Jelly Modern Doughnuts
Coconut – Coconut Milk Glaze, Coconut Pastry Cream, Sweetened White Coconut
Carrot Cake – Cinnamon Mascarpone Glaze
Tangerine Dream – Orange Blossom Honey Glaze, Tangerine Curd, Mandarin Orange Segment
Maple Bacon – Brown Maple Glaze and Valbella Bacon
Peanut Butter Cup – Peanut Butter Ganache, Peanut Cream Filling, Salted Peanuts
S’mores – Chocolate Ganache, Marshmallow Cream, Housemade Marshmallow, Graham Cracker Crumble
Modern Cinnamon Roll – Saigon Cinnamon Sugar, Mascarpone Icing
Finding the country known for Tim Horton’s surprisingly lacking for fried-Dough alternatives, even oldschool mom n’ pop spots seemingly unable to compete with Canada’s love for a Maple Dip, it was with high hopes that I visited downtown’s Jelly Modern Doughnuts, the results unfortunately quite underwhelming even in an undersaturated market.
Located on the corner of 8 Street and 14 Avenue SW, the décor of white and wood laminate with splashes of pink clearly done on a tight budget, it was just past 11am that I entered the lengthy space with a glass window next to the counter, a bevy of options that rotate daily offered in two sizes, a total of six $2.25CAD ‘smalls’ charged a la carte joined by one sizable Cinnamon Roll.
Tossing about terms like ‘artisan’ and hand-filled, though in reality none of Jelly Modern’s choices are recognizable as the latter since all they do is remove the ‘hole’ and replace it with Glaze or Cream, it was much to the disappointment of this diner that all but the under-spiced Carrot Cake featured the same doughy base, first bites of Coconut far sweeter than anticipated with a sickeningly-sweet, almost artificial aftertaste.
Moving on to better things, the monthly special “Tangerine Dream” a complex balance of sweet and sour with light bitter notes from ‘Curd’ that tasted more like Marmalade, the Maple Bacon was also quite good though certainly not ‘filled’ as suggested on the menu, a ring described as “Peanut Butter Cup” equally deceitful as a hole straight-through was fairly obvious, though the salty roasted Peanuts did play well off the heavily sweetened Cream.
Not particularly impressed by S’mores, that same cloying sweetness found in the Coconut overwhelming both the Chocolate and any flavor attempted by way of Graham Cracker dust, the ‘Modern’ Cinnamon Roll was probably the only reason to consider a visit to Jelly once Tangerine Dream is retired at the end of January, the dense coil richly imbued with Cinnamon beneath smooth Mascarpone Icing.
http://jellymoderndoughnuts.com/
