Strange Donuts

I think it best to show you how great it was, while we didn't pay attention to the movie, the food and food trucks were great, at Food Truck Friday at the Art Museum.

We tried food from Pie on the fly:

The pie slice was eaten, by me, before I took a picture of it.  I'd say a 3 out of 5 stars.  They are located about 20 feet down the street from Strange Donuts, on Sutton.

So, how many people show up at these nights on Art Hill, in Forest Park?  Well...

Afterwards, as the mosquitoes started to come out and attack us, we visited Strange Donuts.  This is Strange Donuts:

Let me try to explain the love for Strange Donuts:  When I was young, my father used to take me or one of my other 3 brothers to the best donut shop in the city, called Donut Drive-in.  The Donut Drive-in, was a smallish building with a tiny one lane drive through window.  At times when there were no cars driving through, we used to walk up to the drive through window and look in and watch the older gentleman baker carefully make each donut batch, by hand.  The smell of the baking process was incredible.  After we watched, we went in and my dad would let us choose a donut that we wanted.

This donut place, is featured on all sorts of Route 66 shows and cooking shows as the donuts win awards for the fact that they are hand-cut and cooked donuts.  The bakers in this shop have been making these donuts for at least close to a hundred years, I would guess, since my father knew of it being there already in the 50's.  Every trip that I took to this donut place was special, it was special time with my father and brothers as we would sit on the hood of his car, in the lot and eat our freshly cooked donuts.  This was before fake flavors, high fructose corn syrup and any other preservatives.  These donuts felt like a warm hug or the sunlight on your face on a cold day.  They were incredible and I thought no other donut could come close.  

But then there is Strange Donuts:

 

I am going to say it, but if the Donut Drive-in has the best donuts in the Metropolitan area, Strange Donuts has the second best.  There are all kinds and flavors of donuts at Strange Donuts, but when a bite in any one of them brings back the memories of my childhood and the Donut Drive-In, while other donut places have been unable to do so, means that this place is that good.  The flavors are varied and delicious and taste so old school that they must have found so classic or traditional recipes.  I can't say that they are the best in Saint Louis.  It would be to me as saying that there is a restaurant that makes a dish better than your grandmother or mother.  Would you actually say that?  This donut spot has been the location of so many happy food memories that only a really, really good donut place could come close to even being thought of next to it.

All the donuts, as weird as they were, were also all delicious.  They were new as while I have made my own maple and bacon donut, I have never seen a gooey butter cake donut.  I have to give them, at Strange Donuts, a 4 out of 5 stars.  They are good and strange and weird and non of their flavors are half-thought of.  I mean that if they wanted to do a Smores donut, they do so even with a marshmallow on top.  I wish the guys at Strange Donuts the best of luck and happiness.  I hope that they get spread out throughout the city and bring happy memories to those that they server and see.

http://strangedonuts.tumblr.com/

World's Fair Donuts

I know that this place has been here, forever, and I know that it was once listed as one of the top 10 in the nation, but this was my first time, that I can remember, getting some Worlds Fair Donuts.  This donut shop is located near Shaw Avenue near The Hill and has been making fresh donuts since 1976.  There isn't anything secret in these wonderful heaven bites.  There is no fake sugars, no high fructose corn syrup and no artificial anything.  Everything tastes awesome and fresh and light and fluffy.

The building is small on the inside.  There is no large kitchen, no huge vats of frying oil and no conveyor belt to move things through.  No group of teenagers in fancy uniforms flipping the donuts and then watching them as they move through another machine to be glazed.  Nope, this is all done in a little shop, in a little room, and all in front of you.

I've been there twice in the past month and have gotten a dozen each time.  What I have to say, is that out of the random selection I ask from them, none of the donuts have been bad.  I know it may sound like there is no such thing as a bad donut, but some donut places serve donuts that after you have the first one, the second one starts to gnaw on you and so on.  By the third or fourth donut, you realize that you are indulging in the sugar rush rather than enjoying yourself.  These donuts are not like that.  These are real and so much more tastier that you will find yourself eating and eating and soon find yourself in a donut orgasm.

So, my advise: go there and get a donut.  Jut get one, if your don't believe me.  But, you will find yourself coming back and getting more and more.  This is my second favorite donut shop in St. Louis.  So, everything I have had was a great 4 out of 5 stars as in I highly recommend it.

World's Fair Donuts
1904 S Vandeventer Ave, St Louis, MO 

A needle in a haystack

I'm not going to go on about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup.  I'm not.  I can't stand the commercials that come out when more and more people are disapproving of this ingredient.  So, when I'm in a store and find a giant aisle filled with snacks, it is like finding a needle in a haystack, when I look for a snack product with no high fructose corn syrup.

This picture on represents HALF of the aisle.  There is probably a million calories right there, in that picture.  So, after 5 minutes of searching, I find this:

Out of everything, I find one item with no high fructose corn syrup.  What is interesting, is that I have never seen a single product from Entenmann's that has been without high fructose corn syrup, before this day.  All of their other products still have it.  I love donuts, but even the local grocery store claims that they bake their donuts fresh each morning but they have high fructose corn syrup in them so I know that to be false.  So, if you are looking for donuts, these Entenmann's "Softees" are good and without the hfcs in them.

Federhofer's bakery

Federhofer's Bakery has been in St. Louis, at the same spot on Gravois Rd., since 1966.  If you have ever driven down Gravois towards Affton, you probably had noticed this sign:

http://www.federhofersbakery.com/

This place is great.  One good reason, besides the selection, price and the tastiness of their donuts, is the fact that they have been using the same recipe for 44 years.  That means that you will not find things like High Fructose Corn Syrup or other chemicals in their food.  Now, while driving by one morning, with a craving for a donut, I stopped in with my son and picked out some good ones.  Two donuts and one giant pecan pastry later, and less than $5 later, we emerged with our booty.

Look at how delicious that sugar donut looks.  I also got this pecan pastry, I forgot what it was called directly, but it was huge, and tasty.  This is only 1/4th of the size.

It was like a flat cinnamon roll with pecans in the dough.  Again, there was a glazed donut but it was eaten.  Their prices were really good and the donuts were as well.  If you are in the area, stop off at this landmark location.  (Chris, you should check this place out, it should be a landmark.) 

Let us eat soap?

I don't know where it came from, but my wife had come into the possession of a soap, shaped like a donut.  Not only shaped like a medium sized donut, but it also was colored like one as well.  It had fake icing on the top and smelled of vanilla.  It was like a dense, non-edible donut.

I know it looks good enough to eat, but it is more likely to clean your insides out than taste good.

Well, my 3 year old had been running around work with this fake donut so all week I have been seeing and smelling this donut.  What was I to do?  Last night, I made donuts.  Going back on my recipe book, last year for my birthday, my wife had bought me a book and a baking pan for baking donuts.  While they may not be the light and fluffy donuts that we can buy anywhere, they are also not fried in oils which I tend to think can make them a wee bit more healthier.

Now, I had to post this because besides making awesome cinnamon and vanilla flavored donuts with complimentary icing flavors, that were totally awesome, they looked like the soap.  I can't walk away from anywhere that sells soaps or bath products that look, smell, or generally resemble foods and desserts.

My donuts by the way, the icing colors were chosen by my sons.  So, the pink icing was banana flavored and the green icing was coconut flavored.

Donuts or Doughnuts

All throughout the Christmas shopping season, I had my eyes on this nice and little mini-donut maker.  How simple it would be to make a batter, pour it into the little molds, close the lid, and within a small time limit have wonderful cake donuts.  Well, I didn't have time to get the device and waited until after Christmas when I thought I may be able to find one at a discounted cost.

Well, little did I know, they were sold out, of everywhere.  Bella Cucina had this special deal with Macy's and according to one store clerk, they were so sold out that they were not allowed to order more from the Macy's warehouse.  Not a single store in the St. Louis metropolitan area, had one of these donut makers left.

I was sad.

Next came my wonderful wife who was with me and dragged along with our kids to at least two different Macy's in two different malls, looking for this rare and impossible to find device.  I didn't want to order it online as it was as much as $10-$15 for shipping on a $25 item made it definitely not worth my time.  So, my wife looks on Amazon and gets me a donut pan as well as a donut cutter and cookbook and I am ecstatic.

Here is a run-down of what I am doing:  I am making baked donuts.  That would be the great tasting donuts that you know and love but without the frying and grease part.  It would also cut down on calories.  Now, making a baked donut also means that besides the calories that I am cutting out from the act of frying, I can also alter the recipe to a more sugar free or even fat free method and reduce the calories even more.

My pan:

My pan with some chocolate chip cookie donuts:

Now, if you follow a simple recipe, your donuts will be perfect every time.  No more greasy wheels of sugar but instead perfectly light and simple shapes of goodness. So, for everyone who wants to make donuts, I highly suggest this donut pan.

Well, completely unrelated to this, a few searches in Flickr proved interesting in regards to donuts: