A Baker’s Daughter’s Dozen Please

Note: I prefer the spelling DOnut to DOUGHnut.

Boulder, for those of you not familiar, is a donut wasteland — a beautiful place to live, but no source of deep fried dough in sight. A good donut and a cup of coffee can be the perfect breakfast when the donut is fresh and the coffee doesn’t suck; but let’s face it even bad donuts will do the trick almost every time. Luckily practice has been moved to Prospect Park in Wheat Ridge, conveniently located down the street from a 24 hour Winchell’s Donuts. I had never heard of this western donut chain but it was assured to me that it was definitely a step up from Krispy Kreme (most overrated of them all) and Dunkin’ (the standard). Luckily I now had something to get me through practice.

Sure enough as soon as we left the field we raced to the donuts as our hunger and childhood desire forced us out of the car and into the store, surely shocking the lone employee. We had already decided that with five of us a dozen donuts would be most economical, luckily at Winchell’s a dozen somehow equals 14 donuts. Raised, cake, and crullers; fritters and filled; cream and jam; iced and sugared; no option was missing. We opted for a bit of everything as our donut preferences were all different.

A Feast

I went straight for the glazed twist and I was shocked by how tasty it was — honestly one of the BEST I’ve ever had — especially good when dipped into my lukewarm coffee. It was raised but dense enough to be satisfying, reminding me of the classic honey bun found in every convenience store (a childhood favorite). The strawberry, sugar donut was far from perfect — honestly one of the WORST I’ve ever had. They need to work on their jam injection, it was all in one spot making for one sugar rush of a bite. The chocolate cake was pretty good as well as the cruller. Lemon filled was pretty bad, though really who orders lemon donuts anyway…

Let’s face it donuts aren’t difficult and it may be the one food where chains are just as likely to put out a quality product as a local bakery. Winchell’s puts forth a great effort in giving out quality donuts and, with a few notable exceptions, it does a good job of it; I would put that twist up against any bakery. It’s probably a good thing that there are no Winchell’s around, 24 hours a day of donuty goodness may be too much for me to handle. For now it’ll remain an occassional post practice dinner.