Where yuppies had gone before, the hipsters now followed. In Seattle, Top Pot fired up its fryers in 2002, with an upscale take on the Dunkin’ Donuts model. Their densely cakey sinkers and barely chewy yeast-raised dough rings taste as if someone in the kitchen cares, but they certainly wouldn’t challenge anyone’s donut preconceptions. About the weirdest they go is a spiced chai model. Other fried dough impresarios have been more off the wall. In the early days of the bacon-dessert fad, Voodoo Doughnuts made a name for itself with its bacon and maple bar, a slab of yeast-raised dough spread with maple frosting and topped with whole rashers of bacon. And that was one of its tamer flavors. When the Portland, Oregon, company first opened in 2003, they formulated both a Pepto-Bismol and a Robitussin donut—at least until the FDA put a stop to it. (You can’t use medicine as an ingredient in food.) Nowadays the flavors are more sedate: the “blood” in the signature voodoo donut—a cartoonish chocolate-iced doughnut with arms, an iced toothy mouth, Compared to some of its other the Voodoo Doughnuts and a pretzel stick in its belly—is just plain old raspberry jelly; the offerings, bacon maple bar is downright tame. triple chocolate penetration contains such ho-hum ingredients as Cocoa Puffs. There is however a product that still makes Voodoo unique. Undoubtedly taking a cue from all the thousands who have served Krispy Kremes at their wedding, Voodoo offers legal weddings. If you pony up $325 for the deluxe wedding package, you get the ceremony, coffee and donuts for forty, and a donut centerpiece with the bride’s and groom’s names inscribed in the icing. And they’ll even throw in free parking! Over the last few years, hip donut shops have sprouted from sea to shining sea. In Philadelphia, Federal Donuts has been serving cake donuts scented with lavender and others filled with peanut butter and jelly; in Chicago, the Doughnut Vault boasts lemon poppy seed and pistachio; Denver’s Glazed and Confuzed Doughnuts has made a valiant effort to push the envelope with a Red Bull–spiked sinker decorated with Pez candy and another spread with chipotle chocolate ganache and sprinkled with tortilla chips. In Austin, Gourdough’s has busted the envelope wide open with the likes of the Boss Hog donut, mounded with pulled pork and potato salad, then drizzled with honey barbecue sauce.
DONUTS HIGH AND LOW
Donut, The_pages_FINAL.indd 87
87
3/25/14 12:06 PM