The Doughnut Project
PB+J v2.0 – Blackberry Glaze, Peanut Butter Whip, Housemade Blackberry Jam
Birthday Cake Mini –Tahitian Vanilla Glaze, Birthday Cake Crumble, Sweet Cream “Funfetti” Filling
Plain Glaze
The Everything Doughnut – Sweet Cream Cheese Glaze, Sesame Seeds, Poppy Seeds, Pepita, Garlic, Sea Salt
Black Gold Texas Tea – Extra Dark Chocolate, Housemade Dark Chocolate Cookie Crumble, Sea Salt
Espresso Milk Chocolate – Coffee Crunch
Blueberry & Parsnip
Bourbon Maple
Founded by Leslie Polizzotto and Troy Neal, their shop on Morton Street in the West Village generating a crowd since late 2015, The Doughnut Project has picked up where places like Doughnut Plant left off as expansion became more pertinent than creating new flavors, a visit on “National Doughnut Day” showing the shop to be no more or less crowded than usual, a queue of about fifteen present just a few minutes after their 8:00am opening.
Self labeling themselves as “Mad Scientists,” the small-batch in-house concept similar to that of Portland’s Blue Star or SoCal’s Sidecar Doughnuts, #TDPNYC as they are known on Social Media suggests that their goal is to “go beyond sprinkles and cream cheese frosting” propagated by ‘fad foods’ on Instagram, the focus instead on doing things a little different, treating anything as if it could be a Topping and then tweaking recipes seasonally.
Taking the Raised approach as Du’s Donuts and Underwest sling Cake, the daily menu offering a Baker’s Dozen or more choices at $3.50-$4.00 each, Friday found The Doughnut Project in between two of their New York inspired “series” that range from Cocktails to those influenced by Broadway, the spread including Doughnuts both sweet and savory with a “Plain Glazed” gifted due to a mistake when boxing the order showing a spongy sort of Brioche base with plenty of yeasty notes and Vanilla perfuming the slick, sugary topping.
Taking a similar approach to many new-age New York Doughnut shops by only offering one style of dough, those looking for a simple Chocolate Ring, Old-Fashioned or Fritter encouraged to look elsewhere for their fix, tastes of “The Everything Doughnut” saw TDP come out swinging for the fences with a zany combination referencing the Big Apple’s favorite Bagel, the savory notes surprisingly well matched to lightly sweetened Cream Cheese Glaze while Spring’s Blueberry and Parsnip came across fresh and Fruity with a nutty linger, the “PB+J v2.0” tilting far more to the right with the whipped Peanut Butter filling mostly overwhelming the flavor of housemade Blackberry Jelly.
Baking up a whole bunch of Birthday Cake Doughnuts for a party, the rest of the Dough used to make an off-menu special Birthday Cake Mini sold for just $3 that day, it seems #TDPNYC will occasionally feature the Sprinkles they poke fun at in the form of a creamy filling for this one, the Black Gold Texas Tea that is considered by many to be Polizzotto and Neal’s ‘signature’ a worthy choice for that designation as the nearly Bitter Frosting is sweetened up and made more interesting by a sprinkling of Sea Salt and crumbled Chocolate Cookies.
Nice to see ownership in house, something a friend who frequents the space says is more common than not, the tasting concluded with a daily special of Bourbon Maple that far outperformed the typical Tim Horton’s Dip thanks to both the booze and pure Maple Syrup while the Espresso Milk Chocolate plays off the familiar flavor of Mocha while dialing up the texture by rolling the ring in Butter Cookie-based “Coffee Crunch”
www.thedoughnutproject.com
