Anthony Randello-Jahn Has A Soufflé So Good You’ll Call Him Daddy

0:00Welcome to Snacks, the show where we talk to your favorite stars about their secret food obsessions. Today, we are visiting with a TikTok sensation who has made pastry something to drool over and donuts super sexy. This is the guy that woos you with his intense eye contact. He loves to take his shirt off, but he is also a legit pastry pro and now an incredible cookbook author. Please welcome Anthony Randello John, also known as the Donut Daddy. We'll be right back after this. When you want your spring break to feel like. And your kids pool day to feel like. and your hotel bed to feel like and room service to feel like because at Hilton, hospitality feels like

1:01Anthony Randello-Jahn:your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton, for this day.

1:17Do you go by Mr. Daddy? Or do you? What's your, how do you like people? What do you like people to call you? Well, sometimes daddy, but usually just Anthony or, you know, whatever donut daddy, I guess. How, how in the world? First of all, I didn't recognize you without your shirt with, with your shirt on. I'm thrilled. Um, although, you know, this, the donut daddy cookbook shirtless, shirtless Anthony is spicy cover. Did they make you, they were like, no. So we had a another cover um that they were like you know what get this photographer do this cover yeah and then we did what they wanted they're like you know that's not it do something else and I was like well I'll do what I was thinking originally and so I just did that photo um it's very drippy it's drippy and steamy no I was really actually sick at the time like really yeah I had I went to Philippines and I got some like COVID so I was like but they're like you got two days to do this So I was like, I'm just going to, Oh my gosh.

2:18I'll do it. Yeah. So I used all my energy. Well, you can't tell that you did it. You did a good job. Somehow. Yeah. How, how, why, where, when did Donut Daddy come up? Like, where did you get this idea? Yeah, it was kind of, um, it was pretty random, but when I started Instagram, which was like 10 years ago, uh, I was doing these Valentine's day, uh, videos. So like I started like this donut, I started my donut shop. Yeah. Um, what was the donut shop called? Yeah, so you want to know the inception. I need to know the whole thing. Well, because here's the thing. What I know of you is the aesthetic, but I don't really know the beginning.

2:56The back story. Yes, I need to know that whole moment. So basically it happened. I started a donut cart. So that's how it started. We wanted to get into the biggest market. It's called Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, and it's like a big food market. so very famous and very well known yes i know it mostly because i've watched no reservations i think anthony bourdain visited there so yes oh yeah yeah so there's heaps of different like cultural foods there and so our idea was to come up with like a concept to get into this market and so we came up with this uh hot danish donuts uh idea and that's kind of where it started that like 10 years ago and hot danish donuts yeah stop pause for me on this what is that wait so you went to culinary school did you study no no okay you didn't so you just always had a passion for baking yeah so i had a it started with like a passion for hospitality yeah so i was like straight out of school i was working in restaurants and i just had this fire in my belly for like hospitality and just the whole thing.

4:08Serving people, making people happy. Yeah, yeah. The public servant. So, I mean, you're doing, honestly, thank you for your service. Yeah. But so jump ahead to hot Danish donuts. What are hot Danish donuts? No, so it's, we made this, so it's a Danish ebelskiva, which is, you know them? I do know them, but tell the audience what it is. Okay, so it's like around Christmas, they have these little, they're kind of like pancake balls and they put them with jam. You see them on Instagram or whatever, like people flipping them over, right? They're like the little balls in the little round shape. Kind of looks like takiyaki.

4:43Exactly. So we made this concept with gourmet flavors. But in Melbourne then there was no, there was like a, it was a gap in the market for kind of gourmet desserts. And so we did this concept and started selling it. We built the cart by hand and stuff because we didn't have money. And we started selling them at festivals, events. But we finally got into Queen Vic, which is like eight years later. It took a while to get in, but we got in with our food truck. We got a food truck eventually. But no, so that kind of happened. And then after a few years, we wanted to sell real artisanal donuts. And there was still a gap in the market in Melbourne for those.

5:23Were donuts a big thing in Melbourne? Krispy Kreme came when I was young, like as a teenager. and then do you guys have dunkin donuts there no okay i'm just scared no we don't i can't then crispy cream came and then a few maybe like five or ten five years later there was then like people started to make artisanal okay uh and that's kind of when we started and yeah and so we we posted photos online we bought all the equipment did it out of my mom's garage and then we started posting photos and we noticed a lot of cafes and restaurants wanted us um to deliver them because there was no one like doing that you know there was only like really cheap jam donuts yeah so yeah we it kind of happened like that yeah and so then you were like we need to start putting social media we need to create a legitimate social media presence yeah so basically what happened was we started posting that on like the business page and then for our personal pages we decided to just post us with the donuts like me and my business partner would have we had separate he was the donut boy and then I thought maybe I'll make my name the donut daddy you know so it's kind of just like a like a funny little name yeah but then it kind of I don't know I just I just went crazy with it whereas like around Valentine's Day I just posted me like with nothing but like a box of donuts and and and I did like a giveaway but it kind of did well at the time because there's no videos right of course it's just photos so you couldn't really you know go viral right right right it was there was no like for you page yes you know what I mean yeah yeah no I know I don't know I've been doing delish for a long time like long before there was a viral like I mean viral you went viral on Facebook you didn't go viral on Instagram and I didn't know that so I didn't because I didn't post on Facebook right right I was only yeah so I was just grinding on the on this thing you couldn't really do yes but your photo was probably getting shared like crazy yeah yeah the photo was doing well and so that's kind of where it started and then I was just kind of did my own thing for a few years and then when reels came out that's when I got back into it and I first did a few funny cooking videos and then I did one that's kind of like the style you see today like a bit more a bit more like sexy sexy well that's the thing I think is so interesting and what really sets you apart in the world is the sensuality of all the stuff that you're creating but it's done with such a it's like a seriousness I know it it's not serious because obviously you're like looking at this like with through a specific lens but it's also like not cheesy campy like you've nailed this like really specific line of being um it feels kind of legit like was that by accident or was that like yeah something you were aiming for I think the first one, the fact that it went so viral, I had basically no following and the video got around half a million views on Instagram.

8:33And then I got like 100 ,000 followers from that video. But then the comments were like 60 % of people kind of liked it, but then there was 40 % that were like... Rage bait. Yeah. Bless. Yeah, they were like, what are you doing? Bless the rage baiters. Why are you doing that? Respect the food. I mean, I just, trust me, Delish gets tons of, why are you, why aren't you wearing a hairnet? I did cooking videos with my kids in COVID in the kitchen, in our kitchen. And they'd be like, why don't, are you wearing a hairnet? I'm like, I'm in my kitchen, like cooking with my kids. You know, they get very serious.

9:10I know. But I also feel like, I'm sure your donut daddy approach probably offended the conservative elite. Let's just say yeah, it was it was a weird thing and so but I just thought there was most of the comments were kind of nice Of course whatever because you're a handsome guy and you're like having fun with food I mean, I feel like that's the whole shtick right? It's like I think so. Yeah I mean, I just kind of winged the whole thing. Yeah, I never I didn't really think too much about it So you hadn't you didn't have in your head a brand of Donut Daddy You were gonna be this like sexy stud with baked goods.

9:48No, no, I didn't I wasn't really thinking about it i just was just going through the motions of just getting a video done trying to make a good video really yeah and now you have a million followers more than a million followers on tick tock and that was i'm assuming that was a similar entree like you entered in similarly to that yeah i was pretty late to tick tock um i think i started posting the reels maybe six months after i started on instagram yeah uh but no instantly they started doing like very well on uh tick tock but TikTok I got banned on there at first really yeah for like two weeks because you were naked with donuts well I don't you know I don't know if you like I don't know how it is for other creators but I know that their platform can be a bit like they can give you some weird yeah feedback yeah uh and so at the beginning I was getting like strikes in that and then the and then but I got my account back and then I started getting lots of views and then the creator team in Australia they reached out and they're like oh um we want you to come to the tiktok awards but so but i think they did something behind the scenes that made my account not get any strikes do you know what i mean i don't know what they did but they stopped after the creative team reached out to me yep and then they gave me the jam because um because i had some um press and stuff online so yeah just kind of solved that problem.

11:12I mean once they figured out that you were just a harmless nice looking donut lover you know and you weren't predatorial I'm sure they were like yeah let's give this guy some presents. Yeah. So now with this cookbook where how did that begin? Did you have a lot of recipes that you were like I need to share these? Yeah so with the cookbook so that happened a few different publishers came to us. We just went with basically the Yeah, we went with Penguin because we thought that would be a good fit. Yeah, they're great. Do you have a favorite recipe in there? They're all pretty good, to be honest.

11:50No, boring answer. Give me a real one. Dedicate. Souffle is so good, you'll call me daddy. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Souffle is so good, you'll call me daddy? Yeah, that's it. I got to tell you, Delish loves a good name for a recipe. Yeah. And I do feel like Souffle is so good. What's so good about it? I think it's simple. By the way, I love that you're self-taught. I think that's so cool. Yeah. There's no other way to do it. I mean, there is. There is. There's a pretty popular way to do it, which is go to culinary school. But I also really believe that if you love something and you dedicate your time to it, you can do it without schooling.

12:28I learned piano when I was 13, and I taught myself. and I think that's how I started to enter the world of self-teaching you know it's astounding though that you are self-taught and that you were able to create something that was like a mass like that you were serving to the greater public right that you were in Victoria Market and that you were making things that restaurants were buying without any formal training it's one thing for you to be like a creator in your kitchen and be self-taught, which so many people are. But for you to have made a name for yourself in a business, a legitimate business is really something you should be proud of.

13:09I mean, like I, you know, I think people probably look at you as a very sexy creator in, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Like in a packaged way. Right. But you have a lot of gravitas behind you it's very impressive yeah yeah exactly yourself yeah what i'm trying to say i mean you could open a donut daddy shop would you ever do you think you would have you has anyone approached you yeah i've had some discussions about it in in u.s you know so it's very vegas like magic mikey you know yeah yeah if you yeah you could you could go down that that way yeah there's a lot of when you sell that idea can you just give me a little bit of it a little taste of that like just like five percent like two two to five percent i'll take yeah yeah when you open the donut daddy bake shop that's like open until open 24 hours in vegas call me 24 hours in vegas i mean i'm not i don't want to work at it but i want to just like get a little just a little off the dudes need the dough oh my god we need we need an army you need an army you need like the windows where where the bachelorettes are like walking by a bachelor part i don't know everybody in vegas walking by yeah wait i could see this yeah yeah don't you can't you see it i think so like you know you know those places do you guys have this i think this is your face i know but i see it my husband's definitely listening now going what the hell is she talking about wait i totally jumped the gun here and forgot to go back to what's so what's in the souffle that's so good you'll call me daddy yeah well you gotta buy the cookbook oh Oh, boy.

14:46No, no, it's basically, no, we actually, the secret ingredient, no, it's, there's a few things in there, you know. I've got to find it. It's the cream, the creme anglaise. That's really what the secret ingredient is. The creme anglaise is always the secret ingredient. No, legit. We also add lotus biscoff. Oh. And so it adds, like, a nice richness. Cookie butter, a.k.a. cookie butter in America. Yeah. Oh, my God, that sounds delicious. Yeah. You need to make that at the delicious kitchen. it's got a big thing yet it became a big thing i would say in the last like five years five or six years like like cookie butter it took a it took a moment but then it was like really big like very trendy yeah um and now it's sort of like dialed back but it's something that like we we do a lot of here with the delish kitchen we do like we have like cookie butter cheesecake bars and we we do a lot with that flavor profile it's a really um for us it's like very holiday based because of that spice yeah spice profile you know so it gets big in octoberish australian snacks and snacks growing up what are your like nostalgic snacks that you think of when you think of your childhood well there's a lot there was a lot of lollies growing up i love every word that you're saying is that a word here lollies lollipops no like uh well we call that for even like i don't know like gummy bears we classify that as kind of like a candy yeah candy considered lollies yeah okay got it yeah exactly got it um we have these things called zappos do you guys have them i feel like i've seen that label but no yeah anyway it's just like this sour chewy kind of candy so like and it's kind of big how how voiced are you in american snacks um like do you have a comparative like would it be like gum like um like sour patch kids here like sour gummies no we had those i mean we had kind of like sour snakes sour snakes we have those yeah yeah um so so you like these zappos yeah so these zappos i think it's similar to your guys oh i don't know skittles no we have skittles okay um just do this for the next five hours it's something it's like chewy oh starburst it's kind of like yeah it was it's just they copied starburst but it was sour Okay.

17:00Ooh. It was sour. Okay. But Starburst was huge as well. Interesting. So that reminds you of your childhood. Kind of. I guess so. I mean. Like what did you eat after school? Yeah. Zombie chews. Did you have those? No. We also had zombie chews. Do you live on Earth? I'm like, where is Australia? Zombie chews. That sounds amazing. No, it's basically like that, but they put all this sourness in the middle. Zombie chews. I'm trying to go back. Like a sourness in the middle, like it's like... It's powder. Oh. They put like sherbet. Okay. You guys call it sherbet. We didn't really have sherbet. No, we wouldn't call that sherbet.

17:38We would call that like... I don't know what we would call powder. We call ice... It's like sour powder. Yeah, okay. In the middle. Yeah. So you would bite it and it would like... Yeah, it would like give you a buzz. It would get a buzz. Yeah, give you a buzz. You know? You need that kick after school. What about desserts? What were your childhood desserts? Like real desserts? Yeah, or anything. Like a handmade dessert. Handmade, store-bought, whatever. No, so when Crispy came here, I was, like, addicted. I was addicted to the game from an early age. Did they make them fresh and warm? Like, was that a big thing there?

18:10Yeah, they were, like, when they first came to Sydney, so, because we went to Sydney because one of my granddad's family members had a house there, so we stayed there, and I just ate, like, 24, like, in a day. Because here in America, they have a big light on outside that says, like, hot, fresh now. So, like, you knew when the donuts had just come out of the fire. And so, like, if you're driving down the street and you see that hot light, you're like, oh, you're veering over and buying hot, fresh donuts. You see the donut daddy making them hot and fresh. I mean, don't get me back there. Anthony, we will have our conversation about this.

18:51I'm going to sketch this whole thing out for you. We'll be right back after this. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Introducing Virtuo Up, the latest in a long line of innovation from Nespresso. It's innovation you can touch, sense, and taste in every single cup. With a three-second start, easy open lever, and dedicated brew over ice button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Sip for yourself. Shop Virtuo up exclusively at Nespresso.com.

19:50Oh, the little, the small, the tiny ones. Yeah, and they put maple syrup and powdered sugar on it. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to pretend like I know them, but I don't think I know those. You don't know they are? Poffridges. Poffridges. Yeah, it was like big at, like if you'd go to like a festival or a market, they would have. And they were poured on a skillet? Yeah. Yeah, well, it's tiny little molds. They're little mini pancakes. Oh, okay. Yeah, mini pancakes with some maple syrup. Oh, interesting. And butter. I'm hearing they have those at Trader Joe's. Oh, did they? Oh, shit. Do you guys, you don't have Trader Joe's?

20:23No, we don't have Trader Joe's. But you know what it is. I went there. Yeah, I went there recently. Yeah. It's a little bit, it's a fanfare. It's different. People love it in New York City. No, it's actually, we get a lot of stuff in our grocery store. It's not, there's a lot of stuff that I haven't seen, but there's still quite a few big brands that we have. Yeah. Yeah. But no, Whole Foods is very, that's like a whole nother level. Yeah. We don't have anything like that. Really? No, we don't have... So our organic stores are like these tiny little... Like the organic section in our major supermarket, Woolworths or Kohl's, is like this big.

21:00And it's like organic popcorn and like these bars. Sorry, Woolworths and Kohl's. The same bars, the same dates, the same nuts in all these different bars. I find that really surprising mostly because I think of Australia as like a very health-conscious like continent yeah no and we are i'm surprised that whole foods or a place like whole foods wouldn't have taken off there no i'm surprised too i don't know why we don't have something that big yeah i mean it's yeah it's almost too big it's a lot to manage i find sometimes i feel like it'll do well because yeah everyone is very like gym health orientated yes um but yeah for some reason we need a whole foods because I think we do really very well.

21:44You do. You do. Another business we can talk about after the show. I'm excited to get into this. Okay. I'm going to do a very quick, like what I want you to tell me, because I do feel like you're, you are the king of sexy food. Yeah. I want you to tell me, I'm going to list a bunch of foods. We're going to do this super fast. No thinking. Okay. Well, actually my first rapid fire is what's the sexiest food out there? the sexiest food it's a tough one i've been asked this a lot of times i'm sure no i don't know i think it's either no it's you mean like a fruit you can say whatever you want no question i know um the sexiest food on the planet is no i think i think a cherry oh is very diverse yes or chocolate cherry or chocolate are both great answers yeah cherry is actually Yeah, I've been thinking about that one for a while.

22:38I think the cherry is very diverse, and it performs well on my channel. So I think there's – people just love the cherry, you know? You just gave a creator secret. I love that. But it divides people. It gets people upset. The flavor divides people. But the look and style of it, everyone can appreciate. Natural cherry or maraschino cherry? No, so the maraschino cherry, that divides people. That does get people. The flavor of it. The look of it's great. Yeah. But you guys, okay, so in America you've got sour cherries. Yes. We don't have those. I mean, people aren't eating a ton of sour cherries here.

23:11But they look really red. We really have maraschino cherries and then the cherries you buy in the store. Which one do you prefer the taste of? Is the ones you buy in the store, are they brown or are they red? They're like dark, they're like Merlot colored. Okay, yeah. Like dark red. Because, yeah. You have brown cherries? They're like brown. I would say, you see them, right? Dark, like dark. They're like brown. Okay. I mean, I don't, now that you're making me think about it, I'm like, I don't know that I've ever really put it on a Pantone chip and figured out what color it is. Because I saw these sour cherries that you guys have, and they're like really red.

23:45But sour cherries are, those are usually, I think of sour cherries as the ones we put in drinks. I'm like, I don't know that I've had a sour cherry outside of. A fresh one. Yeah, I don't think I've ever had a fresh sour cherry. I don't know what I saw. Those are like, do you eat those? I don't know. Maybe we're talking about everything, but on your channel, do you eat fresh cherries or maraschino cherries? Both. No, so I've done both. Got it. And the maraschino ones get people upset because they're not real. They're not real, but they look good. They look cool. Yeah. Sarita's like, I wasn't expecting this to roll into a 25 minute.

24:22Well, they're real. They are real. They are real, but they're just, well, they're not as real. They're very processed. Manufactured. Yeah. Yeah. Right. They're like very tinkered with. But they look good. They look amazing. And they taste great. Everybody on the planet likes a, we have a Shirley Temple, which is like a Sprite or a ginger ale with maraschino cherry juice. Oh, yeah. And this is like a renowned drink in America. People love it. Okay. Do you have that in Australia? No, no, we don't. Do you know who Shirley Temple is? Not really. I've heard the name, I think. Okay. We're going to talk about this afterwards.

24:56Is she like a politician? No. she was an actress a child actress for a very long time in the in like the 30 20s 30s 40s like it was oh the roaring 20s but back in the day i'm gonna someone's gonna fact check me on that and i'm gonna be wrong but it was very long time ago 30s maybe 30s okay yeah um okay very fast sexy or stupid ready these are like what i want you to tell me is are these foods still sexy or are they played out okay yep yep honey no i think it's sexy oysters It's dangerous. Oh. But they're good. They're amazing. They're sexy. No, they are sexy, but dangerous. Dangerous in like a, you're going to get sick eating them?

25:37Yeah. Well, yes. Like they're too sexy. No, they're sexy actually. They're sexy. Okay, they're sexy. Yeah. Whipped cream. Yeah, sexy. Spicy food.

25:51I don't know about spicy food. Spicy food hurts my stomach, so it's the opposite of sexy to me. Yeah, yeah, not sexy. Okay. Yeah. Figs. Figs. Do you have figs? We got figs. We got a lot of figs. We got, like, they just grow. We don't have a ton of figs on the East Coast. West Coast has a lot of figs. I had a tree once and. Really? Do you know the story behind how it becomes a fig? No. There's like a bee goes inside or something. So every time you eat a fig, is that vegan? Every time you eat a fig, you eat a bee? There's an actual bee inside. is this for real i swear to god okay when my backyard had this fig tree when i lived in bentley and there was so many like no they're called wasps yes yeah okay yes we have wasps and all be i don't know it's something like anyway there was thousands of them around this tree and they were pollinating the figs so they get in there and that's how they bloom i think i'm 98 We're gonna figure this out.

26:54Inside every one is like a, I think a dead wasp. Really? Yeah, that's how it gets like that color inside, I think. You know, it's like vibrant. I, I, listen Anthony, I'm not gonna correct you on this because someone is, we're gonna check this out, we're working on it. I'm 98 % sure. I just, I'm like, I'm like May 9 ever. Either way, no, figs are amazing, they're sexy. Okay. Confirmed, yes, he's correct. Oh my gosh, confirmed. How crazy is that? That's wild. No one knows. Wild. Champagne. Yeah, that's sexy, yeah. Red wine. Yeah. Sexy. Yeah. Chili. Like chili powder. Oh, chili powder. Actually, no, no.

27:30No, not sexy. Okay, so we're not on a side. I mean, it's spicy, though. Dark chocolate. Yeah, of course. Sexy. Coffee. I think it, no, it is. It is. Okay. At night. I hear, what we've learned today is you can probably make any food sexy. I think so. I mean, I think that is the gift of the donut daddy. I don't know about durian. I do not think durian is sexy. I do not think durian. We don't eat a lot of durian here in America. And actually, I'd be curious. We'll get a lot of comments of people being like, I love durian and it's very sexy. Yeah. So let's challenge the audience and see what they say.

28:11Yeah, durian, I need to do a video on it. Yeah. But I'm scared. I'm scared. It's big and spiky. Yeah, it's big and spiky. and it's potent. Pungent. I'm excited to see that video. Yeah. And we're going to leave on that note. Thank you so much for being here. It's been so fun. You're a joy. And when you become a big star opening your line of Donut Daddy Donut Chops, please call us. All right, I'll get you unlimited membership. I want VIP free donuts for the rest of my life. The golden card. Please, I will take it. All right, sweet. All right, awesome. Bye. Thank you. We are super excited to have Anthony Randello-Jean with us today.

28:49Thank you, Donut Daddy. And also, please make sure you follow, like, and subscribe Snacks Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and on social media at Snacks Podcast.