My kids had school off for Presidents’ Day, so we decided to take a morning donut run in furtherance of The Great Jelly Donut Hunt. One of our friends recommended that we “had to go to” Top Pot Doughnuts. So we did. We went to the location in Tacoma.
Here is the scale:
The Jelly Donut Review
Top Pot Doughnut’s Jelly Donut
TOTAL SCORE
Based on the above, the jelly donut from Top Pot Doughnuts scores a rating of “good.” And I will add that it is a very solid “Good.”
Detailed Review
Ambiance/Vibe & Cleanliness
Though I am no longer including the storefront as part of the official donut rating, I am still commenting on it. In this case, Top Pot has a great thing going for it. If I had to describe the vibe (which I do for this post), I would say it is a comfortably quaint coffee shop. It would be the coffee shop you would have in Friends if Friends was based in Seattle instead of New York.
But that’s also one of my issues with the store. It feels more like a trendy coffee shop that happens to sell donuts than a donut store.
The donuts are displayed in a relatively small glass case on the counter. I’m not sure what is on the remaining portion of the counter because I was only paying attention to the donuts. But the donut display was probably only about 1/5 of the total available counter space.
My point is that even though the space is very nice and appealing, it seems like the donuts are an afterthought. It’s like someone said, “We have an idea for a really nice place, but what should we sell with it? Hmm… maybe let’s do really good donuts.”
Presentation
The donut is a nice round, full shape. I did not give it the full five stars for two reasons. First, I was not sure how I felt about having the donut just topped with sugar rather than a more traditional glaze. It looks nice, but I wasn’t sure about it. Second, on the specific donut I got, you can see where there was some spillage of the jam, which appears to have then been wiped off.
Is that getting too picky? No, I don’t think so because I’m still giving the donut a 4.5, which is within the “Amazing” level. It’s not a flawless Amazing, but the presentation is outstanding none-the-less.
The glaze
This donut did not have a glaze. It had a sugar topping. I don’t know how people get sugar to stick to a donut the way it does, but it held pretty well.
If I had to pick between this donut with a sugar coating or a glaze topping, I would pick the glaze topping. But this sugar coating was great. It was even kind of fun to eat and experience the little tiny crunches from the sugar granules.
Even though this donut doesn’t have an amazing glaze — because there is none, the sugar topping is outstanding!
The Dough
The dough was thick but soft. It had a great flavor. I’m not sure what else to say other than it was great.
The Jelly
The jelly had a nice tartness to it. It tasted quite good. The only issue I had with it was that it was a bit thick, but that probably has more to do with the next category, the Jelly-to-Dough Ration.
Jelly to Dough Ratio
The jelly-to-dough ratio is where things go South for this donut. The jelly was extremely thick in about 1/4 of the donut and nowhere to be found in the rest. It made the donut so unbalanced that it was disappointing.
It was made all the more disappointing because everything else was so nicely done. They just need to figure out a way to more evenly spread the jelly inside the body of the donut. They could probably even use a little less jelly.
The value
This is the other downside to these donuts. At a cost of $2.75, it is a higher-priced donut. If I’m paying top dollar for a jelly donut, I want it to have everything right. I want an amazing glaze (even though I did enjoy to sugar topping) and an amazing jelly-to-dough ratio. This just didn’t have those things.
Conclusion on Top Pot Doughnuts’ Jelly Donut
My conclusion is that Top Pot Doughnuts make a very good jelly donut. The main problem is that they just don’t have the jelly-to-dough ratio down. Most of the jelly is crammed into one-fourth of the donut, which makes that part overridden with jelly and the remainder under jellied.
Still it’s a good donut in a great atmosphere. You can tell Top Pot Doughnuts is proud of the brand. And they should be!
Also, my 4-year-old daughter got the pink donut with sprinkes. It was shockingly good. The best donut of all the ones we bought.
