Mexican-Jewish chef in Brooklyn makes doughnuts that are out of this world

When Fany Gerson was growing up in the Polanco section of Mexico City, her mother tried to rein in her sweet tooth. It turned out to be a delicious failure

FANY GERSON, 45, has always loved sweets. When Gerson was growing up in the Polanco section of Mexico City, her mother tried to rein in her sweet tooth. Gerson was permitted an occasional treat, but only if it was “made with care and love,” as she told the New York Jewish Week.

It’s a philosophy that Gerson has taken to heart — and to her super-successful, creative food businesses, the enormously popular New York-based mini-chain, Dough Doughnuts, which she launched in 2010. That same year, Gerson, who considers herself a cultural Jew, also opened La Newyorkina, a business specializing in all-natural handmade paletas (Mexican fruit or cream popsicles), ice cream and pastries.

In the ensuing decade, both brands expanded and garnered acclaim — Dough, for example, earned a spot on Food & Wine magazine’s America’s Best Doughnuts list, and Gerson’s name became nearly synonymous with Mexican sweets in New York. She also published two cookbooks, My Sweet Mexico (2010) and Paletas (2011).

More recently, after parting ways with her Dough partners in early in 2020, Gerson opened Fan-Fan Doughnuts with her business partner, Thierry Cabigeos, at the original Dough location in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood.

FULL STORY Brooklyn’s Mexican-Jewish chef Fany Gerson makes doughnuts that are out of this world (JTA)

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Photo: Mexican-Jewish chef Fany Gerson at her shop, Fan-Fan Doughnuts, in Brooklyn (Risa Doherty)