The bakehouse, even late in the day was busy. My husband and I queued between two young, professional looking gentleman in white collared shirts and well-ironed trousers. As we discussed between ourselves whether the unattractive, fluorescent pink donut remaining behind the glass was worth the wait, or whether we should avoid it all together, one of the trousered gentlemen leant forward into our conversation with an out-of-the-blue comment.
“Did you notice” the man said “the lack of vegan items?”. He gestured towards one of the display cabinets which had 2 empty rows of simple glass shelves. Each shelf had a range of small cards stating what baked item normal sat there – and for those two rows, the cards stated they were all vegan.
“Don’t you think it’s odd” he continued with a tone of conspiracy, “that all the vegan items are missing, yet the normal and far more delicious items remain? I think they’ve just put up those empty cards and shelves to make us think they’re all inclusive and vegan, where as realistically they’ve not bothered and it’s all for show”. He nodded wisely to himself, satisfied at his own explanation and then turned around back to the conversation he was in with his colleague.
The bakehouse sits on the corner of some charming streets, with a certain European feel to the building. Quaint and pretty both inside and out, they serve up delicious quiches and rich pies. Just maybe avoid the fluorescent pink donuts.
Aesthetics —3.5
The donut was a donut shape, with an equal diameter. It was a normal size, not too meagre in portion. The obvious fault in this donut was the horrific and clearly fake colour of its icing and it really did distract from any of the positive aesthetics. Nothing good in this natural world is that colour, except some flowers (and they’re probably poisonous). The sprinkles were barely there to help cover its horrendous icing.
Topping —1.5
I worry that occasionally my harsh ratings over icing are a personal bias against the colour pink - however, on this occasion, I am reassured that it’s not just me as a fellow taster agreed with my findings. The icing was sticky and the icing left your mouth with an oily taste. The sprinkles barely added to this donut as it was hard to find them, covering perhaps a 10th of the donut. Added to that they were clearly the end of the bag, with a powder like appearance and adding very little crunch.
Dough —7
The dough was yeasty and with a nice flavour. It erred towards a savoury side rather than sweet. Nothing particularly more to note on the dough; it was above average with a nice yeasty flavour but nothing that stood out.
Texture —5
The texture of the icing left me confused - how is it dry and runny at the same time? The top of the icing was dry and a bit cracked, yet underneath this dry shell, once obtained the icing became sticky and runny. As stated there were little sprinkles for crunch, and the icing top itself had more crunch then the dough it covered. The dough was a bit dry, but a slightly fresh spring remained. It was a very light dough.
Overall
4.3
Only For Survival
This bakery had a wonderful and wide range of goods available, well presented on glass shelves and for a variety of diets. However, this donut was a disappointment mainly due to it’s topping and so the best summary I can think of is a quote from my husband: "This donut is the reason I get chocolate donuts”.
