The chocolate hazelnut creme doughnut has bit of hazelnut in the glaze and the chocolate filling is lighter than you expect

So, two chefs, an acupuncturist and a blogger walk into a doughnut shop…

Two weeks ago on a warm-ish Saturday morning I met up with three other hungry individuals at the Lower East Side location of the Doughnut Plant.  My partners for the day consisted of a pastry student, a savory chef, who just accepted a job at one of the top restaurants in the US and Doctore, an acupuncturist who is also an accomplished baker and sometime contributor to DessertBuzz.  We planned to spend the day walking to some of our favorite dessert and pastry spots.  The sole criteria to determine who we would visit, was that each establishment had to have at least one product that was in the mix for “best of New York City”.  A secondary goal was to not go into insulin shock.

The Doughnut Plant: NYC’s Best Doughnuts:

Sure there are other fantastic doughnuts available in New York–Dough and Peter Pan in Brooklyn, Baked on the UES and upstart Doughnuttery in Chelsea but none of those can come close to the broad offerings of the Doughnut Plant with nearly two dozen different flavors and styles and nearly all them ranked as “really tasty”.

We shared five different doughnuts.  The highlights for me were the tres leches, hazelnut creme and the creme brulee doughnut.

The inviting case at the Doughnut plant: Lots of great options

The creme brulee doughnut has a fantastic crackly crust and filling with real vanilla bean

From the Doughnut Plant we headed over to Cesi Cela.  More later this week.

The Doughnut plant’s original location is at 379 Grand Street.  They also have a location at 220 West 23rd Street.Their website is here.  Follow DessertBuzz on Twitter.

Posted by Niko on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 at 7:10 am.