Federal Donuts

With Federal Donuts' Pennsport location right in my 'hood, I could have easily been first in line this Monday at 7am for their opening day, but I patiently waited until their third day of business to pay a visit.
The small corner takeout store specializing in donuts, coffee, and Korean fried chicken, opened by Steven Cook and Michael Solomonov (Zahav, Percy Street), Thomas Henneman and Bob Logue (BODHi Coffee), and Felicia D’Ambrosio, may seem like a odd food pairing catering to a niche market of food lovers, but from the turnout of people at Federal Donuts clamoring to get their hands on the long anticipated vittles, it seems the niche market of 'nuts and chix ain't so small. Federal Donuts has been selling out of doughnuts within hours of opening, and chicken, which doesn't take the stage until noon, within the hour.

Things should calm down at some point — they just opened after long anticipation and much fanfare from the media, after all — so don't get discouraged if you have not had a chance to try Federal Donuts' chicken or doughnuts.
There was only one way for me to tackle Federal Donuts, and that was to order all the doughnuts! Flavors of both the Fancies and Sugared will vary, so I didn't really try all of the doughnuts; just those offered that day.

Six Fancy doughnuts ($2 each), which are filled and glazed in advance. And...
Three Sugared doughnuts ($1.25 each), which are hot, made to order.

Of course, there's also the Korean fried chicken, which I obviously won't be posting about unless they start frying seitan (do it!). Whole ($15) and half ($8) birds are available glazed (traditional Korean style, chili-garlic, honey-ginger) or crispy and sprinkled with seasoned salts (Za'atar, buttermilk ranch, harissa).

A Federal Donuts custom blend of Stumptown Roasters PT's Coffee Roasting Co. beans is served using the single-cup Chemex method.
First things first...I was curious as to how the round cake doughnuts with a hole in the middle that are plopped out by a Donut Robot into a vat of hot oil were going to be filled, since I think of filled doughnuts as yeasted and without a hole. Were they going to fill the hole and seal in the filling somehow?

Nope. Filling is piped into the center of the cake itself, with the filling going all the way around — more or less — the tube of cake. Brilliant!

All doughnuts are made with the same cake base, which is neutral in flavor, so plays well with all the different flavored toppings and filling. I'm happy to report that the cake is light and fluffy. Still crossing my fingers that Federal Donuts will roll out some yeasted doughnuts in the future, though.
Oh, my! The Key Lime Fancy doughnut piped full of lime curd, then dipped in a sweet lime glaze and topped with graham cracker crumbs is my favorite of the bunch, and the most decadent. Put this on a plate with a fork at your next dinner party, and don't even bother whipping up a homemade dessert!
At first bite, I wasn't too keen on the Nutella-Tahina-Pomegranate Fancy doughnut filled with tahini Nutella, dipped in a pomegranate glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds (sesame reads savory to me, and the tahini diminished the perfection that is Nutella), but this doughnut grew on me and developed into a sophisticated twist on peanut butter and jelly.
For those who like plainer flavors, the Honey-Almond Fancy with a delicate honey flavor is for you. Even though the Honey-Almond doughnut is a Fancy, this did not seem to be filled. Perhaps the filling just seeped into the cake. There has to be a chocolate covered doughnut! The Chocolate-Raspberry Fancy piped with raspberry jelly, glazed with chocolate and topped with dried raspberries is just a classic flavor combination that cannot be messed with. One of my favorites in the bunch!Another favorite is the Coconut-Pineapple Fancy. Filled with pineapple jelly and dipped in a coconut glaze with sweet coconut flakes, this doughnut is tropical with a capital "T." The coconut and pineapple flavors are so fresh and clear, it's like ambrosia (the fresh fruit salad dessert) made into doughnut form. Do not miss, if you like coconut!
The Orange Blossom-Pistachio Fancy is the only doughnut I would not order again. It's me, not you, Federal Donuts. The smell of the orange blossom glaze (isolated, it's a lovely fragrance) mixed with nuts and cake reminds me of the sometimes funky mixed smells in greenhouses. Those who don't spend lots of time around plants like I do, may find this floral-scented, curd filled doughnut just heavenly. The Vanilla-Lavender Sugar doughnut is going to be your plainest option. The lavender is so light it is barely detectable, making this, basically, a plain sugared doughnut.
I had no idea what flavor the Apollonia Sugar doughnut would be. When I asked my boyfriend what he suspected, he replied, "Prince's girlfriend in Purple Rain?" Ha.

Turns out, Apollonia is a spice blend of bitter cocoa powder and dried orange blossoms from La Boite a Epice. Here, orange blossom is not so in your face, and can be enjoyed without greenhouse flashbacks.
The Indian Cinnamon Sugar doughnut has an enchanting spice mix — is that cardamom? — that brings intrigue to a cinnamon sugar doughnut.

Fabulous job all around, Federal Doughnuts! You have done with cake doughnuts what I had hoped for from The Fractured Prune, but did not get: exciting and inventive flavors. Still gonna hold out hope for yeasted doughnuts, though.

Federal Donuts
1219 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19147
267-687-8258

Portland: Voodoo Doughnut

Standing in line for a cereal or bacon-topped doughnut from Voodoo Doughnut in Portland as a tourist is, I'd imagine, like non-Philly natives lining up at Pat's or Geno's for a cheesesteak — a required check box for any culinary traveler to tick off, and also snickered about by the locals.



When I saw the line out the door and around the corner of Portland's newest (moved down the street into a larger space) Voodoo Doughnut location at 22 SW 3rd. Ave. (there is another location in Portland, as well as a mobile events truck, and a location in Eugene, OR), I walked right on past and didn't even consider waiting. About an hour later, when we passed the corner store again, the line was contained inside the building, so I decided to give it a go. Apparently, I and a bunch of other tourists are the only people who eat at Voodoo in the middle of the afternoon, because everyone in line had a camera out snapping photos of doughnuts, and the doughnut and death themed tchotchkes covering the bright pink and brick walls. The pack of enthusiastic shutterbugs was pretty comical. (This is where the locals snicker.) The line moved dreadfully slow. Perhaps it was the poorly designed setup of doughnuts displayed in a glass revolving carousel case with no identifiers, combined with a bunch of indecisive Voodoo-newbie tourists.

The small print chalkboard menu over the cashiers' heads was also hard to read until you got to the front on the line.



Before you get to the front of the line you bes' know that Voodoo Doughnut is a cash only business, that also does not take pennies! Oh, listening to the staff (who you know just hates the hoards of tourists) say this to everyone was just hilarious. Take pennies, and save yourselves the breath!Famous for possessing little patience, I decided to speed things up by requesting a reasonably priced $10.50 Voodoo Dozen, a mixed box of a dozen doughnuts chosen by the staff. I received a mix of cake and yeasted doughnuts with various toppings and glazes. I was really hoping for at least one or two filled doughnuts.



Note that a good selection of cake, yeasted, and devils food vegan doughnuts are also available.

Voodoo is known for putting quirky toppings on doughnuts like cereal and candy, and probably most famous for their maple glazed bar doughnut topped with bacon.



As fun as cereal on doughnuts sounds, by the time the doughnut actually gets to you, those once crispy cereal nugs have been exposed to air and moisture for quite some time, so are stale and lifeless.



Grape glazed and Tang dusted glazed doughnuts are just too sugary sweet.



We found Voodoo excelled in the plain doughnut flavors like chocolate glazed and cinnamon sugar. The crazy flavors and toppings are best left for children (we unloaded most of our dozen on our friend's six year old, to her great delight), and late night snacking (a box of stale doughnuts is best enjoyed at 1 am).



My tip to tourist who want to visit one of Voodoo's locations is to study their online menu, pick out two you want to try, then stick to your guns when ordering. You just can't go wrong with a couple of doughnuts!



Voodoo Doughnut

various locations in Portland and Eugene, OR

Seattle: Daily Dozen Doughnut Company

Doughnuts are the new darlings of the sweets world, and Daily Dozen Doughnut Company in Pike Place Market makes some darling little doughnuts — about 2-inches across, actually.

Fresh doughnuts are made right before your eyes with a Doughnut Robot Mark II machine plopping dough into hot grease, then flipped out with a conveyor belt. The doughnut production is a show, but not as charming as the doughnut wrangler and order taker who tosses your order of doughnuts one by one into the air, catching them in a paper bag before passing the grease stained bag over the counter. Tip for the theatrics, but also because of the guilt you'll feel after reading the tip jar plastered with "God knows when you don't tip."
Plain, cinnamon, powdered, and chocolate with sprinkles are the only doughnuts on offer. We went with the very reasonably priced ($2.97) assorted half dozen, which actually included seven doughnuts. Hooray for baker's half dozens, if that exists? (You really should tip.)

While people have written up and down about how awesome these doughnuts are, they really are just average. If you've had a mini doughnut fresh from a vat of oil at a fair or flea market, you've had these doughnuts before. Good, for sure, but when isn't a hot doughnut good? As a tourist, I'd say save room in your stomach for other eats (crumpets and piroshkis) that are far better. As a local, if you're in the area and have a hankering for hot 'nuts, do it!

Daily Dozen Doughnut Company
Pike Place Market
93 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101
206-467-7769

The Fractured Prune

It's hard to believe that a city the size of Philly doesn't have a gourmet doughnut shop along the lines of Portland's Voodoo Doughnut, or New York's Doughnut Plant. The closest thing we have to a shop cranking our creative doughnuts is The Fractured Prune, a franchise started in Ocean City, Maryland, now with a handful of locations in Maryland, two locations in Delaware, and one location each in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

My once or twice yearly trips to the beaches of Delaware make the Rehoboth Beach Fractured Prune my best bet at sampling hot, haute doughnuts. It's been a long wait since last summer, but I finally got some Fractured Prune doughnuts this past weekend.

Go early, or else the shop is closed in the afternoon, as I sadly found out. And call in your order if you want more than a couple of doughnuts, as a friend schooled me when he woke up the next day at the crack of dawn to bring back three boxes of doughnuts — at least two of each specialty doughnut off their menu!

The Fractured Prune makes all of their doughnuts to order, starting with a single cake-style batter. Sorry, no yeast doughnuts at all. Once the doughnuts are fried, they get a dip in one of their many glaze flavors: honey, banana, chocolate, maple, cherry, strawberry, lemon, raspberry, orange, peanut butter, blueberry, mocha, mixed berry, mint, and caramel.

The doughnuts are then loaded with your choice of toppings: rainbow sprinkles, chocolate jimmies, coconut, peanuts, Oreo cookie, mini chocolate chips, graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon sugar. Create your own combination or choose one of their specialty combos from the menu.This all sounds so freakin' fantastic, but, admittedly, I was not blown away by The Fractured Prune's doughnut, and, yes, I got to eat them while they were still hot, and pretty much sampled every variety from their specialty menu.

My only major disappointment is the flavored glazes. They're just too thin to provide a walloping flavor punch that a thicker frosting would. When I order a caramel dipped doughnut, I want to be punched in the face with caramel, not left wondering what this brown, sugary slick is. And is that blueberry? It's blue, but I'm not sure.

The doughnuts themselves are a bit smaller than a doughnut from Dunkin Donut, and are a more craggy and airy cake doughnut. No real complaint there, just noting the difference.

I think my year-long anticipation of a Fractured Prune doughnut may have built up unrealistic expectations, but I would not be unhappy to make a pit stop at The Fractured Prune on future beach trips. The Trail Mix with banana glaze loaded down with nuts, coconut, and chocolate jimmies would be my first choice.

The Fractured Prune
Locations in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Ohio