The Great Jelly Donut Hunt in the Seattle Area

One of my family’s favorite Christmas traditions we do is a soda-tasting party over Christmas dinner. We try a bunch of sodas, rate them over various criteria, and use the ratings to determine which one was our favorite of the bunch. We’ve done different brands of root beer, cream soda, cola, fruit flavors, Jones soda, and (most recently) Asian sodas.

In a similar vein, when I moved to Idaho Falls, I got really into French dip sandwiches for some weird reason. I spent a summer searching for the best French dip sandwich in town (it’s at Franklin’s Cheesesteaks). I did not get sophisticated and chart things like we do with the soda tastings, though.

Now that we’ve been in the Seattle area for a bit, I’ve gotten really into jelly donuts. Why? I do not know. Regardless, as with my French dip experience, I’ve decided to set out to find the best jelly donut in the Greater Seattle Area. Only this time I’m going to keep track using a rating system. I’ve also invited my family to come along.

We’re calling it The Great Jelly Donut Hunt: The Search for the Greater Seattle Area’s Best Jelly Donut!

The instructions

The instructions mention late-start Mondays, which I will explain. On Mondays, school starts an hour later than every other school day. I guess this is to let people recover from partying all weekend, or something like that. So my theory is that since we don’t party all Sunday night, if my kids wake up at the normal time, we’ll have an hour to go out and try some donuts.

The scoring criteria

The donuts will use the following review form:

Sample Donut Rating Form

Ambiance/Vibe

Cleanliness

Presentation

Glaze

Dough

Jelly

Jelly:Dough Ratio

Value

Summary

This was just a sample rating so you can see what the actual ratings will look like (once I start getting to them).

3.4

Donut image cred: Photo by xandreasw on Unsplash

Explanation of scoring criteria

The grading scale is based on the following rubric:

The Ambiance/Vibe and Cleanliness criteria are about the donut shop itself. Does the shop make visiting it to purchase a donut more enjoyable?

The presentation is about how the donut looks.

The glaze, dough, and jelly flavors are about those individual factors alone. The Jelly:Dough ratio is about the combination of flavors. I don’t want my donut to have too much jelly or not enough.

The final factor of value is the quality of the donut based on the price. If it’s an okay donut that costs more than most donuts, it gets a lower value. At the same time, if it’s an expensive donut, it better be spectacular on all the other factors to justify the price.

I should put a final factor of “Delight.” This would be a true catch-all of intangible features of the donut. Did you feel like it was a good experience? Unfortunately, I already printed out a bunch of booklets for my kids. So I’m not going to include that because I don’t want to reprint the booklets.

Here is what our booklets look like:

List of Greater Seattle Area Donut Shops we plan to visit

Here is a list of places on our list to visit. Yes, this includes some grocery stores. Although they are not donut shops, they are a common place we get donuts. This list is in no particular order and I have no idea how long this will take. Hyperlinks will go to my reviews of the jelly donut.

• Walmart
• Safeway
• Fred Myers
• Winco
• Haggen
• Legendary Donuts (Lake Tapps)
• Donut Star (Auburn)
• Donut & Muffin Factory (Auburn)
• Happy Donuts (Puyallup)
• Sunny’s Donuts
• Dockside Donuts
• Helen’s Donuts & Ice Cream
• Le Donut
• Top Pot Doughnuts
• The Original House of Donuts
• Pao’s Donuts
• Lucky Donuts
• Mini… the Dough-Nut
• Dochi
• King Donuts
• Good Day Donuts
• Might-O Donuts
• Raised Doughnuts and Cakes
• General Porpoise
• Daily Dozen
• Dough Joy
• Half and Half Doughnut Co
• Krispy Kreme
• Mochinut
• Aurora
• Factory Donuts

Is there any place I’m missing? If so, let me know in the comments.