Desoto Donut Drive
As soon as the snow melted from February’s storm, we loaded up the kids to eat out for our son’s birthday because it fell on day 410 (okay day 2) of snowmahgedden. As we drove, I noticed how many locally-owned donut shops lined a well-traveled road in our county. We live in a big county with multiple towns.
Each community apparently only has one locally-owned coffee shop, a change from where we moved that seemed to have a coffee shop on every corner. But what they lacked in coffee shops they made up for in donut shops. I might be willing to make the trade.
I pointed this out to my family and suggested we should start at one end of the county and drive through all the towns stopping at the donut shops to sample their pastries. I was sorta kidding, but I was also on high doses of prednisone for a chronic illness that had flared up so I’d been hungry for two weeks.
My husband took off Friday of spring break and asked what we might want to do. I jokingly suggested the Desoto Donut Drive (we’d given it a snappy name by then). He agreed. And we were committed.
The drive started with the two shops closest to our house. Turns out one was closed. So we moved on to the next one. We took pictures and kept a log of our thoughts as we ate. A few notes before we get started:
We are not professional food bloggers. We took pictures inside my car then lost some of them due to trying to move photos off our out of space phones. We do not have refined pallets. We did not cleanse those unrefined pallets between donuts.
EVERY shop we visited was friendly and clean. In fact, they were so friendly, I was in and out of some shops in a literal minute. A visit to any of these shops would be a delightful way to start your day or to add a pick-me-up treat to your day.
We ordered two glazed donuts from each shop and split them, one-half donut for each person. We were pacing ourselves, friends.
The donut shops are listed in the order we visited them.
Charlie’s Donuts
First up was Charlie’s Donuts. A group of senior adult men were gathered around a round table when I walked into the store. It reminded me of the “rooster club” that met and solved the world’s problems in the town where I grew up. You can guarantee it’s a good atmosphere if it attracts that crowd. LOL!
Now, on to the donuts themselves. They had a funnel cake flavor. They were a heavier donut with really sweet icing. They were not a cake donut, but they did a denser texture than some others we would taste later. It was also a bit larger of a donut, but not the largest. We enjoyed this first stop on our route.
OB Donuts
We’d eaten OB Donuts once before, so my husband asked if we wanted to skip that one. To be fair to all of three of you reading this blog post, I insisted we needed to stop. Besides, that ½ of a donut at our first stop just made me hangry. OB Donuts had a much wider selection of donuts types readily available in their cases. Although they had several other customers order more donuts, they had plenty of sales people behind the counter. They rang up my two donuts and had me out the door in no time.
OB Donuts offered a lighter, fluffier pastry with a glaze that wasn’t quite as sweet. Spoiler alert: this ended up being Josh’s favorite donut from our trip.
Donut King
What we learned here is that I am a terrible navigator. I forgot to turn on the GPS, and we almost missed our turn. You came here to hear about the donuts though. The really nice guy behind the counter at Donut King threw in some donut holes for free! SCORE! He had no idea about our Desoto Donut Drive. They did have a variety of other pastries and donut types available although maybe not as many as OB Donuts. By this point, we’d eaten one-and-a-half donuts plus the donut holes. My husband was at his limit. We could only manage so many sweets in a two- or three-hour time frame. Maybe we needed to rethink the donut drive.
The Donut King donuts were slightly heavier than OB Donuts but not as heavy as Charlie’s. The sweetness level of the glaze scored in between the two other we’d already tasted.
Donald’s Donuts
By the time we drove away from Donald’s my lap was filled with icing crumbs. Donald’s was the only stop with a drive-through. This meant I didn’t have to hop out of the car, but it also meant we didn’t get to see what other types of pastries they had available. With only one stop after Donald’s, we rallied our strength to finish the job we set out to do. My husband only ate a fourth of a donut to give his opinion this time. Our 15-yea-old ate the rest of it.
Donald’s Donuts gave us the largest donuts from the entire drive. That might have contributed to my husband’s inability to eat his entire portion this time. Please note, I was still eating my entire half-donut. Although the donuts were large, they were also lighter and fluffier than some others we’d eaten that day. It did have a sweeter glaze with a hint of flavor. Maybe vanilla? We’re not sure.
--Intermission--
We took a break to walk off the donuts. Plus Target was between our fourth and fifth donut shops, and we needed dog food. Also we skipped Dunkin Donuts because it’s a chain, and we didn’t think we could add another shop to our list.
Mr. Donut
The final stop on our list. They also sell Tamales here. We didn’t buy any of those. Our kids really like jelly-filled donuts. We told them to wait until the last stop. If they still wanted a jelly-filled we’d get it at the last place. We didn’t know that was absolutely the right choice. Mr. Donut had the largest variety of jelly-filled donuts I’d seen all day. One kid wanted raspberry and the other wanted cherry. Not only did they have both those, they also had lemon, creme, strawberry, apple, and maybe another flavor or two. If you’re looking for a variety of jelly-filled donuts, this is your place.
Overall the donuts were smaller and lighter than some others we’d eaten. It was slightly drier than some too.
There you have it. Five donut shops in two, maybe three hours. I wasn’t really watching the clock. We then backtracked to the bowling alley where we knocked down pins for an hour trying to burn off some of that sugar.
I’m not sure I’d recommend you follow our example. We probably ate way too many calories, but we had fun. Since our drive, I’ve noticed at least two additional donut shops off the beaten path. They were not left out of our drive on purpose. None of our purchases cost over $2, except for the last one where I bought two jelly-filled donuts. Our drive didn’t load these businesses with cash, but if you’ve ever wondered about the different donut shops in Desoto County, now you know. They all do things a little differently, but all offer great products and wonderful customer service.
And, in case you wondered, 2 ½ donuts is plenty for me.
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