Doughnut miss out on this bakery's treats: Von Doughnuts makes two dessert flavours into one dou
By Rose Hetherington
Gourmet doughnut stores like Von Doughnuts in Greektown, have been popping up around the city. And for good reason, as some people see doughnuts as a delicious treat and a quintessential Canadian snack. According to data from NPD Group Inc., Canadians consumed more than 521 million doughnuts last year. While Tim Horton’s reigns supreme with cheap and plentiful doughnut sales across the country, independent and local doughnut shops are gaining popularity too. Before looking at today’s trendy gourmet doughnut scene in Toronto, let’s take a step back and look at the history of how doughnuts came to be a standard treat for North Americans.
There are conflicting stories but a popular theory (mentioned in the Smithsonian website) involves the Dutch and New England. During the mid-1800s, a mother in New England, Elizabeth Gregory, made olykoek (meaning ‘oily cakes’ in Dutch) for her son, a ship captain. The dough was formed in a circular shape and a walnut or hazelnut was put in the centre. The literal term doughnut was created from this. As for the hole in the doughnut, one possibility is that it was made when Gregory’s son stabbed the doughnut onto the spoke of the ship’s wheel during a stormy voyage.
Doughnuts didn’t gain their prominent snacking status in Canada and America until the era of World War One. Today, Toronto has been gaining more shops that cater to gourmet doughnuts, instead of just selling the classics.
Alejandro Holguin, owner of Von Doughnuts, bought the company in June. The scent of dough and other ingredients create a medley of delightful smells for customers as they peruse the many options of doughnuts to buy. Each day, there are different doughnuts that may be available in-store. Holguin hasn’t created any new doughnut flavours. He says their best-seller is the crème brulée and it is also his personal favourite.
“The texture with the torched sugar on top is out of this world,” Holguin says.
Combinations of other dessert flavours are united into new doughnut flavours. For example, the butter tart doughnut. A traditional Canadian treat is taken and fused into another traditional North American treat. The result is a doughnut that can’t be bought at other stores. Other dessert combination doughnuts include raspberry cheesecake, caramel apple pie and cookie dough.
The doughnuts are made in-house, along with the fillings.
“I wake up at four to get to work on time. We make the doughnuts fresh every morning,” says Nora Lem, Von Doughnuts employee.
She is part of the assembly line of workers who bake and decorate the doughnuts. Each person has a different task to help create one gourmet doughnut, which has multiple ingredients, jam and icing. A lot of effort goes into making the goods that customers see lining the displays.
“We put so much love into what we do that it shows, and our customers see it and taste it,” Holguin says.
These doughnuts are truly different, with ingredients that never would have been used when Elizabeth Gregory was baking them. Using foods such as bacon or peanut butter are changing the doughnut-making game. Some doughnut shops even include vegan and gluten-free options. Von Doughnuts states on its website that it is “working on producing a gluten-intolerant doughnut.” The stereotypically Canadian snack may be eaten as a classic or have upgrades done to it, but customers are quite happy to keep on purchasing this little indulgence.
“Doughnuts are my favourite and I love that I can go into almost any place and find a doughnut,” doughnut consumer Jessica Burns says. “They are part of almost any Canadian child’s memories while growing up and have been a part of many road trips and adventures during my life.”
