Top Pot Donuts, Seattle

During my recent trip to the Seattle area for a conference, I was tasked with an important duty: acquiring the donuts for our mid-morning break the first day.  For 80 people.

I had a great list of recommended donut shops (yes, Mighty-O), but alas, none delivered to my office in Kirkland.  Thus we went for Top Pot, still recommended, but not as highly as the others.

I tried a lot of different donuts, none were very remarkable, but all were fine.

Red Box. 

Top Pot donuts do not come in a traditional pink box.  Instead, they come in a red box.  Innovative.

Donuts, Donuts.

Top Pot makes all the expected donuts: cake (plain or chocolate base), raised rings, raised filled donuts, and old fashioned (buttermilk or chocolate), plus bars, fritters, etc.

Since we ordered 80 donuts (!), we had a variety of basically all types of donuts they make.

From this box, I tried several (once others cut them up into chunks, don't worry, I didn't eat this many donuts myself ... although, by the end of the day, I had clearly consumed at like 3 full donuts.  For you, dear readers).

"Apple Fritter: Cubed apples and cinnamon-spice folded into our signature raised dough."

This was a pretty standard fritter.  Large, crispy glaze, bits of apple inside.  Not particularly good nor bad.

"Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Glaze and Oreos: Chocolate versions of our delicious cake doughnuts."

I'm not really one for cake donuts in general, but, this was perhaps the most interesting looking one, and, well, someone else cut it up.  The chocolate cake base was fine, the glaze was sweet, and the Oreos were, uh, Oreos.  Again, not particularly good nor bad.

Assorted Donuts.

The next box had most of the filled donuts, and many glazed sprinkled topped rings (their name for raised donuts).

Raspberry Glazed Cake.

"Plain cake doughnuts with a touch of spice."

I read many rave reviews of the raspberry glaze from Top Pot, available on many styles of donut, so for my second full donut, I grabbed the raspberry glazed cake donut.

The glaze was sweet and fruity, and certainly more unique than standard glaze.  The donut however was still pretty basic, just a generic cake donut, no better nor worse than what comes from your local grocery store.

Maple Glazed Buttermilk, Maple Glazed Bars.

The next box had mostly maple glazed creations (buttermilk old fashioned and unfilled raised bars), but also had a Raspberry Glazed Chocolate Cake donut hiding in it.

Since I thought the chocolate cake base was actually decent in the Oreo donut, and I liked the raspberry glaze, I tried a chunk of this, and I think it was likely the best of the bunch.  Fruity glaze, good enough chocolate cake base.

More Assorted Donuts.

The final box had cinnamon roll donuts, a bunch of chocolate glazed, and many sugar or cinnamon sugar coated (which they call "sandcastle") .

It also had the chocolate old fashioned donuts, "a chocolate version of our classic old fashioned doughnut", something I hadn't really seen before.  I obviously had to try it, and went for the sugar coated one.

I was quite surprised.  I'm not really sure what made it like the regular old fashioned besides the shape, as in, it didn't have buttermilk tang, but this was my third favorite donut overall.  Like the other chocolate cake bases, it had a good chocolate flavor, was dense but not dry, and was crispy outside.  And the sugar coating added some texture.

One donut that I had requested be included in our order was also in this box, from the specialty filled menu (which also contains a standard bavarian creme bismark and lemon filled).

Raspberry Bulls-eye.

The one I requested was the Raspberry Bulls-eye, a raised glazed round one, with a ton of raspberry filling on top, rather than inside.  Again, one people say is great.

It was good, a standard fluffy yeasted raised donut.  Nothing particularly novel about it.  The glaze was very sweet though, and I almost wished it wasn't there.  It was very generously covered in glaze  Maybe I was a bit sick of sweet donuts at this point?

The raspberry goo was good though, thick, fruity, uh, gooey, satisfying.  I liked the twist of doing it bulls-eye style rather than stuffed inside.

It is hard to see in the photo, but there really was a lot of the raspberry topping.  I liked being able to dunk chunks of my donut in it, and create bite after bite of "perfect bites".  Under the raspberry topping did seem a bit undercooked and doughy, but actually, that was my favorite part.

Overall, my second favorite donut.