Chef Wylie Dufresne's reinvented cake doughnut

At first glance, the doughnuts at Du's Donuts and Coffee in Brooklyn look like, well, doughnuts. But the effort in the kitchen separates these from the rest.

"We're trying to understand how the flour the sugar and the butter and the eggs and leavener all do this wonderful dance in the oil," owner Wylie Dufresne said, "and how we can make this light, airy delicious doughnut."

Dufresne is a leader in the scientific cooking style known as molecular gastronomy. He once owned wd~50, a fine dining restaurant that closed in 2013. While there, he earned the 2013 James Beard Foundation Award for best chef in New York City. Now his culinary expertise is focusing on the cake doughnut inside the William Vale Hotel in Williamsburg.

"I have long wanted to do this. I love doughnuts. I grew up eating donuts," Dufresne said. "My great-grandfather was a doughnut maker and my other great-grandfather had a diner, and we ate a lot of doughnuts in the diner."

If you can't make it all the way to Williamsburg, fear not. Whole Foods carries the smaller version.

"We're in 25 coffee shops around town but we're also in Whole Foods," Dufresne said. "We're in all 12 Whole Foods, selling minis."

Du's Donuts and Coffee just celebrated its first anniversary. And many "do nut" think it's leaving anytime soon.