I picked up my daughter from preschool and decided to make a quick stop at a nearby grocery store called Haggen to test out their jelly donut as part of The Great Jelly Donut Hunt. My daughter got a chocolate bar with sprinkles (not pictured here).
Here is the scale:
The Jelly Donut Review
Haggen’s Jelly Donut
TOTAL SCORE
The Haggen donut gets between “okay” and “good.” It has a strong presentation and jelly-to-dough ratio, but the texture and flavoring is a bit off for me.
Detailed Review
Ambiance/Vibe & Cleanliness
Although I have stopped including the ambiance and vibe of the store as part of the donut score, I do think it is important to at least comment on it.
Haggen has the feel of an upscale grocery store. The bakery matches that vibe. It presents nicely. It’s clean and well cared for. But, like all grocery stores, it is just a facade of a stand-alone bakery. No one is going to a grocery store bakery section to soak in the experience of the store.
You get donuts at the grocery store because they are inexpensive.
With that being said, Haggen does a great job of keeping a nice bakery area.
Presentation
The Haggen jelly donut presents very nicely. It’s a nice, round shape and looks like a substantial donut. The glaze is evenly coated and has a pleasant appearance. When I look at it closely, it reminds me of looking at the stars in the night sky.
Candidly, though, I don’t do a lot of stargazing. Throughout my life, I’ve probably spent more time looking at donuts than I have looking at the stars. So it would be more accurate to say that when I accidentally glance at the stars, it reminds me of a clear-coat donut glaze.
Back to the donut: I enjoyed that the donut felt heavy — like it had a lot of substance to it. By the look at weight, it seemed like this was a donut that was not messing around.
The glaze
For the reasons mentioned, the glaze had a stellar appearance. I would call it a “Clear Coat” for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain. But it just wasn’t a feature of the donut that particularly stood out when eating it. I think this is just because it is spread so thinly over the top. Other than the fact that I enjoyed the appearance of the glaze, there was not much else to notice to take it from good to great.
The Dough
Based on the weight and feel of the donut, I thought the dough was going to be nice, soft, and dense. This wasn’t the case. The outside was crispy in a way that reminded me of frybread my grandma used to make for Navajo tacos. I loved those Navajo tacos (and I just told my wife we need to have those sometime soon), but I don’t want a crispy Navajo taco texture for my donut.
The inside of the dough reminded me of a croissant. I also like croissants, and there is such a thing as a cronut, but it’s not what I want in my jelly donut.
The dough also tasted like it was a deep-fried frybread croissant conglomeration.
It wasn’t bad, per se, but it wasn’t good for a donut. I did appreciate that the donut held its shape fairly well and would not smush down when I took a bite.
The Jelly
When I first bit into the jelly, the first thing I observed was that it had a nice, even consistency. The odd thing was that at first I thought the jelly was pretty mild. But the more I ate, the more tart it felt. I eventually felt like I had just eaten a bunch of Sweetarts.
By the end of the donut, I had grown tired of the jelly flavor or overwhelmed by it. I couldn’t quite tell which.
Jelly-to-Dough Ratio
The jelly-to-dough distribution was good. The jelly was evenly distributed in about the center of the donut and the amount of jelly in each bite was adequate. A job well done (just not the best jelly in the world).
The value
The donut was $1.49. I feel this is a good value for this donut. I don’t have much to say beyond that, so I will stop there.
Conclusion on Haggen’s Jelly Donut
My conclusion is that Haggen’s jelly donuts are pretty okay. They get a lot right except for the most important parts — the texture of the dough and the flavor of the jelly. 3.5 stars is a fair score.
