Best Doughnuts in the World

Yeast, milk, flour, butter, sugar, salt, and eggs.

Doughnuts.

We can debate the best—Krispy Kremes (especially in the South) or Dunkin Donuts or the local bakery. We can argue fried or baked, jelly- or cream-filled.

Plain, frosted, sprinkled, maple-topped. Cider mill doughnuts. Sour cream. Doughnut holes. And even if cinnamon rolls can be included on the list.

But I once tasted the best doughnuts on the planet.

Even better than Dawn Donuts, easily recognized by the happy young baker in white holding his tray of doughnuts. (In those days, the nearest bakery was on Perry Street in Pontiac.) And yes, even better than Krispy Kremes.

And I don’t recall the name of the shop.

It was a local bakery in the Heights, located on Auburn Road in the small downtown area, open early to offer fresh doughnuts made on the premises.

There was a time when my son and I stopped every morning for carry-out breakfast and frozen burritos (from the cooler) for his lunch. My favorite choice was the honey wheat doughnuts. With fresh coffee, they were heaven.

My cat Micky thought so, too. If I brought any home, she’d prowl around the table, waiting for the phone to ring so she could jump onto my chair and eat mine. When I hollered, she chewed faster, so that by the time I got back to my plate, my treat was fragmented with cat spit. (When she was younger, she’d eat one bite out of each hamburger bun in the package, which made us drive back to the store, since we couldn’t bring ourselves to serve company cat-bitten rolls.)

My first full-time office job was Civil Service downtown Pontiac, several floors above a doughnut shop. All morning, the scents of spices and hot oil wafted to my desk.

Two jobs later, in the Highway Department on Featherstone, our group paid for coffee with change, so that every Friday, a large box of Dawn Donuts was carried in from the profits. First grabber got the maple-frosted cinnamon bun. Last in line picked through fragments.

Doughnuts have always been a treat, regardless of health warnings on their invisible labels. Fresh-pressed cider…winter cocoa…and best of all, brewed coffee call for the traditional yeast cakes.

Dawn Donuts created the first commercial donut mix in Jackson, Michigan, 1920, but doughnuts, in one form or another, have been with us since fossil times.

The first Dutch immigrants brought their “olykoeks” (oily cakes) to Manhattan, and in the 19th century, a ship captain’s mother made a deep-fried dough with nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon rind from ships’ stores. Her son, Captain Gregory, claimed that he invented doughnut “holes” by cutting them with the top of a round tin pepper box.

According to David Taylor of Smithsonian Magazine (March 1998), doughnuts were popular with WWI troops in the trenches of France, served by women volunteers.

The first doughnut machine was developed in 1920, New York City, by Adolph Levitt, a refuge from Russia, for his bakery, an invention that made him wealthy.

In the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair, doughnuts were announced as “the food hit of the Century of Progess” because they could be made automatically.

Frenchman Joe LeBeau traveled from New Orleans to Kentucky, and because of hard times, sold his secret recipe and the trade name of Krispy Kreme to Ishmael Armstrong. And history was born.

Still, I maintain that the Heights bakery offered the best variety and flavors, and the freshest doughnuts.

Although, second in line would be the tiny bakery, run by Byzantine Catholic monks, near Jacob’s Falls in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. They also include jams and coffee, and the afternoon we stopped on an impulse, the soft-spoken bear of a monk sold us the tastiest bread with rich, dark roast coffee.

But oh, for a honey wheat doughnut this moment, even if I had to share it with my cat Micky. By the way, she lived to be 19, so maybe doughnuts are healthier than we’re told.

Brew the coffee. I think I’ll have a maple-covered doughnut with it.

Care to join me?