So jammy! ‘Healthy’ doughnuts go on sale

COATED with sugar and laden with calories, the doughnut is often seen as one of our most unhealthy snacks – but an entrepreneur believes he has created a version that can help solve the nation’s obesity crisis.

Anthony Fletcher, a former chief executive of a snack firm, uses a baking technique that means his doughnuts contain half the standard sugar and fat content of traditional cakes.

The Oxford graduate, 39, began experimenting with different techniques in his kitchen during lockdown.

He devised a secret formula with help from a materials chemist, food scientists and bakers.

They perfected a technique that allows the dough to set with steam instead of deep-fat frying. Their doughnut has fewer than 160 calories – compared to the 400 in an average one – and 57 per cent less sugar and 52 per cent less saturated fat.

It is also decorated with icing using natural sugars found in foods such as melons. Pointing out that years of cajoling the public to stop eating high-fat food doesn’t work, Mr Fletcher says it’s better ‘to remove the junk out of junk food’.

He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘People have not changed their food habits, so I set out to make food people crave for but in a radically different way.

‘People find it just too hard to move away from treats and we can no longer just hope the obese will stop overindulging.’

He has now opened his first shop, Urban Legend, in Brighton, and other outlets are planned.

Mr Fletcher’s most popular doughnut is caramel-flavoured and called Fool’s Gold. Prices for his creations start at £1.95 each, or three for £5.65.