The Pastry Chef's Baking: Psycho Donuts

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Psycho Donuts

Psycho Donuts - visited August 22, 2015

Besides having a burger at Brown Chicken Brown Cow and ice cream afterwards at Campbell Creamery, I also stopped off at nearby Psycho Donuts before I went home. I know, you’d think by now if I had cut myself, pure granulated sugar would come pouring out of my veins. But actually, I only bought a couple and brought both home to share with my nieces.

Before cupcakes and macarons, there was a doughnut craze. Do you remember all the hype about Krispy Kreme and getting hot, fresh doughnuts? The big fuss about Dunkin’ Donuts and lamentation on the West Coast that we didn’t have them here like they did on the East Coast? Not being a doughnut person, it’s safe to say the doughnut hype came and went without me paying much attention to it. If doughnut shops did spring up from that craze, I don’t know how many have lasted. And since I’ve discovered Stan’s Donuts, I will likely never eat another Krispy Kreme again. Even then, I think I’ve only gone to Stan’s twice since I found them – yep, just not a doughnut person.

However, as a Bay Area local, even *I* have heard of Psycho Donuts. At work, there would sometimes be free offerings of Psycho Donuts and you know, because of the name, I had to go look. As near as I can tell, Psycho Donuts prides itself on a plethora of wild flavors, add-ins and toppings to make every kind of doughnut imaginable. And I have a pretty good imagination. But even I could not have imagined Psycho Donuts’ very creative flavor combinations and names.

To list a few:

Nutella the Hun: Nutella and sprinkles covering a chocolate cake donut
Cereal Killer (get it??): a donut covered in colored cereals
Dirty Turtle: doughnut filled with cheesecake and topped with "Oreo dust" and caramel
It's a Rocky Road: chocolate cake donut, chocolate icing, peanuts and marshmallows

I’ve had the German Chocolate one when it was put out at work – I thought that was good and the only thing that made it a doughnut was the round shape. Otherwise it was a chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling on top of it. The other doughnuts on offer really looked a bit psychotic in that a bunch of “stuff” was thrown on top of a doughnut, like graham crackers and marshmallows for the s’mores doughnut or chopped up Oreos on top of a vanilla-frosted doughnut for a cookies ‘n crème theme.

On my one and only visit (so far), I went with a more sedate coconut doughnut and, for a walk on the (somewhat) wild side, a "Sticky Monkey" which seemed to be the bananas foster doughnut equivalent to an apple fritter. In fact, it's billed as "Bananas Foster in donut form". With salted caramel.

In accompanying its theme, the counter person dressed as a nurse in a psych ward offered me a piece of bubble wrap as I was making my purchase. Because it’s said that psychotics in the ward would find popping bubble wrap soothing to their frayed nerves. Okay, then. It’s kitschy, it’s cute and if you like doughnuts, Psycho Donuts is a must-visit. The Desserted Island doughnut was pretty basic (yeast doughnut covered in coconut and cinnamon) which is what I wanted since I’m not the most adventurous doughnut taster – it was good but doughnut for doughnut, I would say Stan’s Donuts is better.