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Gourmet doughnut craze

SIDECAR HUCKLEBERRY & MAPLE BACON
credit to: orangecoast.com

Gone is the classic and uncomplicated doughnut. Replace the simple glazed pastries of the past with a blueberry cheesecake filled confection and that’s right on trend with one of the latest food fads.

Doughnuts have stolen the throne from cupcakes and gained extensive culinary attention as they climbed to fame in the food scene.

Now, gourmet doughnut shops produce treats with fancier, more complex flavors, such as crème brûlée, peanut butter and jelly, or strawberry basil lime.

And of course, for one reason or another, a food can’t exist for too long without someone adding bacon to it. The popular maple and bacon combination can be found in a variety of baked goods, whether it’s fritters or different forms of doughnut.

Along with the increased popularity of doughnuts, there is a new food hybrid on the culinary scene, called a Cronut. It’s a croissant doughnut cross created by a Soho baker, Dominque Ansel. Now that he and his invention have reached widespread fame, customers from all over the world line up early outside his store in hopes of buying one of his creations.

If you can’t make it to New York, then never fear, because due to the confection’s newfound popularity, imitations can be commonly found in shops across the nation.

As of the recent trend, fancy shops are becoming more prevalent in the U.S., with several naturally appearing in Southern California.

The Donut Bar, in San Diego, has doughnuts ranging far and wide, with flavors like red velvet and buttered rum. The store also has their version of the trademarked Cronut, which they call a CroBar.

Sidecar Doughnuts and Coffee has a December menu, with flavors like gingerbread, eggnog, and Callebaut chocolate mint, and of course, their own maple bacon confection. Their doughnuts can be purchased from their storefront in Costa Mesa, or their truck.

The Donut Snob, in Los Angeles, has a more limited menu, but serves up acclaimed treats like the Campfire, glazed with chocolate ganache, dusted in graham cracker crumbs and topped with a roasted, handmade marshmallow, or the Oinkster, with a maple cinnamon and orange zest glaze that is topped with, unsurprisingly, maple bacon.

As gourmet doughnuts become more popular, and bakeries keep popping up, the possibilities are endless.  Ten years ago the idea of bacon in a doughnut was inconceivable, and look what bakers are doing today.

Who knows? Maybe instead of choosing the average vanilla glazed version, people will be grabbing a gingerbread cranberry delight. Someday, gourmet just might be the new normal.

Written by Amanda Leslie

Amanda is a senior and the opinions editor for the MCSun. (Obviously the best section.) Her hobbies are sleeping and listening to music. She likes to pretend that she could be an FBI agent when she grows up.

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