Food - The Ultimate Atlanta Doughnut Smackdown

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A couple weeks ago, I drove nearly 100 miles in one day, through a barrage of powerful thunderstorms, for doughnuts. I made that journey because doughnuts are having a moment, and I was on a mission to find the best one.

In recent years, new, independently owned doughnut shops have been popping up all over the country. As a result, there are more high-quality alternatives to Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme than ever. And these aren’t your average hunks of fried and frosted dough. Thanks to the modern doughnut revival, we have access to a spectacular range of styles and flavors, such as Bon Glaze’s cotton candy doughnut topped with a towering pouf of candy floss or Sublime’s bold salt and vinegar creation or Donut Theory’s Bam Bam chocolate frosted doughnut sprinkled with Cocoa Pebbles. In Atlanta, most of the doughnut magic is happening in the ‘burbs. Our initial research turned up more than 15 mom and pop shops slingin’ doughnuts outside the perimeter, which is roughly five times the amount we found inside I-285. With so many options luring us to far-flung corners of the metro area, we — CL dining critic Jennifer Zyman, longtime CL food contributor Brad Kaplan, and I — started to wonder which doughnut pilgrimages were worth the time and gas money.

To be considered for this year’s Smackdown competition, a shop had to be locally owned and dedicated to making doughnuts. We conducted research and asked our readers, friends, and colleagues for suggestions. We couldn’t include all the shops out there, so instead we aimed to assemble a roster that represented the variety of doughnuts Atlanta has to offer.

Once we had our list of 12 (including the reader-selected Doughnut Dollies in Marietta), we asked each shop to nominate a signature doughnut for the competition. Full disclosure: Three shops declined our nomination request. In those cases, we asked the on-duty employee to identify the shop’s bestseller and entered those into the competition instead. We evaluated each doughnut on a 15-point scale, accounting for three equally weighted categories: Flavor, Texture, and Overall Execution. The final scores reflect the total points out of 45 awarded by all three judges.

Flavor was the most straightforward category, and we tried not to overthink it. Was the doughnut delicious, yes or no? The texture category focused on evaluating technique based on doughnut style: Were the yeast doughnuts chewy and airy or too dense and bready? Were the cake varieties tender and moist like a good muffin or crumbly and dry? The most subjective category, Overall Execution, accounted for intangibles. Did the doughnut work conceptually? Were the flavors of dough and toppings complementary and balanced, or did one clearly outshine the other? After that first taste, did we feel compelled to take another bite? After all of our research, we found our Doughnut Smackdown champion and the answer to our initial question in the process. Sometimes a doughnut is worth the drive.

— Stephanie Dazey, CL Food Editor

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!!![	#9] SCORE: 14/45
No value assigned
!!!Strawberry Cheesecake
!!!Donut Worry
248 E. Crogan St., Lawrenceville. 404-800-5328. www.facebook.com/donutworryshop. Yeast doughnut with fresh strawberries, cream cheese, and strawberry fruit icing; $2.25 BK: It has a lot of that retro red gel around the strawberries. Like a mom’s cheesecake. SD: Like your mom’s cheesecake? BK: OK, my mom’s cheesecake. It’s like the retro gel that comes in a jar. JZ: The strawberries look nice though. Generous with the strawberries. SD: It is a little odd, though, don’t you think? To have these beautiful summer strawberries drowning in artificial-tasting gel. BK: OK, it’s cheesecake. So that’s a cream cheese frosting? SD: It’s really gloppy and the frosting doesn’t have much flavor. The gooey interior completely overpowers the plain-tasting dough.
!!![	#8] SCORE: 15/45
No value assigned
!!!Fresh Peach Slider
!!!Revolution Doughnuts
908 W. College Ave., Decatur. 678-927-9920. www.revolutiondoughnuts.com. Yeast doughnut bun stuffed with Georgia peaches (seasonal), pure cane sugar; $3 BK: So this doesn’t have any cream in it. It’s just peaches inside? JZ: I guess it’s just macerated peaches with sugar. SD: There’s very little peach. BK: There’s nothing I like about that. Not anything. SD: The dough almost tastes like Wonder Bread. BK: It is very Wonder Bread-ish. JZ: I just don’t understand why people like Revolution Doughnuts so much. Their dough is just so incredibly dense. SD: I will say, though, I love Revolution’s blueberry yeast doughnut. It tastes like eating fresh blueberries on toast to me. And their coconut cake doughnut, it’s pretty wonderful.
!!!Would you rather eat a doughnut that you found on the ground at the Five Points MARTA station or a doughnut that mysteriously popped out of baggage claim at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport?
“airport donut. fewer hands, less urine.” — Lisa Henley, facebook.com/clatl
--- “I like a well traveled doughnut.” — Remy Swales, facebook.com/clatl
--- “KATL doughnut all day. I KNOW what’s been on the floor of the 5P station.” — Andrew Cook, facebook.com/clatl
--- “No” — Juan Foote, facebook.com/clatl
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!!![	#7] SCORE: 16/45
No value assigned
!!!Maple Iced Bar
!!!Ray’s Donut Shop
4805 Canton Road, Marietta. 770-485-2448. www.facebook.com/raysdonutsthebest. Yeast doughnut filled with vanilla cream, maple frosting; $1.25 BK: They went and shoved some cream in it and called it a day. SD: Umm... JZ: What did you just say? BK: Ha-ha. JZ: Wow. What is happening? BK: ANYWAY. SD: Oh, boy. Hello, sweetness. BK: It’s definitely the sweetest we’ve tried. The maple frosting isn’t bad. SD: It’s nice though, texturally. Kinda chewy, kinda melty. BK: I don’t know, Ray... JZ: So sweet. It’s not cream in there. It’s frosting. SD: It’s hard to get around the fact that so much sugary sweetness is overwhelming the dough.

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DOUGHNUT FACTOIDS

• In the U.S. alone, more than 10 billion doughnuts are made every year.

• The largest doughnut ever made was an American-style jelly doughnut weighing 1.7 tons, which was 16 feet in diameter and 16 inches high in the center.

• Per capita, Canada has more doughnut shops than any other country.

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BK: I hesitate to call this a doughnut.

JZ: But it’s so pretty. It’s layered.

BK: Looks like one big one on the bottom and then another one smashed on top of it. It smells great.

SD: YUM.

JZ: That is a good doughnut. Sarah is good.

BK: Wow.

SD: It’s so much lighter than you would think given how heavy it feels, which is like a grapefruit. I expected it to be very dense, but it isn’t at all.

JZ: It’s gorgeous too, like a piece of art.

SD: It reminds me of something...like the flavor of a churro maybe? No. Jeez. What is that?

BK: It’s a little bit heavy. The bottom layer is heavier than the top layer, I think. But it’s not too sweet. It’s a good balance between the cinnamon and sugar and the dough. Plus, I could smell this all day.

JZ: It’s like a really tasty cinnamon bun.

BK: I think this might be my favorite thing.

SD: Oh, I know what it reminds me of. Baklava!? Right? The Sunflower is the jam. All the proportions are perfect. I would drive to Norcross for that.

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THE MAKING OF A SUNFLOWER

“Mr. Jong Park was trying out different ways to cut a cinnamon roll and ended with a flowery design. The actual cinnamon roll recipe is a simple cinnamon roll recipe. No special method. Through 20 years of experience, he has nailed the perfect temperature and fry time. The texture of a donut is critical to the flavor and overall donut experience. We can pass down the simple cinnamon roll recipe to anyone. However, it takes experience to nail the correct texture. This is special to the family because they pride themselves in the little details of making a doughnut. What makes Sarah Donuts stand apart from competitors is years and years of perfecting techniques. The kids love it because you can pull it apart. The texture is crispy on the outside and airy on the inside. Of course, it tastes great, too!”
— Trang Tran, Sales Manager, Sarah Donuts

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