Do My Job: Dean dives in to doughnuts

Raleigh, N.C. — This week, WRAL Reporter Kim Dean has taken on different jobs as part of her “Do My Job” series. On Wednesday, she had her sweetest assignment to date – working at a Krispy Kreme factory.

There, they produce 400 dozen doughnuts an hour. To make them, the dough first takes form and is given time to rise. Next, it's dropped into the fryer and flipped so it cooks evenly on both sides.

Then, they are drenched under a waterfall of gooey icing. Finally, they take a 45-minute ride around the factory to cool before they are ready to eat.

“This being North Carolina, we fry everything,” said Ron Driver, Dean’s new boss.

Dean’s first job at the factory was to box hot, fresh doughnuts for immediate sale.

“It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. No, really it is tough,” she said. “I just poked one.”

“We really only want our doughnuts to have one hole in them,” Driver said, laughing.

Dean then took a turn on the conveyor belt. Eight hours a day, for the past eight years, Pauleen Lanyare has expertly moved the doughnuts off the belt and onto trays for local bakeries.

“It’s really easy to squish them,” Dean said as she tried Lanyare’s job.

And, no, there’s no eating on the job, Dean found.

“Look at this poor little guy. (He’s) just going to go into the trash,” Dean said as she examined a deformed doughnut. “No eating on the line.”

Just as she found her rhythm, the boss threw Dean a curve ball and asked her to try another skill – quickly grabbing the sweet treats off the conveyor belt and putting them in boxes.

“Uh oh, the doughnuts are getting away,” she said. “It really is harder than it looks.”

Thursday, on WRAL’s Morning News at 6, Dean sits in the high-pressure hot seat with 911 dispatchers.