I miss fastnachts from home on Shrove “fat” Tuesday; they aren’t as sweet as a donut. Those little old ladies at all the local churches made the best ones! They still sell KK at the colleges for fundraising; we bought some on one of our tours.
I can’t keep up with the various covid threads so I appreciated the KK mention and thought It was completely appropriate to this thread. But if there posts that got deleted, or you’re worried that covid-related stuff might take over this thread, I can understand that.
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Fun topic 
After my freshman year of college, I had a summer job at Dunkin Donuts. Mostly I had their danish (hot, with a pat of butter) for morning break. But when I worked night shift, I liked chocolate honey dipped donuts - the flavor was a favorite for the baker’s girlfriend, and he took pride on doing an especially good job on them. When we take red eye flights from Denver to Boston, we always stop at the Logan airport DD before getting on the bus to Hertz car rental.
Probably my all time favorite has been plain donuts from Cider Mill in Endicott, NY (It was a playhouse and also a seasonal apple & donut shop). You could watch the donut process and eat them hot and fresh.
We have a nearby independent donut shop, run by an older Asian couple. This summer we took weekly drives up to Rocky Mountain National Park for hiking. Often we stopped there first to buy a donut for me and an apple fritter for my husband. It gave us some new fun when I was newly retired in no-travel covid times.
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There are no bad donut. My middle school served donuts in the cafeteria which were quite subpar by normal standards, but they still tasted so good!
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My kids are all donut lovers. When they were little they would go crazy over the bags of little chocolate covered donuts by Hostess or otherwise. Who am I kidding, they will still buy them! They put them in the freezer and eat them frozen.
Some of our stores still carry Bill Knapp’s products. They have a chocolate covered “dunker” cake donut that is also good frozen.
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My favorite donut is glazed crullers. For some reason, they are harder to find.
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I grew up in Dunkin country so I have a soft spot for those especially their glazed sticks. But, other donuts I have appreciated are Peter Pan Donuts in Greenpoint where my son lives and Back Door Donuts in Oak Bluffs. Those are probably both fun because I’m indulging while on vacation.
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Oh my…who would have guessed that an essay I wrote 12 years ago would make its way to this board?
One day I’m going to write a book and it’s going to be called In Search of the Elusive Jelly Donut. It’s mostly a travelogue documenting my search for the jelly donut from my youth.
My Dad was a cop. Cops love donuts. And coffee. Need a cop? Go to the nearest donut shop. Often you’ll find several. Once I was walking in New York City, and I heard several police sirens and saw 2 police cars fly around a corner and stop. I stopped to watch. Three officers jumped out of their cars and walked briskly into the store on the corner. I walked past and looked in the window. The officers were in line. Waiting. I looked up, Dunkin’ Donuts. I swear. I took pictures to prove it. (See below)
Anyway, back to my book.
When I was a kid my Dad (the cop) would bring home all sorts of things that business owners in his “beat” would give him. Cases of soda, boxes of lollypops, cases of Oreo cookies (another story, about the time my brother and I ate our way through a case of Oreos. I can’t quite look at an Oreo the same way anymore). Somewhere along the line my Dad (the cop) would bring home large pink boxes tied with white string, and filled with donuts. Not just one box, but several. While the cinnamon crumb and the white powdered sugar ones were good (very good), the jelly donuts were pure heaven. The dough was dense but not heavy, they were lightly frosted with a sugary glaze, and the jelly inside was amazing. Real jelly. Not the gel that is used today, and called jelly. This was raspberry jam complete with seeds. Try as I might, I have never found a jelly donut that matched this donut.
Where these donuts came from, I will never know. I have no one to ask since both of my parents are dead. I thought about asking my mother on her death bed, but by then she could only see out of one eye, and was often thinking I was my brother. I wasn’t sure I could trust her to give me the right information. She might call out “rosebud” and then where would I be?
My book, In Search of the Elusive Jelly Donut will document my travels throughout the US as I search for that true icon of American breakfast treats, the jelly donut.
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@JustaMom that’s a great story and a book I’d read. 
Was there an actual essay?
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@abasket Back in late 2008, when I was on layoff (like 250,000 others in my county), I found myself wallowing, and a good friend suggested I write some short-form essays (I’ve been a storyteller for as long as a pencil and I ever met) and compile them. Using Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck as a jumping off point (wonderful book of personal essays!), I sat down and wrote 110 short-form (1/2 - 4 page) essays, some accompanied by photos, “These are the Stories of My Life…No Really”. It was therapeutic to remind myself of all the wonderful, fun, whacky, scary and dismal times I’ve had. So yes, the ‘jelly donut’ essay is one of them.
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@JustaMom What a lovely idea for a book. I would definitely buy it for my husband who loves jelly donuts.
I grew up in St. Louis. There were great donut shops there. When Alton Brown did his travels on his motorcycle across and up and down the USA, he stopped in St. Louis (twice, actually). The one time he focused on donut shops. He went to 3, and I am a fan of all 3.
World’s Fair Donuts, Donut Drive In and St. Louis Hills Donut shop are the three places. They all have wonderful donuts. We were in St. Louis recently and passed by Donut Drive In about 8:45pm and there was a line for donuts. You can’t go wrong with any of the 3. I know them well.
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@silverlady - I’ll add them to my list of stops - I want to do the trip with my brother, a now retired punk rock musician who is a stay-at-home-dad, and hit all 50 states, driving in a camper. Yes, I have thought about this for a long time.
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There’s a donut chain in Michigan, Cops and Doughnuts
True story, in Clare, Michigan the local donut shop was going out of business. A group of local cops bought the bakery, renamed it. The rest is history. Now they have several “precincts”, some inexplicably in Ace Hardwares.
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Who has made donuts?
I’ve made baked donuts. I’ve made pumpkin, chocolate and I think a cinnamon one. They are fine. But not like donut shop donuts. D2 actually had on her “time at home” cooking bucket list, “make fried donuts”. Anyone have a recipe they love? Even for like a donut hole? (mini donut)
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Are there even any good gluten free donuts?
Before I developed my gluten allergy I ADORED donuts. But I haven’t eaten one in 10 years. I am doubtful a good GF one exists. But maybe somebody knows of one??
Good one! There is a local brewery that was started by a PhD grad who apparently could not quite find a postdoc position in biochem that was just right. So he and his buddies started a brewery naturally called… Postdoc Brewing.
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Stan’s Donuts in Chicago.
Dunkin Glazed used to be my go-to but I’m finding them way too sweet these days. I had one as a treat after limiting carbs and sugar for several weeks and I was literally stoned. Giggly, woozy, slightly wobbly.
A nice apple cider donut is a fall ritual around here, preferably paired with a visit to the orchard on a sunny afternoon.
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Nashville: Five Daughters Bakery
Los Angeles Area: Royal Donuts, Pasadena - Cambodian made
San Fran Bay Area: Happy Donuts, Palo Alto - Cambodian made
Anywhere: Cambodian baker-made donuts are generally the tastiest.
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You can get your free donut daily until the end of the year, (oh my this made me weak).
@helpingmom40 My D has a doughnut plant in her neighborhood. I keep trying to convince myself if we walk there, it will balance out the calories from a donut. But now that we are both fully vaccinated, I am going to buy us a doughnut from the doughnut plant on my next trip to bklyn (hopefully soon)
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Omg you got my hopes up as I’m thinking about what seeds to plant this spring.
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