The Doughnut Project

My friend and I began our second day in NYC at The Doughnut Project in the West Village. My goal was to sample their breakout doughnut and then a plain glazed (I have a thing about trying the most basic item on the menu when it comes to doughnuts and cupcakes). It seems that The Doughnut Project had something else in store for us. When we got to the counter, I ordered the plain and the beet-ricotta, but that was followed by “oh that sounds good” or “let’s get that one too” or “bacon!” and a minute later I had six doughnuts that were so large they had to fit in two boxes. I’m not complaining. We gathered our boxes, coffee, and tea, and sat at a counter in front of the window.

Total side note: I never get tired of looking at New York City Streets. I love the history and the energy!

Back to more important matters like these doughnuts! Let’s start with the first box. Clockwise from the top left: plain glaze, bacon maple bar, those beetz are dope, and the Bronx. I grabbed a knife and starting cutting bite sized pieces. We started with the plain glaze. It was exactly what you would expect, plain glaze. The doughnut however, was very, very good. It was soft and fluffy and not too sweet. The maple bacon was pretty good too. The maple glaze was a little thick for me, but I think all was forgiven since there was bacon on top.

Just look at that bacon. I can still taste it. It comes from a market only blocks away from the shop.

Now for the star, those beetz are dope.

I will forgive the name because this doughnut is absolutely fabulous! The ricotta was sweet and reminiscent of cream cheese, but way better and the beet glaze had a savory/sweet quality. We wanted to finish that one right away, but still had three more doughnuts to try.

The Bronx is really a glazed doughnut with a touch of olive oil and black pepper. It was so good. You could just make out the olive oil, and there was a hint of black pepper. I would’ve liked just a tiny bit more, but I could still eat this one in two bites!

In our next box, we had the lemon love letter and blueberry and parsnip. My friend loved the lemon. I did too. It was so refreshing! I loved the sweet/tart quality and the lemon zest on top made it taste like the lemons were just plucked from the tree. Our final sample was the blueberry and parsnip. I couldn’t make out the parsnip, but the blueberry was superb. Again, it tasted very, very fresh and it wasn’t too sweet.

Since we finished our round, we went back for seconds of our favorites. At the same time, I was cursing myself for not wearing expandable pants. I was getting so full, but I couldn’t help it. My friend managed to finish the lemon, but I couldn’t eat another bite. Ok, so I did eat the bacon off the maple bar. I’m never going to turn my back on bacon. We reluctantly closed the boxes and went to the counter to ask if the server could toss them out. The server exclaims “you ate all of these doughnuts?!?”.  I laughed and said “almost”. We left happy and full and went for a very long walk.