of the deli, away from the heat of the grills. Poleshek stacked the room with giant bins of sweet filling and industrial-sized drawers of flour.
“He went a little bit nuts” stocking up for the new endeavor, said his son, Steve.
There are three bins of General Mills doughnut flour: cake mix, chocolate cake mix, and yeast.
A powerful Boxer mixer combines wet and dry.
The dough gets spread onto a floured surface and rolled thin…
… then cut into 4‑by-4-inch pieces.
For the “old-fashioned” style donuts, the holes are stamped out. For the filled varieties, Poleshek has a machine that injects jelly or cream into the doughnut. If you run the machine too long, his son Steve warned, the pastry will “explode.”
The squares get dunked into a Belshaw Adamatic doughnut fryer.
Polesheck flips them with wooden rods.
They’re served as is or dusted with powdered sugar.
Feiner (pictured) said he ate a plain doughnut Wednesday and a cream-filled one on Thursday.
“Both were really good,” he reported.
Like Poleshek, Feiner waxed nostalgic about the treat: “They remind me of the doughnuts my Grandpa Dawley would get in Newport on Sundays.”
Poleshek said he plans to have four old standards on hand: a plain cake doughnut, plain with powdered sugar, jelly-filled, and cream-filled. He’s also planning two specialty doughnuts. First up: Apple-filled doughnuts frosted with caramel, and a Boston cream, which is cream-filled and topped with chocolate frosting.
He said he’ll make them six days a week, Monday to Saturday. (The store is closed Sundays.)
“You’ll never get a stale one,” he vowed. “They’ll be fresh every day.”
His son, Steve, said he is looking forward to mastering the new operation.
“Hopefully the doughnuts go over,” he said, “because I’m tired of cooking steak.”
The Orangeside Luncheonette is open Monday to Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will be closed on New Year’s Day.
Here we go again.More Poison for the body.Look at the pictues with the ingredients.Load with sugar and flour which are link to diabetes and also high cholesterol.
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/?utm_source=WWW&utm_medium=DropDownDB&utm_content=Statistics&utm_campaign=CON
Don't forget the Trans Fat.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/trans-fat/CL00032