The Doughnut Plant

Over the weekend, Chris and I finally made it down to the lower east side to try The Doughnut Plant. They have two types of doughnuts – cake doughnuts and yeast doughnuts. My doughnut knowledge is limited to Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme, but The Doughnut Plant is known for using fresh ingredients (they also make their own jam filling). Chris and I heard that The Doughnut Plant is definitely worth going to, so we decided to take the bus to the LES and check it out:

There was a long line and a lot of people were making large orders (probably for Mother’s day). Doughnuts are freaking $2 – $3, but a lot of people were buying more than one, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a big deal to anyone else but me. They make all kinds of interesting doughnuts, including fresh strawberry, banana pecan, tres leches, and coconut glaze:

We decided on three doughnuts – fresh strawberry, the blackout (a chocolate doughnut with a chocolate filling), and the tres leches. Our strawberry doughnut:

The glaze is made with fresh strawberries, which tasted really sweet, but the doughnut was very dry and oily:

I think it’s because the doughnuts were made earlier in the morning and they were sitting in the display for the majority of the day (we went in the late afternoon). The other doughnuts had the same oily taste – especially the tres leches:

The doughnut was not moist (it was a cake doughnut) and made me incredibly thirsty for milk:

Surprisingly, the tres leches had a condensed milk filling:

But the filling was very inconsistent and we got huge bursts of filling and then lots of dry doughnut. The last doughnut we tried was the blackout:

The blackout had a chocolate filling, but it was really inconsistent and since it was our third doughnut, we ended up picking it apart and only eating the parts where it had gooey chocolate filling. The Doughnut Plant’s doughnuts are definitely different from the ones you’d find at Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing…the ones at Krispy Kreme are really chewy and taste especially good when they’re fresh (and they always give you a free doughnut if you ask nicely). I suppose I’m used to the artificial ingredients from Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts and can’t appreciate The Doughnut Plant’s freshly made doughnuts!

Tip: Go early in the morning to get a fresh doughnut so it doesn’t taste so oily!