Peter Pan Donuts, NYC

Yup, yet another day, another donut.  Whatever city I am in, donuts seem to seek me out.  Certainly, this is helped by the that my offices have a donut rotation, where someone brings in donuts from a place of their choosing every week.  But also, random parties with extra donuts just seem to regularly happen around me.  I rarely seek out the donuts, they come to me.

Yet, when I was staying in New York for a while this summer, I actually sought out donuts myself.  I wanted to see if there were other noteworthy donuts, besides Doughnut Plant.  So I did my research.  I had, well, plenty of options.  But one, Peter Pan Donuts, was located near where I was staying in Brooklyn, and got great reviews, so I assumed it would be my destination.

And then, random donuts kept showing up at the office, and I never made it to get a donut of my own accord.  Until I returned to New York in the fall, and the craving for a good donut hit.

And thus, Peter Pan it was.  

Peter Pan makes a variety of yeast and cake donuts.  All the classics, plus some upgraded ones, but nothing particularly wild or unique.  Yeasted donuts start with the standard honey dip, sugared, or frosted and sprinkle topped.  Filled versions had, lemon, blueberry, strawberry, or Bavarian cream.  Jelly donuts could come plain, sugared, or powdered sugared.  More fun is the crumb topped and cream filled red velvet or old fashioned, or other varieties with cream filling and a coating.  Cake options span from plain/cinnamon/glazed/powedered/coconut'ed old fashioned, to chocolate cake, to more interesting red velvet or even sour cream.  Oh, and don't forget the specialty donuts like a boston cream, several types of eclair, crullers with several toppings, or, my dad's all time favorite, the jelly stick.

I had one each, cake and raised, to really evaluate.  The raised was exceptional, and I'd gladly return for more and more of these!

Donut Box.

No pink box from this  shop, but a relatively classic and classy bakery label let us know what goodies were inside.

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake. $1.95.

The first donut I tried was a cake donut, which isn't normally my preferred donut (generally, I go for raised over cake).  But if I'm having a cake donut, an old fashioned or buttermilk based donut definitely far exceed regular cake donuts.  And, it was blueberry?  And glazed?  Now, that's a good combo, even for a cake donut.

It was fine.  Lightly glazed, not so sweet it took over.  It was clearly studded with lots of bits of blueberry, with visible blue bits throughout.  Mild blueberry flavor.  Dense in the right way inside, yet quite moist, and lightly crisp from the glaze.  But ... I didn't detect a buttermilk tang, and I was really hoping for that.

Overall, an absolutely fine cake donut, but didn't deliver in the "special" department for me, that is needed to take a cake donut above ***.  So, a strong ***, but, still just ***.

Yeasted White Cream Coconut. $1.95.

The next donut I tried was a raised one, and not one I picked for myself.  When I was stuck in a meeting when Peter Pan donuts arrived, I asked him to snag me something, and this was his selection.  It likely isn't what I would have picked (so much coconut!), but actually, it turned out to be absolutely fabulous.

The coconut on top was standard shredded non-toasted but likely sweetened coconut.  It was very generously applied, which I thought would be too much, but actually, it totally worked.  Just, a nice coconut flavor, that went so well with the fluffy sweet frosting.  ***+.

The cream frosting blew me away.  I expected fairly generic very sweet buttercream, but it was actually just really, really good.  Vanilla flavored I think?  It was so soft and fluffy, even though it was fairly old by the time I had it late in the afternoon.  It was sweet, but absolutely not cloying.  Really, really great cream. ****+.

Yeasted White Cream Coconut: Underside.

So, what about the donut itself?

Here you can see that this was actually a ring donut (surprise! Didn't it look like a filled donut?).  It had a great pocket of cream in the middle, in addition to the topping.  Given how much I loved this cream, this was a huge win for me.  

The donut was perfectly fried.  Very lightly crisp on the outside, golden brown, and so, so, so light and fluffy and airy inside.  Great flavor to it, didn't taste oily nor greasy.  This is really as good as a basic yeasted donut can get.  ****+.

Overall, I loved everything about this.  The quality of the donut, the frosting, everything.  I'd get it again in a heartbeat, and it made me immediately want to try more donuts from Peter Pan!  ****+, really nearly a perfect *****.