Going to Betty Ann's at Wood Island, as we did for the MBTA One Stop series, is not just about donuts. But if you sleep late, you might settle for the food half of the equation.
 
Bill Scantlebury's jelly donuts are made with yeast, which gives them a spongy texture cake-style donuts lack. Since WGBH News didn't ask for his recipe, we gave it our own try using sourdough starter we had on hand.
 
Note: Deep-fry at your own risk.
 
Sourdough Jelly Donuts
Adapted from 1, 2, 3, 4
 
Ingredients
1/2 c. sourdough starter
2 c. all-purpose flour
~ 1/3 c. rye flour*
scant 1/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. melted butter
1 egg
1/3 c. sour milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. each fresh grated nutmeg and powdered galangal**
about 2 c. granulated sugar for coating
approx. 1/3 c. jam for filling
 
* Ordinary all-purpose flour is fine.
** Nutmeg is traditional. You can substitute ginger for galangal.

Directions
1. Mix the dough in a stand mixer (or knead it) to develop the gluten, about 3 minutes on second speed. Add more flour if the dough looks too wet.
 
2. Place the dough in a greased container, cover and let rise in a warm place. It does not have to double.
 
3. Pinch the dough into pieces and roll them into balls, golf-ball-sized or smaller. (They expand in the oil.) Cover with a cloth or plastic wrap and let proof until they look puffed and soft. It won't take long.
 
4. Set up:
- A deep-frying station — either a plug-in electric fryer or a pot on the stove
- A draining station — a plate covered with paper towels or a cookie rack over a rimmed baking sheet
- A sugaring station — sugar in a deep bowl
- A jelly station — a cake decorating kit with a wide metal tip works
 
5. For maximum inflation, tug the donuts gently around the equator until they're halfway between a ball and a disk. Carefully lower the donuts into the oil with a slotted metal spoon. Fry only a couple at a time so the oil stays hot. Flip after about 4 minutes if they don't flip over on their own. Let the donuts brown. Don't jump the gun.
 
6. Drain. Roll in sugar while still warm. Wait a few minutes, then inject the donut with jelly (or dulce de leche, or Nutella, etc.). You may need to start the hole in the donuts with a chopstick or skewer. Sugar the hand that holds the donut so you don't knock the sugar off.
 
If this is all too much work, Betty Ann's is open from 7 a.m. to 10 or 10:30 a.m. every day but Monday.

To a visitor, "Wood Island" doesn't mean much. To the locals …
 
"That was a wonderful park," Scantlebury says. "Three beaches — it even had a cinder track. It was designed by Olmstead … and the airport just took it all over."
 
He lives upstairs. L. lives down the block.
 
"East Bostonians are provincial, we are. There's nothing wrong with that" she says, slicing, rolling and placing. "And if you live here you're more a North Shore shopper than you are a Boston shopper because it's easy to get to in your car."
 
The room smells of lemon, sugar, nutmeg, oil and Luyo's perfume. Scantlebury rolls out a rectangle of dough on a thick blanket of flour and starts cutting out rings. The front door slams and Luyo goes out to the ancient cash register.
 
--
 
At 60 cents per donut, how does Betty Ann's stay in business?
 
"Well, I own the building," Scantlebury says. "What people don't realize is when you're paying for donuts from a chain you're paying for the number of people who handle them." He places the rings on a wire tray that looks like it went through Korea. "I stay ahead of the bill collectors and I'm single so I only have to worry about myself."
 
When the tray is full, he lowers it into a wide pot of oil. "We've gotten quite a bit of press for being fairly unknown," he says, flipping the donuts over. No gloves protect his bony forearms — "I'm living proof donuts aren't fattening!" he cracks.
 
He shows off the real coal-fired oven built into the wall. But really, the room shows itself off: the bricks, tongue-and-groove walls and tongue-and-groove ceiling are all painted glam-rock silver. Scantlebury shrugs: "My father did that before I got here … and he's not around to ask."
 
Good and brown, the donuts come out to drain.
 
L. says, "Don't put my name in this article, please! I'm a retired schoolteacher. I don't want the kids to find me." Cut, roll, place.
 
Before she was a schoolteacher, she was a kid back when the women stayed home. Walking home on a warm night with all the windows open, "Oh, the aromas and the smells, they were overpowering," she says.
 
--
 
The screen door slams. Today is unusually quiet, Scantlebury says, going out to the front room: "Fridays are usually pretty busy — ever since 'Chronicle.'"
 
But it's 8 a.m. and people are starting to arrive. Though they come alone, no one orders for one. One woman is taking donuts to the courthouse; another, to the kids she babysits. Bob Impemba, 59, obligingly stops for a brief interview. He visits from Winthrop every month or so. "Not as often as I like," he says. "It's a dietary thing."
 
Has the place changed? "Never changed," he says, and with a grin, "Owner's pleasant."
 
"I'm still crazy!" Scantlebury responds, cheerfully. He explains, "His older brother went through St. Mary's with my older brother."
 
L. steps behind the counter for a minute. "I've been coming here since I was a little kid," she says. "And truly we survive on repeat customers. Not internet people."
 
Like JoAnn Rick of Winthrop. "I'm 75. I was 11 when I first started coming here. They used to have the bread, you'd get the hot bread after school," she says. Now $12.85 buys her "a dozen jelly" (no plural) in a box, two jelly and a cruller in a bag, and four jelly and two plain in another bag. "My husband owned a Dunkin' Donuts for years but you know what? These taste better," Rick says.
 
A woman in a red shirt comes in. She doesn't say a word. Luyo fills her order.
 
--
 
Back in the kitchen, Scantlebury tosses donuts in sugar. "The closest I've come to our jelly donuts is in Cornwall," he says. That's where he vacations. But something's missing in those.
 
L. is back at her counter. "In this country I really feel we've done a real disservice to people who do hand work or manual labor," she says. Slice, roll, place. "If you don't have a suit and tie your work has no value."
 
When she was a kid the priest had to warn people from the altar that the donuts would still be there when Mass was done. Times have, of course, changed. "There's a bagel place over in Chelsea — Katz's," Scantlebury says, pronouncing the word "kates." But, the owner told him, "'People don't want to schlep all the way over to Katz's every day to get their bagels.'"
 
He slides a tray of donuts into the unlit oven to proof. There is a long discussion of the Euro and why it's not working.
 
L. insists once more: no name. "Once I went to try on ladies' undergarments" and guess who was working at the store?
 
But you should come back on Sundays, Scantlebury says, when the shop showcase is full with pies and cakes, lemon squares, coffee rolls, brownies. And "it's like a social club sometimes," he says. "They come here, run into someone they went to school with."
 
Which may be more important than the donut.
 
Where should WGBH stop next? Leave a comment here, email the reporter or let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Subway, commuter rail, light rail, major bus depots — all are eligible.

You don't need a spit or a cauldron to make these cookies inspired by "Game of Thrones." (Abbie Ruzicka/WGBH)

 
BOSTON — A little more than a year ago, roommates Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer began a food blog with the idea of cooking the medieval recipes from the "A Song of Ice and Fire" (Game of Thrones) series by author George R.R. Martin. The two started testing out the medieval foods they read about in the series by searching for the recipes online and through medieval cookbooks and altering the recipes for modern-day palates. 
 
Their blog, "Inn at the Crossroads," became wildly popular amongst Game of Thrones fans. With the blessing of George R.R. Martin himself, Monroe-Cassel and Lehrer have turned their food blog into a new book: A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook. 
 
Elizabethan Lemon Cakes
Recipe excerpted from “A Feast of Ice and Fire”
 
Makes 36 small cakes
Baking: 15 minutes
Prep: 5 minutes

2 1/2 cups flour, plus more as needed
1 egg
2 cups granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
Grated zest from 2 lemons
1 1/2 teaspoons milk
 
Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, combine the flour and granulated sugar. Cut in the butter, then add the zest and the whole egg and yolks. Mix thoroughly, adding more flour as needed, until the dough is no longer sticky and can be easily shaped by hand.

Roll the dough into balls about 1 inch across and place them on the prepared baking sheet at least 2 inches apart, giving them room to spread as they bake.

Bake for 15 minutes, until the tops are just slightly golden. Allow the cakes to cool for a minute before moving them to a cooling rack.

Mix the confectioners’ sugar and milk to a smooth consistency. Once the cakes have cooled, use a spoon to drizzle the icing over the cookies.

For the icing:

3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/3 cup lemon juice, plus more if needed
1 teaspoon unsalted butter, softened
Yellow food coloring (optional)
Garnishes such as candied orange peel, pomegranate seeds or decorative sprinkles (optional)

Mix the confectioners' sugar and lemon juice together in a double boiler over medium heat, stirring all the while. Stir in the butter. Mix until the icing is a nice, smooth consistency, suitable for pouring. Add more juice, if necessary. If you would like, tint the icing yellow with food coloring. 
 

They may look like muffins, but a dunk in melted butter and a roll in cinnamon-sugar makes these luscious morsels taste more like donuts, without the hassle of deep-frying. We sell out of these muffins every morning at my Downtown Bakery and Creamery.

Yields about 24 medium muffins.

For the muffins:

12 oz. (24 Tbs.) unsalted butter, warmed to room temperature
1-3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 lb. 11 oz. (6 cups) all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1-3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1-2/3 cups milk
1/4 cup buttermilk

For dipping:

8 oz. (16 Tbs.) unsalted butter; more as needed
2 cups sugar
2 Tbs. ground cinnamon
To make the muffins

Put a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. In a stand mixer or a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until just mixed in. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Combine the milk and buttermilk. With a wooden spoon, mix a quarter of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Then mix in a third of the milk mixture. Continue mixing in the remaining dry and wet ingredients alternately, ending with the dry. Mix until well combined and smooth, but don't overmix. Grease and flour a standard-size muffin tin. Scoop enough batter into each tin so that the top of the batter is even with the rim of the cup, about 1/2 cup. (A #16 ice-cream scoop gives you the perfect amount.) Bake the muffins until firm to the touch, 30 to 35 minutes.

To finish

Make ahead tips

Nutrition information (per serving):

Size : per muffin; Calories (kcal): 430; Fat (g): 21; Fat Calories (kcal): 190; Saturated Fat (g): 13; Protein (g): 5; Monounsaturated Fat (g): 6; Carbohydrates (g): 57; Polyunsaturated Fat (g): 1; Sodium (mg): 270; Cholesterol (mg): 90; Fiber (g): 1;

Susie Middleton is editor at large for Fine Cooking magazine.

REVERE, Mass. — Many of us are familiar with the scene in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" where Mr. Wonka opens the door to the chocolate room … and the camera takes in a cascading chocolate waterfall, gummy-bear trees and perfectly landscaped edible terrain.

In real life, there’s a special candy haven in Revere, at the Necco factory. There's no chocolate river or cupcake mushrooms, but the smell of cocoa, cream and sugar is so intoxicating, it’s almost dizzying.

Necco and Valentine’s Day go hand-in-hand: For more than a hundred years, Necco has been making the edible love notes with sayings like Call Me. Be Mine and True Love that are passed around for real and for play, in kindergartens and offices.
With 8 million pounds of Sweethearts sold during Valentine’s Day season, it’s Necco’s biggest holiday.

A business misstep

Not every decision is sweet. In 2009, Necco endured a storm of criticism from consumers when they changed the recipe of their iconic wafers to all-natural ingredients. They have since switched back to the original recipe, but sales remain flat.

So how does a candy company with a foothold on tradition find a way to grow without making its fans sour?

"We’re really trying to appeal to a newer audience with newer products but not forget where we’ve been," said interim CEO Al Gulachenski.

One way to appeal to a newer audience is via social media. This month, Necco launched a Facebook campaign with CVS to crowdsource ideas for sayings to be printed on their Sweethearts for Valentine’s Day 2013.

Forward and back at the same time

While thinking about next Valentine’s Day may be hard to grasp right now, Necco, a company more associated with the past, has a steady gaze on the future.

"They’re a nostalgic piece. People who have grown up loving them continue to buy them," said Gulachenski. However, "people who’ve never heard of them don’t buy them." 

And it’s those people Necco is trying to reach out to.

So what does a candy company better known for evoking nostalgia than trendy novelties do to attract a newer audience? Innovate — or make a product that children will like.

This year, Necco is taking a leap and launching a bunch of new products geared toward kids. One of them is … Zombie Food.

"There’s three pieces: there’s a foot, there’s a heart, and there’s a brain," Gulachenski said. "Brain’s on the top of the zombie food chain. And they’re chocolate and filled with gooey red caramel. So you see the red goo oozing out of the brain."

The challenge of brand identity

Production in the candy industry operates on a different calendar. While you may be eating from a heart-shaped box of chocolates right now, the people at Necco are excited about Halloween. Marketing candy to children is nothing new but this move marks a departure from the safer brands they’ve been putting out there — brands with a distinctly older feel like Sky Bar, Clark candy bars and Mary Janes.

Jeff McKenna is a senior consultant at market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey. He said that when companies like Necco create new products, they run the risk of working against the brand identity they’ve built for themselves.

"I think about these niche brands and these brands that have a long history. And you see it in all industries — beverage, snacks — where you’ve got a product line that’s been around for 50 to 75 years and it doesn’t appear to have updated. And that in and of itself becomes part of the brand identity," he said. "As marketers, we’re always trying to talk about the rational side of consumer behavior — of the purpose that people have. But really, when you get down to it, everything is driven by emotions."

Those emotions date back to the hard candy your grandmother handed out to you as a child, or the candy bar your dad would occasionally bring home after work. So how does Necco tap into those emotions and gain a newer audience without compromising the loyalty of its longtime fans?

Kids' sense of discovery

For store executives, that question is crucial.

"What we’ve seen be successful is when traditional brands bring something new and exciting to the brand — something different from what they’ve had before," said Rachel Bishop, vice-president of daily living strategy and business development for Walgreens. She said the nostalgic component just doesn’t do it for kids … who haven’t been around long enough to develop a sense of nostalgia.

"They want to discover something before anybody else, and so finding something that your parents already have or that other people know about isn’t as exciting to them as that discovery — finding something new and interesting," she said. "That can be as simple as a packaging innovation or it can be a completely new innovation in a product."

While there will always be room for Sweethearts and nostalgia, sometimes the recipe for innovation calls for some cocoa, sugar and a little red goo. And brains. Lots of brains.