Cupcakes a la Sprinkles were all the rage for the past couple of years here in town. Recently, the trend seems to have changed to upscale donut shops. I’m not talking Krispy Kremes but rather pure evil donuts with excessive calories.
For instance I just had an Evil Elvis with peanut butter, banana and bacon and my companion had a Canadian Healthcare donut involving maple and bacon. There’s a Ski Accident awaiting consumption like an extra evil bismark with extra raspberry filling.
The bacon trend is passe, but those just struck our fancy. Anyone else noticing this trend? Any favorite flavors? My local shop is open to suggestions…
Cupcakes have been in long enough that this small city got a cupcake shop. I have been hearing about the donuts for a few years at least, but we have not gotten a gourmet donut shop here. I heard a lot about macarons and cake pops for a while too. As far as I know, cake pops are still the “trendiest” baked good around…
I live in Atlanta, and we have both. I think the gourmet donut shops are more casual and the gourmet cupcakes are more upscale. People will bring a box of gourmet donuts to a football watching party. People use a box of cupcakes for a birthday party. It’s a fine line but I think they are different markets.
Tell me about it.
I believe even 8 year old Girl Scouts can whip up an entire batch of cupcakes for about $3…never understood idiots paying that amount for ONE cupcake.
Then again - not being a big coffee drinker any more, I also don’t understand the concept of paying the same amount for a cup of coffee as what a pound of coffee costs in a supermarket.
I miss the great mom & pop donut shops in LA - on almost every corner - run by (mostly) Asian families - chock filled with grease and fat and frosting and fillings. Granted, after eating two of those you felt like a lazy sack of potatoes and needed to go to the gym for about 6 hours - but still, they were great - and cheap!
Kinda donut related- some bakeries around here used to have “crispies”, the best ones of which weren’t actually all that crisp. They were like a cinnamon roll, but thin and of a large diameter. The best were sort of leathery and pieces could be torn off without the crispie breaking. Can’t find them anymore, dammit.
I was in a gourmet doughnut shop in New York in 2011 so I don’t think you can call it a new thing. But it does seem to be new here in Kentucky. That said, my sister is getting married in the spring and they’re having doughnuts, perhaps formed in some sort of cake I don’t know, instead of a wedding cake. :eek:
Someone mentioned the Fractured Prune, and I guess that shows how these trends can be cyclical. They have a number of bakeries that aren’t Ocean City, like Frederick, MD, but I believe the number has dwindled. They used to have some in VA and one in Rockville, MD, that I believe had relocated from DuPont Circle.
We have a gourmet donut place here in Richmond. As a lover of all fried dough, I was psyched when it opened.
But I’ve only been there twice in the past year. The place is just “okay”. I’m glad it seems to be hanging in there, but their donuts are not up my alley. Sorry, but I don’t really want a cayenne-Bourbon donut, no matter how nicely decorated it is.
Plus, they are teeny. I’d rather pay $2 for a normal sized donut than $1 for something the size of your thumb and index finger. That’s a donette, in my book.
What I would really like is if the place had more of a Voodoo Doughnut flare. I like my donuts impaled with preztels and oozing with raspberry guts, covered in Cap’n Crunch. Do the damn thing if you’re gonna do it, I say. We have enough cutesy places as it is.
I’m so sick of the cupcake trend, I’ll be glad if something comes around and unseats it.
I haven’t noticed a ton of doughnut shops anywhere, but I like the idea. The Doughnut Plant in New York has nice offerings…I had a PB&J once there which was very good. I was surprised I’d never seen the combination before in a doughnut: raspberry filling and peanut butter glaze.
To the OP, how does bacon work with a doughnut? Bacon bits inside it? Bacon strips wrapped around it?
Oh - for doughnut aficionados there’s also Paula Deen’s doughnut burger. Google it - you won’t be sor-…okay, maybe you will be sorry!
The bacon was cut into several about 1 centimeter squares and crispy. Didn’t look to be much fat on it. There may have been a bit of brown sugar to candy it, but I couldn’t taste it as they were studded into the peanut butter topping that also had powdered sugar.
Dallas has had a Sprinkles for years, and apparently has had several of these evil donut places for about a year, but more are springing up.
BTW the ski accident was very well named. Ate it in the car and the bloody powdered sugar exploded all over. Haven’t had time to get the car cleaned so I’ve looked like a messy, rich cocaine user for the past few days.
