top: Boston Cream, Pineapple Danish, Fizzy Orange Creamsicle. Bottom: Chocolate Peanut Butter filled, Caramel cake, Chocolate filled.
I got a craving for doughnuts this morning. Ohio, unlike NH, does not have the obsession with these pastries that has led to a D&D on every street corner in New England. So I set off on a quest to the next town over, running errands while I was out to justify my jaunt. I located the rarest of the rare, a mom-and-pop operated doughnut shop. I walked in and asked the girl behind the counter if she would put a half-dozen assorted doughnuts together, and because I'd never been there before and didn't know what to choose, to pick out her favorites. In retrospect, asking this of a girl who looked to still be in her teens may have been an error. She looked confused for a second, then pleased, and spent a few minutes running around the little shop making selections. I paid up and headed for home...
Back at the house, I showed the First Reader the spoils of my hunting trip, and he looked a little dubious as I repeated what she'd told me about flavors. But being the good sport that he is (I'll eat anything. He's learned better than that) he tried pieces with me. They are well made. Nothing wrong with the techniques. But oh dear sweet cloying honeyed dipped-in-saccharine heaven they are sweet. The yeast pillow stuffed with chocolate frosting had good flavor, chocolaty without being overpowering. I'd have that again.
The Fizzy Creamsicle frosted cake doughnut was the first indicator of a problem... I ate a small bite, and sipped coffee to try and take the orange flavor down to a dull roar. Sanford made a face. The caramel cake doughnut I'd been anticipating... whoa. Instant sugar coma. The flavor... I don't know. It wasn't really carmelly. More like brown sugar concentrated and distilled into the sweetest thing I've put in my mouth, sweet enough to burn my taste buds out. Sweet enough to make Sanford remember that he'd been erroneously diagnosed as diabetic, and that might have become accurate after just a bite of this doughnut.
We set the remaining pieces and doughnuts (one of which is actually a pineapple danish) aside. It's going to take us awhile to recover enough to want anything sugary anywhere near our mouths again. I'll report on the rest later.
Later... Much Later
For dessert after dinner we tried out the yeast puff filled with peanut butter and chocolate. It was a pleasant surprise: while being very sweet, as a donut will be, it wasn't overpoweringly so. And, better yet for us, who aren't fond of peanut butter flavored things, the peanut was an undernote to the chocolate. We'll do that one again. The pineapple danish, though! Look, I have no problems with a small bakery using pre-processed stuff like the pineapple filling that was on this. It's what you'd get in a grocery or anyplace. The First Reader isn't fond of cooked pineapple, so this was mine.
And finally... the Boston Cream. You know what to expect when you get one, right? chocolate frosting, creamy custard filling in a yeast puff. Well, this one was a pleasant surprise indeed. The filling had a hint of lemony tartness that we both loved. For this, we'll be back to the little shop. And we'll try some of the other flavors, cautiously. But not for a while!
We still have two pieces of the caramel and orangesicle doughnuts. They're a bit stale. I don't think I'll give them to the dog... Tricksy on a sugar rush is not something we need. I'll bet the birds... no. Wait. Birds on sugar isn't a good idea either. Anyone got lead-lined biohazard bags?
Feeling Brave?
You, too, can find this little shop! If you're near Middletown, Ohio, anyway. We'll go back. And we'll take the kids, because I think they would have wolfed down those doughnuts gleefully. It's just our fuddy-duddy tastebuds that can't handle the sugar. If you like the sweet, and like me, the idea of fresh-made doughnuts from a mom-and-pop shop (without the high-end bakery prices) then it's worth a visit.
Metaphorical Donuts
For my essay on books, donuts, and spinach, head over to the Mad Genius Club this morning!