You walk into a cloud heavy with the scent of fried dough, sugar and coffee at Boulder’s new Voodoo Doughnut. Your eyes lock on a revolving case displaying an incredible array of frosted, glazed and topped varieties available at this local outlet of the Portland-based chain of doughnut factories.
The standing joke for many years was that Boulder was the place where doughnut shops came to die. From 2008 to 2012 alone, Boulder was home to zero purveyors dedicated to fried dough cakes.
Establishments shuttered here in the past decade include Daylight Donuts, Tastefully Toasted, K’s Donuts, Dizzy’s Donuts and Winchell’s. Longtime locals may also recall Boulder’s Dixie Cream, Norm’s Donuts, Gronk’s, Dom’s, German’s and Rogers. Spudnuts had several Boulder locations and delivered doughnuts by bicycle to fraternities on the Hill.
Certain efforts to popularize fried dough over the years in the People’s Republic have been met with resistance. Boulder forced the new Voodoo Doughnut to re-paint its signature shocking pink exterior a shade of gray before it opened because — “doh!” — it was a sign code violation. Boulder should be glad that no doughnut shop has taken the approach of Debbie Duz Donuts. The Fort Collins coffee shop featuring topless servers lasted eight months in 1989.
Voodoo joins Dunkin Donuts as Boulder’s only outposts of cruller culture. But while the city has no independent doughnut shops, you can still find classy, pastry-chef doughnuts. Blackbelly Market serves a special brioche doughnut every Friday, and fried treats are featured every Thursday at Shamane’s Bake Shop. Freshly fried beignets are on the menu every day at Lucile’s Creole Cafe.
Meanwhile, the rest of Boulder County is fast becoming a carb-loaded doughnut destination. Louisville has a Lamar’s Donuts franchise, and Lafayette is home to Nok’s Donuts, the only local shop to make everything — doughnuts, filling and icings — from scratch, not from a mix or a tub. In addition, many bakeries make doughnuts, and long, thin churros are dished at various taquerias and panaderias.
Longmont’s Big Boom
Longmont rules when it comes to doughnut saturation. Besides the city’s sole chain shop, Dunkin Donuts, Landline Doughnuts launched in 2022 serving fluffy, potato-based handmade doughnuts including traditional apple cider cake doughnuts. Just opened is Mochi Dough, the first Colorado location for the California-based chain offering chewy, Japanese-style mochi doughnuts.
JD’s Delights also started selling cake and yeast-raised treats about a year ago in a Longmont location that was home to a Daylight Donuts shop for decades. Pull up to the strip mall in the a.m. and you’ll likely see folks chomping doughnuts and sipping coffee before they even leave the parking lot.
“We have people who come in for their daily doughnut for breakfast, and we have a doughnut for everyone,” says Caitlin Reneau, co-owner of JD’s Delights with her husband, Jeremy. She happily offers a tour of the trays of cake and yeast-raised favorites ranging from chocolate dipped cake and apple fritters to cream-filled long johns. The shop’s fancier varieties include a vanilla cake doughnut with strawberry icing and strawberry Pop Tart topping.
“I liked the Hot Cheetos doughnuts I made but they didn’t sell,” Reneau says with a smile.
Reneau, who had years of experience working in Whole Foods Market bakeries, arrives at JD’s Delights at 2 a.m. almost every day with a co-worker in tow: the 2-year-old namesake of the shop, her son JD. The back of the shop looks very much like a day care center packed with loads of toys, an attraction for visiting parents.
“Before we opened this place, when we went to doughnut shops we always started with the raised glazed,” Reneau says. “Those need to be perfect. You shouldn’t have to put a bunch of stuff on top of it to make it taste good.”
All doughnuts are not created equal, she says.
“People ask me why our doughnuts taste so much better — they’re fresh,” she says. “Everything is handmade here — no machines. At a lot of supermarkets, the doughnuts arrive frozen.”
Do the Doughnut Taste-Off
There are three immutable Laws of Doughnuts:
1) They always taste better at a doughnut shop.
2) Fresh is best. Always. The lifespan of a great doughnut is short. Like all fried foods, flavor fades and changes after just a few hours.
3) You always get what you pay for when it comes to doughnuts. Cheap tastes cheap.
I bought a raised glazed doughnut at King Soopers, Nok’s Donut and Lamar’s Donuts and had a taste-off. Even if I had sampled them blindfolded, I would have known which one was supermarket-made. Nok’s tasted the best, with a great fresh flavor. Lamar’s raised glazed was perfectly acceptable. The King Soopers doughnut was a sad, lifeless thing. It tasted like a day-old memory of a doughnut. That said, the supermarket doughnut was much less expensive.
Krispy Kreme’s famous raised glazed — which cost $2 more a dozen than the store doughnuts at King Soopers — tasted a little better. Really, they don’t taste nearly as good as the raised glazed fresh at a Krispy Kreme shop. There is a reason they sell them warm.
Beer Here: Winning Local Brews
Colorado breweries picked up 40 medals at the recent Great American Beer Festival in Denver. Avery Brewing was the only Boulder brewery to snag an award. Lafayette got wins with Liquid Mechanics and Westbound & Down. Knuckle Puck Brewing made Mead proud. Longmont dominated with medals going to Pumphouse Brewery, Left Hand Brewing and Oskar Blues Brewery. Longmont’s Wibby Brewing was honored as Brewery of the Year in the 5,001 to 15,000-barrel category. Complete list of winners:greatamericanbeerfestival.com
Local Food News: New Boulder Cake Source
Pony M Cake bakery and cafe has opened at 4900 Baseline, Boulder, former location of Elephant Fusion Cafe, and, for many years before that, Erhard’s European Bakery. The new owners are part of a Denver family that operates a Chinese bakery supplying cakes to restaurants, but this is the first retail location. Pony M Cake’s menu features coffee drinks and milk and fruit teas with boba paired with scratch-made Japanese crepe cakes, custard tarts, Basque burnt cheesecake, and special cakes with mango, matcha and durian frostings sold by the slice. These cakes are less sweet and much lighter than standard bakery offerings.
Words to Chew On: Dunk that Doughnut
“People who habitually drink chocolate enjoy unvarying health and are least attacked by the host of little illnesses which can destroy the true joy of living.”
— Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Fall Fruit Farm Stand Fun
Boulder County’s farms are still producing a haul of summer veggies including great tomatoes to enjoy now and preserve, but there’s also a bevy of fall fruit in the mix. Take advantage now with Boulder Weekly’s guide to roadside local farm stands: bit.ly/2023FarmStands
