The Specialty Doughnut
The doughnut that comes to mind, when speaking of health, is the Vitamin Doughnut. The Doughnut Corporation of America, in 1941, came out with Vitamin Donuts. In the 1940's the government had a Nutrition Division and this division initiated a program designed to get food companies to help educate the public on its nutrition message. This coincided with the relatively new ability to fortify products with synthesized vitamins. The "For Pep and Vigor" message you see on the label image above fits in nicely with the idea that vitamins gave you "pep and energy." These vitamin donuts were fortified with thiamine and some vitamin B3 and iron. They didn't do well. They tried to switch to calling the product "Enriched Donuts" but the Nutrition Division wouldn't have it, and instead wanted them to call it "Enriched Flour Donuts," which doesn't sound very tasty. The donuts, along with the whole nutrition campaign, fell on its face.
Though the Vitamin Doughnut did not do too well, other types of specialty doughnuts have. Of these modern doughnuts, came the flavor filled or flavor structured doughnut. These doughnuts range from maple bacon encrusted doughnuts to doughnuts covered in bugs. These types of doughnuts have become so popular, they have branched into their own doughnuts shops.
One of these doughnuts shops that have risen to prominence is the Fractured Prune Doughnut Shop. The shop claims, “Nobody else is doing what we’re doing. Where others offer rows of preconceived doughnut flavors, we’re offering infinite choices. Why? Because we believe in the individual and that there’s no wrong way to make your delicious.” With this type of slogan, the possibilities are endless when creating a doughnut to your choosing.
Locally in Colorado, Amy’s Doughnuts is a doughnut shop that handles specialty type doughnuts. The most famous of the doughnuts in the Southern Colorado Region was the Green Chili Doughnut. This doughnut took Pueblo Green Chili’s and placed them onto a glazed doughnut with a cream cheese frosting. The contrast of spice and sweet made the doughnut a hit. This style of doughnut making, keeps doughnut lover’s coming back for more.
Other specialty doughnuts are common place, like Bismarks, which hail from early German influences. The Bismark doughnut is a crème filled, or custard filled doughnut. Other styles include jelly-filed as well.
As doughnuts spread worldwide, doughnut shops are also catering to views of the countries they are showing up in. An example, when Dunkin Donuts opened shops in Asia, they introduced a pork and seaweed doughnut. This understanding of local tastes proves that doughnuts are evolving, but the doughnuts shops still remain true to form, and include all the regular “American doughnuts” as well.
A different type of specialty doughnut is the over-sized doughnut. These are regular doughnuts, just blown up to two to three times the size of the regular counterparts. These doughnuts are called “Texas-sized” by Round Rock Donut shop from the Round Rock, Texas. That’s because this doughnut weighs in at over 2 pounds of doughnut-y goodness. All I can say, that’s a lot of doughnut.
