Doughnuts of the higher Valley: the simplest One is that the One You’re intake

Partly out of curiosity and partly to amuse ourselves during the long winter — and largely because we never met a snack we didn’t like — we at the Valley News decided to hunt up all the doughnuts made by local shops.

As journalists, we could explain this pursuit more fully, but the attraction of eating doughnuts is self-evident.

We set a number of ground rules (you have to be compelled to be rigorous concerning this sort of thing): tho' some newsroom staffers argued for as well as chain doughnut outlets and supermarkets, that might have created for a sprawling story. So, no Dunkin’, no Shaw’s, no worth Chopper then on. we have a tendency to additionally overlooked Jolley Doughnuts, in Wells watercourse, that we have a tendency to write concerning in Gregorian calendar month.

That meant we’d get doughnuts solely at smaller, regionally in hand outlets, created contemporary and not prepacked for stores. Did we have a tendency to miss some places? most likely, and if so, please allow us to understand.

Many places sell doughnuts that look do-it-yourself however area unit really purchased frozen and baked. Fine in an exceeding pinch, however not what we have a tendency to were longing for.

the time of year worked for the U.S., however not for a radical reconnaissance of the doughnut landscape. we have a tendency to incomprehensible all the drinkable doughnuts created within the fall at farms and orchards, the maple doughnuts at the Tunbridge truthful and every one the doughnuts created by home cooks for suppers and bake sales. We’ll be applying for grant funding to try to a full year’s research;

We considered ranking the doughnuts, however, once we have a tendency to started sampling them, they appeared too dissimilar for purposeful comparison. Besides, the most effective doughnuts we have a tendency tore those we were feeding. we have a tendency to set the doughnuts to get into the newsroom with a notebook bearing the admonition “You bite; you write,” and for the foremost half, everybody complied.

The biggest surprise of the total exercise? The sheer range of places that created very nice doughnuts. they're omnipresent, various, delicious and (obligatory health warning) therefore, therefore dangerous for you.

Without further preamble, the doughnuts of the Upper Valley:

Muriel’s Donuts

Local doughnuts start and end with Muriel’s. We sampled these first, and the warm doughnuts caused a bit of a feeding frenzy. There was (and is) a red jelly stain on the newsroom carpet. We confess, your honor, we murdered those doughnuts.

Muriel’s, a Lebanon fixture since 1967, follows a simple formula: A single dough, fashioned into plain, sugar and cinnamon doughnuts, and crullers and jelly sticks. Served fresh out of the fryer, they are like ambrosia, or as one commenter wrote, “the beluga caviar of doughnuts.” (The same commenter also wrote “3 thumbs up!” so maybe he’s not the best source.) There’s a reason why Muriel’s regularly wins awards for New Hampshire’s best doughnut shop.

Uptown Bakery

This relatively new Claremont bakery sells a wide assortment of doughnuts, both cake and raised. The latter found more fans than the former, with some commenters suggesting the cake doughnuts were too dense, though one biter/writer wrote that the “cakey center is divine.” The raised doughnuts had, someone wrote, “just the right amount of chewiness and bounce.”

The Little Store

Marsh Brothers Deli at the Little Store, in Lebanon, sells perhaps the most charming doughnut in the UV. They’re petite, cakey and faintly yellow, as they’re flavored with lemon zest, and can be ordered either tossed in sugar or unadorned. Some tasters felt the lemon was too subtle, but for most, it was just right; lemony enough to set these dainty little treats apart from the great mass of fat-fried dough, but not so strong as the lemon bars from the school bake sale.

Lou’s Restaurant & Bakery

The whole doughnut experience is here, on Main Street in Hanover, from Yankee cider-doughnut austerity to gourmet, chocolate-frosted, 500-calorie wretched excess. We got one of everything: The too-muchness of the full order of doughnuts is part of the deal. The plain cider doughnut is “a classic, made well and always pleasurable,” wrote one commenter who sounds like Lou’s habitué. There are three cider doughnuts, four crullers and six kinds of gourmet doughnuts, including a maple doughnut with crumbled bacon, an artisanal Boston creme, a hazelnut Nutella doughnut and so on, all of them eminently Instagram-worthy. The gourmet doughnuts are pricey by Upper Valley standards, at $2.85 apiece. But they’re huge so they could be shared.

Meriden Deli Mart

We tasted a lot of big doughnuts, but the size of the doughnuts at this Route 120 emporium made a statement. “A cross between a doughnut and a hula hoop,” one commenter wrote. These pleasantly spiced cake doughnuts were available in plain, sugared, maple-glazed and maple-walnut variants. The giant fried rings were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, just like a cake doughnut should be, and tasters noted that the maple flavor seemed authentic. “Wish I had a hot coffee for dunking,” wrote someone who could have gotten a coffee if it was that important.

Brothers Donuts & Deli
It came as a surprise to us that some of the best doughnuts available in the Upper Valley are made a bit farther afield. Brothers Donuts, of Franklin, N.H., delivers its wares to shops all over the Granite State, including several stores in Newport (we got our at Grazi’s Market). Shop owner Malverino “Mal” Rizzo III started the shop with his brother Ralph 36 years ago. Ralph died a few years later, but the name persists.

These are some serious doughnuts. The jelly and Boston creme doughnuts earned praise for not being cloyingly sweet, and a cake doughnut with chocolate frosting was just perfect, flavorful without causing an immediate toothache. The glazed raised doughnuts were particularly light and lofty. (Note: Brothers has the best hours for a doughnut shop, 3 a.m. to noon, and 2 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.)

Jupiter Rising Bakery
This Rutland bakery has been selling its doughnuts in the Upper Valley for eight or nine years, owner Tina Clark said in a phone interview. They’re available at Mike’s Store in Hartland, at Woodstock Farmer’s Market, in West Woodstock, and at the Evans Express at Exit 16 in Enfield. The raised doughnuts were as light and tender as cotton candy, “an airy, smushy, delicious bite,” as one commenter wrote, or, as another mused, “that fluffy doughnut — WUT!” Clark said about 80 percent of her business is doughnuts, though Jupiter also sends bread, rolls and pies to us here on Earth. She said she’d send more doughnuts to other Upper Valley shops, if she could recruit more drivers. As the “WUT!” commenter wrote, “More plz.”

Anne’s Plainfield Country Convenience Store
This shop pairs a gas station with a commercial kitchen that turns out some of the most amazing, if eccentric doughnuts we tried. They are big, brown, nubbly buttermilk doughnuts, available plain with a hole in the middle, or as squat crullers tossed in crunchy white sugar. They look like something to take on a polar expedition, or to slice up and fry in butter.

The doughnuts are crunchy on the outside and cakey on the inside, with a tangy note from the buttermilk. The crullers, made from the same dough, are less crunchy, unless you count the crunch from the sugar. Pro tip: Don’t eat the cruller in the car, lest you end up with a trail of sugar down the front of your scarf and parka. These doughnuts are, as they say, a wicked bah-ghin, at 75 cents for a doughnut and 99 cents for a cruller. Anne’s makes doughnuts only on Saturday mornings and for special orders.

Four Aces Diner
This West Lebanon mainstay makes two types of doughnut, a classic, sugar-coated cider doughnut and a massive maple doughnut. The former is meant for eating with coffee, the latter is clearly meant to be cut in half lengthwise and fried, which is indeed how the diner serves it. We ate the hulking maple doughnuts straight and they were imposingly dense and cakey. We bet they’re amazing fried, though.

The Fort
The Lebanon truck stop diner makes two kinds of cruller, glazed and maple-glazed, and both are massive. Cut the rounded end off one and it’s bigger than one of The Little Store’s doughnuts. These chewy, raised monsters were among the favorites in the newsroom. One commenter called the glazed cruller “a pastry-shaped antidepressant.” Another commenter wrote the kind of lengthy, rhapsodic paragraph that would never make it past an editor.

Muriel’s Donuts
See, doughnuts in the UV really do start and end with Muriel’s. We ate the first batch so quickly that we forgot to save one to photograph. Oh darn, another dozen it is. This second batch wasn’t fresh from the fryer, but they still won widespread praise as the Goldilocks of doughnuts: Not too big, not too sweet, not too crispy, not too soft. Just right.