Donuts to Doughnuts: The Winner is...

Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop 

Alas the doughnut competition has come to an end with Peter Pan beating Dough and Bomboloni with a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars.   Dough coming in an extremely close second was overcome with Peter Pan's light, melt-in-your-mouth dough and traditional flavors. See all three posts for a more detailed review of each:

Bomboloni

Dough

Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop

And stay tuned for my OWN stab at doughnuts coming soon!

DONUTS TO DOUGHNUTS -- Stop #3: Peter Pan's

Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop
727 Manhattan Avenue
Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Finally down to the last contender.  This donut shop came to me as a young, sugar-hungry child in Brooklyn, NY.  As far back as I can remember, Peter Pan's donuts were a staple at every family get-together, birthdays, holidays, and plain old Sunday dinner.  From the first bite of their Sugar-Raised Donut, I was hooked.  Let's face it as a kid anything with sugar on it was going to wind up in your mouth, but there was something about these donuts.  I could eat butter cookies and Italian pastries without force don't get me wrong, but I would always find myself along with my twin sister waiting for the plate of donuts to hit the kitchen table to make sure we grabbed our favorite donuts.  So without question, I had to include one of my favorite childhood memories in the competition.

My sister and I (who would not let me do this competition without her) made our way to Peter Pan's one morning to get our generous box of donuts for a "proper tasting" (well that's how we put it).  We hadn't been inside the bakery in a while and almost forgot how long the line always is especially in the morning.  The bakery offers tons of different donuts from the traditional yeast-raised donuts like Blueberry Jelly, Chocolate Glazed, and Sugar Twist, to cake donuts like Red Velvet, Old-Fashioned, and Whole-Wheat Glazed, all reasonably priced around $1.00.  Aside from the donuts a vast selection of breakfast breads and pastries is also offered consisting of Danishes, Black-and-White Cookies (the best one I've had in my lifetime), and other must-tries such as the Pistachio Muffin (also one of my favorites).  So naturally, the donut shop was packed with fellow dough-hungry fanatics, but we didn't grow the least bit impatient because we knew the wait was going to be worth it.

Tables during the morning rush!

Stepping inside you walk into a retro, old-fashioned donut shop with the bakery selections on one side and high-top table seating on the other.  Already at 9 AM, each table was filled with what looked like the bakery regulars (which includes my grandmother, to whom I thank for the introduction to this bakery).  The girls behind the counter have the same uniform as that from my childhood; a 1960's diner-esque green and pink dress.  I happen to think that they are adorable.  A great quality this donut shop has is that they have not changed throughout the years.  It's a good feeling going back to somewhere you grew up loving and seeing that like your love for their food, they haven't changed.

After waiting a bit, we put in our order for a small box of our favorites mixing it up to get a proper taste of everything they had to offer.  We had no complaints about the service, it was quick and painless.  We decided on the Sugar-Raised Donut, French Crueller (my sister's favorite), Whole Wheat Glazed, and although we never sprang for them as kids a Whipped-Cream topped yeast-raised doughnut.  The smell of the doughnuts made us nearly run to the car to get home quicker.  Then, along with our usual apple with breakfast, we sat to savor our doughnuts and relived our childhood, with more of a sophisticated palate of course.

The donuts were fresh as the shelves are regularly filled throughout the day and let off an intoxicating scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cream.  We started with the never disappointing Sugar-Raised (pictured left).  The texture of the fried dough was perfectly light and airy, one of the most gentle donuts I've ever bit into.  However, I think what sets these yeast-raised donuts apart from others is the taste of the dough.  Looking at the dough you can see the little specks of spice and flavor, to me what tastes like a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon and possibly a bit of lemon zest.  The combination of the texture and taste of the dough which is vaguely sweet with the crunch of the sugar on the outside makes for an absolutely satisfying bite, and a quick one at that; it should take at least three minutes give or take to finish this donut and I did it in less than 60 seconds.  You wouldn't blame me.

Interior of French Crueller

Moving on to the French Crueller I let my sister have the first bite as I could see it in her face she couldn't wait much longer as I took it out of the box.  The French Crueller  is made with Pate a Choux which I had experience with making in pastry class; an eggy dough which has great height when baked or fried.  The donut is fried then simply topped with a sugar glaze.  This donut makes for more of a "bite" as the exterior of the dough is thicker and although wonderfully airy inside, it is wetter and denser in consistency (refer to picture right).  This dough as well had a "nutmegy" taste but much less noticeable than the other.  I think what makes this donut so likable is the texture of the Pate a Choux dough with the delicate sugar glaze.  The dough is the least bit sweet making it impossible to overload on sugar but also making it impossible not to want another one as it jump-starts your sugar craving.  Although delicious, it can seem a bit collapsed at times and taste like it has been sitting for a while, and still has not surpassed the Sugar-Raised for me.

Whole-Wheat Glazed

The Whole-Wheat Glazed (pictured left) came out of the box next and tasted better than I remembered. It happens to be my Aunt Jenny's favorite and I would always see her slowly eating it with her coffee after dinner.  OKAY, first of all I don't know how she could eat it so slow, and second of all I applaud her for making such a good choice.  I can imagine people choose this donut because they think it's the healthier choice, and yes that went through my mind as well, but let's face it a donut is a donut and it's going to get fried so my picking was solely based on taste.  The dough is what attracts me to this doughnut the most.  As a cake doughnut of course it does not have that fluffy quality the yeast-raised has and is much more like a coffee cake but it packs so much flavor.  With this donut you get a bigger kick of cinnamon and nutmeg but you also get kind of a gentle "burnt" flavor from the exterior of the donut which makes for a great combination.  The sugar glaze on top adds a perfect balance to the donut making it one of my new favorites.

The last lonely donut in the box was the Whipped Cream*.  We left it for last because I'm not going to lie it kinda of intimidated us a bit.  It is a much more obnoxious donut than the rest as it is topped with a generous mound of fluffy cream.  Although this has always been my mom's absolute favorite, we were always afraid it would be too sweet and would tell her she was crazy as she would sit down to enjoy her donut and roll her eyes at the two of us.  Nevertheless, we decided "Hey, why not?" and went for it.  Bracing ourselves for the first bite we were pleasantly surprised that the cream was not overpoweringly sweet at all.  It was actually very tasty.  It is a thicker whipped cream verging on the consistency of a frosting, but is very delicately sweetened so you don't get half-way through the donut and get sick of it.  Yes, it is a lot of cream and maybe too much for my liking as I am more attracted to the simplicity in the donut, but it proved me wrong and is still one worth trying if you are a cream-lover.  I give my mom credit for this one, but shh! let's keep that between us.

As we finished our tasting we were overly stuffed but completely satisfied.  Although we loved the donuts for bringing us back to our childhood, we judged the taste of the doughnuts solely on the present.  Going into the tasting I told myself that these donuts were going to be hard to beat and after I was proven correctly bringing my rating of Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop to:

4.5 out of 5 STARS, and a command to go try it!


*I apologize for lack of pic for the Whipped Cream donut, we finished it off before we could stop for a picture!  But don't worry let your imagination run with it, it will only be better in person =)

DONUTS TO DOUGHNUTS -- Stop #2: Bomboloni

BOMBOLONI
187 Colombus Ave.
New York, New York
www.bomboloni.com

This next doughnut shop I heard about from the chef at Trois Pommes Patisserie during my internship.  She didn't speak too much of it but I was interested in their concept.  Bomboloni (Italian for doughnut) features round shaped doughnuts with a variety of fillings, such as Blood Orange, and Espresso.  It also offers other Italian specialties and gelato.  I was mostly intrigued by this doughnut shop because of the Italian influence hoping it would satisfy my taste even more.  So, one Saturday afternoon I took a trip to the city with my boyfriend to try a few of their doughnuts.

The storefront is located uptown just a block away from Central Park.  It features indoor and outdoor seating and unlike Dough has a very retro feel to the decor.  There was a short line when we arrived and some tables were already filled with people enjoying some Italian treats.  We arrived up to the glass case filled with over 15 types of doughnuts for $1.50 each of 6 for $7.  We decided to go for it and got 6 doughnuts for $7.  The variety of fillings would satisfy any type of taste buds.  There was some for the simple palette and some for the more sophisticated palette.  We went with a little bit of both.  Six doughnuts is a lot to choose, especially from over 15 different types, but surprisingly we did it pretty quick.  I already had a few ideas in my head while waiting online until we were greeted by one of the helpful Italian staff behind the counter.  I knew right away I wanted to try the Raspberry and the White Chocolate Pistachio bomboloni; raspberry being one of my favorite fruit flavors and pistachio due to the fact that I've been in a "nut" kick lately.  For the last four bomboloni we wanted to try different flavor profiles so we chose, Baci, Caffe, Peanut Butter, and Orange & Dark Chocolate. 

Yes, I know that is A LOT of bomboloni.  We thought about it for a little bit and trust me this was the better decision, we wanted to get a good taste of everything Bomboloni had to offer.  So we took a walk to Central Park and sat down to enjoy the doughnuts on a table by the usual Central Park food trucks overlooking the Great Lawn.  We opened the box (pictured below right) and took a good look at each other trying not to laugh at the fact that we were really going to try all of these doughnuts.  Without much wait, we dug in.  The texture of the doughnut is much different from that I've had before.  The consistency is much more like brioche than a typical yeast-raised fluffy doughnut.  I was happy to taste something different from the usual doughnut and actually liked the texture very much.  Although biting into a cloud-like fluffy yeast-raised doughnut never disappoints, it was nice to have a doughnut with a denser bite and crunchier exterior.

Pistachio & White
Chocolate

Although my boyfriend and I both loved the doughnut itself, the fillings were disappointing.  Generally, the fillings either lacked flavor or had too much flavor.  Starting off with the Baci flavored bomboloni, it was one of the better tasting doughnuts out of the bunch.  The chocolate cream filling had a nice chocolate flavor however, it lacked the nutty hazelnut flavor you would usually get from a Baci chocolate.  I'm a huge fan of the dark chocolate and nut filled chocolate so I was a bit disappointed, as was my boyfriend.  The Pistachio & White Chocolate Bomboloni was up next (pictured left).  This was one other better doughnut out of the six.  It was glazed with white chocolate, filled with a bright green pistachio cream filling, and topped with crushed pistachios.  Again, this doughnut didn't completely upset but it lacked flavor.  If I closed my eyes, took a bite, and had to tell you the flavor of the doughnut I would probably have to take more than one bite and think about it for a while. Although I am a firm believer in simplicity in desserts, I do like a punch from those simple flavors.  I would have liked to have tasted more pistachio from the cream, but it wasn't a complete disappointment.

From top left clockwise: Caffe,
Raspberry, Pistachio & White
Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Orange
& Dark Chocolate, and Baci

Moving on to the Caffe Bomboloni, the cream-filling was too dull once again.  My boyfriend and I are huge fans of coffee, cappuccino, and espresso-like flavored ice creams, glazes, and other types of desserts so we were excited for this doughnut.  It ended up being good not great.  The espresso-flavored cream was too mild for our taste buds and we were starting to see a trend.  Then, we moved on to the Peanut Butter and Orange & Dark Chocolate Bomboloni.  I'll cut to the chase, both doughnuts I spit out.  There was something amuck about the peanut butter filling.  It tasted like a peanut butter vanilla pastry cream, which to me just doesn't seem right.  The combination of the cream and peanut butter did not go very well together, perhaps too sweet.  Similarly, the orange filling in the Orange & Dark Chocolate bomboloni was probably the worst out of all the fillings.  It oozed out like an orange jam and tasted as if I were biting into an orange lollipop, way too sweet.  I don't spit out sweets too often, I like to give everything the benefit of the doubt by giving it a good chew and maybe a second bite, but it was not happening with these doughnuts.  Lastly was the Raspberry bomboloni, which was just a simple raspberry jam filling and dusted with powdered sugar.  I was happy to see that it was not as sweet as the orange filling, but it's hard to mess up raspberry jam.

In the end, we didn't finish one single doughnut between the both of us (see picture left).  I think that was a good enough sign that we weren't too satisfied.  There was something strange about the cream fillings and didn't make our taste buds too happy.  As I previously mentioned in the Dough post, I do a lot of my judging on whether of not I want another helping, and in this case I didn't want another of any of the doughnuts.  Although I loved the concept and decor of the doughnut shop and had no complaints about the service, overall I was disappointed bringing my rating of Bomboloni to:


 2 out of 5 STARS and sadly a recommendation to skip it.

DONUTS TO DOUGHNUTS -- Stop #1: DOUGH

DOUGH

305 Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11205

As previously mentioned on my Favorite Food Stops page, I've had my fair share of doughnuts from Dough at the Brooklyn Flea Market in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  There was no denying that at first bite I fell in love with their unique flavors, from Passionfruit & Cacao Nibs to Cafe Au Lait.  I became a fan instantly and wanted the full effect of what they had to offer.  So I decided to take a ride with my twin sister Debra for a taste of their doughnuts from their shop in Clifton Park, Brooklyn. 

Only a short ride form my grandmother's house, we found the shop very easily and purposely parked a few blocks away to enjoy a nice walk on the sunny spring day before guzzling down a few doughnuts.  Arriving at the shop it was fairly small, laced with wood trimmings and a rustic decor.  The smell of fresh doughnuts immediately grabs you as you walk in a take the few steps toward the large case full of doughnuts.  With over 10 different type ranging from $2 -$2.50 each, we noticed some we had already been introduced to and some new and intriguing flavors like Nutella, Dulce de Leche, and Chocolate Cream.

Going in the shop my sister and I already had an idea of which doughnut we definitely wanted to try.  Being huge lemon fans we were dying to try the Lemon Meringue doughnut, filled with lemon curd and topped with gooey meringue.  To our dismay, they were all out!  Naturally taken off guard, it took us a little while to decide which doughnuts we wanted to try.  Sticking with the lemon, we opted for the Lemon Poppy Seed, and the Toasted Coconut doughnuts and decided to take a seat on two of the few stools overlooking the kitchen.

Toasted Coconut

Lemon Poppy Seed

We started with the Lemon Poppy Seed doughnut (pictured left) and loved it; the simple lemon glaze and crunch of the poppy seed complemented the dough very nicely with just a hint of sweetness and not too much bitterness from the lemon, making it a doughnut that even non-lemon fanatics can enjoy.  Next we tried the Toasted Coconut doughnut (pictured lower right).   Unfortunately we both felt the doughnut was lacking a bit.  We were expecting a bigger burst of coconut flavor.  It you're lucky enough to get a great deal of toasted coconut shreds on your glaze then you were able to taste some coconut, however we did not get so lucky.  We wanted more coconut! Sadly, we were disappointed.

Lemon Meringue

As we were finishing up the last doughnut, we were pleasantly surprised to see them pull out a rack filled with Lemon Meringue doughnuts (pictured left).  Although we had no complaints about the service the woman working the counter told us there were none coming out soon so we were not expecting any (hmm?).  To no ones surprise especially not our  own, we bought yet another doughnut to try to make up for the lack of flavor in our last one.  We sliced open the fluffy meringue-topped doughnut and out oozed the bittersweet lemon curd.  We were both excited yet hesitant as we knew this doughnut was going to be messy, seeing that the curd was just a bit too loose to handle neatly.  We bit into the doughnut starting with the fluffy meringue, then the dense dough, and then the lemon curd.  All three make for a nice bite, but it was tough to eat!  If I had an entire doughnut I don't think I could have stomached the whole thing and trust me I could eat.  The meringue and curd both had a nice sweet flavor but to me, the doughnut lacked that addictive quality and "oozed" more excess to me.  I prefer a bit more subtlety in my sweets and less of a "punch" of sweetness.  I base a lot of my judging of sweets on whether or not iI want more after I have finished my first helping.  If I don't give it a thought then I know that it was not my favorite.  Maybe the Lemon Meringue doughnut would be a great treat for someone with a sweeter tooth but my sister and I agreed that we would have preferred something a little less "in your face," and a little more sweet and simple.

On our way out we took a box of some doughnuts we thought our family would like and some we may want to try as well, including the Dulce de Leche doughnut and the Cafe Au Lait, we we loved at the flea market.  Taking a quick bite, I was happy to see that I still liked it as much as I did the first time.  However, the Dulce de Leche I was disappointed with.  It tasted more like a brown sugar glaze than it did a "dulce de leche" glaze.  I was expecting more of a milky-caramel flavor and didn't get it!  

After trying the doughnuts multiple times I found myself asking the question "Why do they have to be so big?"  I feel like I would love the doughnuts more if it were about three-quarters of its size.  I want to be able to take home a box of doughnuts and eat more than one of them.  Of course I have eaten my fair share of "Dough" doughnuts in one sitting but I don't thinkI will find myself doing that too often and that to me is a huge factor.  Overall, I have tasted some great doughnuts at "Dough" and from time-to-time I will probably be craving one of those large masses of doughy deliciousness.  However along with these great qualities came some disappointments and questions bringing my rating of Dough to:

 4 out of 5 STARS and a recommendation to go try it!

DONUTS TO DOUGHNUTS

Which Doughnut Takes the Cake?

Food has always been an important subject in my family; from figs and tomatoes, to the large italian dinners, and all the way through to the delicious pastries, cakes, and candies.  It's always been hard to compare all the great food I had growing up to any other pastries, pasta, or even fruit out there.  I have yet to have any that compare to the sweet perfectly plum figs from my grandfather's garden.

Aside from the usual Italian pastries and cakes that my grandmother would bake for the family, she made us all fall in love with doughnuts.  Every family get together would consist of the usual desserts and two boxes of doughnuts from Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  The doughnuts ranged from a simple vanilla glaze to an over-the-top cream-filled doughnut.  For the twenty years (give or take) that I've been eating these doughnuts I have always opted from the classic sugar-raised doughnut, and the occasional jelly-filled or marble doughnut here and there.  I love to try everything so naturally I've tried just about every kind of doughnut my grandmother has brought to the dessert table, but nothing compared to the subtle yet sweet taste of the classic sugar doughnut.

Having now a greater taste for food and the desire to venture out to find the next greatest fare, I wanted to compare the new, hip, and modern doughnut shops to that of which I grew up with.  That being said, I did my research and found a couple of doughnut shops from my own knowledge and from that of my friends and mentors.  With two shops in mind I went to work and tested out these doughnuts for myself using a rating system of  one to five stars (going from bad to great).

The competition is going to consist of three more posts.  I'm going to compare three doughnut shops: Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, Dough, and Bomboloni, and pick a winner!  Keep checking back in for the next posts, these doughnuts are worth it!