Colonial Donuts

My work group has a donut rotation, where someone brings in donuts from their vendor of choice every week.  As a lover of donuts, and discovering new places, this is obviously a huge draw for me, particularly when someone brings in donuts from somewhere I'm unlikely to trek to.

Colonial Donuts is located in Oakland, and thus generally outside my stomping grounds.  They offer bagels, coffee, and obviously donuts, and have been in business for 60+ years.

Iconic Pink Box.

"Our menu features a range of donut flavors from classic glazed to modern twists like Mochi Donuts. Whether you're in the mood for a simple glazed donut or a more elaborate treat, we have something for everyone. We are grateful for the community's support and look forward to serving you delicious donuts for years to come."

Like many donut shops, Colonial Donuts uses the iconic pink box, although they do put their own stickers on it.  They make both raised and cake donuts, along with fancy specialty ones.

Raised. $1.95.

Raised donuts are available with chocolate or maple icing (with or without sprinkles), regular glaze, and crumb, coconut, or sugar coatings.

Raised Glazed.

The first donut I had from Colonial Donuts I went super simple.  Raised glazed.

This was a very good simple glazed donut.  Super fluffy.  Nicely glazed.  I went back for more, even though I had an awesome donut from Johnny Doughnuts at my desk as well (it was a very donut heavy day!).

****.

Raised Sugared.

The next time someone brought in donuts from Colonial Donuts, I was too late to get another glazed raised, so went for the sugared instead.

It was again a good simple donut.  Nice and lofty.  Fresh tasting, no stale oil taste.  Well coated in sugar.  Best warmed up and served a la mode.  ***+.

Cake. $1.95.

The cake style lineup at Colonial Donuts is bigger than many places, with standard plain, powdered, chocolate, sugar, cinnamon sugar, but also whole wheat (!), blueberry, and Devil's Food.  Many available with sprinkles too. I've never seen a whole wheat donut before.

Cinnamon Sugar Cake.

Cake donuts are not generally my thing, but when there were plenty extras, I tried a hunk of the cinnamon sugar one.  

It had a decent flavor to the base, was decent moist, decent crispy, and well coated cinnamon sugar.  But just not my favorite style of donut.  Low *** due to personal preferences.

Fancy $2.75

If you'd like something a bit more fancy, the "Fancy" category contains bars (plain, maple), twists (chocolate, glazed), raspberry jelly filled (plain, glazed, powdered), buttermilk (plain, glazed, chocolate), other filled glazed donuts (cherry, lemon, apple), and French Crullers (glazed, maple, chocolate).  These are more pricy at $2.75 each.  I haven't yet had any from this category, but I'm eying the crullers, buttermilk, and jelly filled for sure.

Extra Fancy $3.25

And the final category, the "extra fancy" which has all the heavy hitters like apple fritters, bear claws, custard filled French crullers, cinnamon rolls, turnovers, and custard filled bars.  It also includes new school donuts like ube or red velvet cake, maple bacon raised, and mochi donuts.  This extra fanciness raises the price to $3.25.

Custard Filled Bar. $3.25.

I moved on to a more premium donut, the custard filled chocolate iced bar.

Like the raised rings, this was a nice fluffy donut, fresh tasting.  Inside was generously filled with a decent pudding style filling.  Plenty of milk chocolate glaze.  Basically, no qualms with it, and good components, but not my style of donut (I just don't really like chocolate icing on donuts ... I don't know why.  Sorry Boston cream :(

My least favorite,  ***.