A World Of Donuts

There are some pretty good things to do on a rainy weekend in Melbourne, and going to a Donut & Beer Festival is one of them!

I arrived at the festival nice and early and did a tour of all the food stalls. There were so many different types of donuts on offer, from cold and filled to fresh cooked hot ones. There were even glow in the dark donuts. There was no way I was going to be trying all of them. Having my partner Paul there to share the “burden” helped. After much thought we narrowed it down to five food trucks offering a range of hot and cold donuts from different countries.

First stop was Honey Dee Loukoumades. We’ve had these warm, honey drenched Greek donuts before and have even made them ourselves.

There were four flavours to choose from:
Honey Cinnamon Walnuts
Caramel with Artisan Salts
Nutella
Callebaut Milk Chocolate with Dark Chocolate Rocks
Luckily they were offering a tasting platter with all four donuts so we chose that. They were all delicious but our favourite was the traditional cinnamon and walnut one. I really liked the salted caramel one too.

I couldn’t wait to try the South African Koeksister Donuts at the Ostrich and the Egg. I have heard of them but have never had them so I was really looking forward to them.

They had three offerings:
Traditional – Coconut
Garden Route – Sable Biscuit, Pistachio, Sesame Seeds
North of the River – Cocoa, Coffee Crumble
Happily they too had a tasting platter deal so we got to try all three. I thought I was going to love the coffee crumble one but I think one of the spices was cardamon which I don’t like. Surprisingly Paul, who loves coffee but not coffee flavoured foods, liked it. We both loved the other two donuts. They were moist and flavoursome and really unusual.

When I first saw the sign for Yuzu Donuts I thought it was a Japanese stall. Then I saw the familiar black, red and white decor and knew this was a New Zealand stall. The name Hangi Boys Kiwi Kitchen was also a big clue 🙂 I was very excited as I love New Zealand and have visited the country a couple of times. But I haven’t had Kiwi donuts before!

They only had one donut flavour to chose from:
Grapefruit & Yuzu Custard with Dried Raspberry
Yum. It was like a cold jam donut but with a tart and creamy centre. We both enjoyed this Kiwi treat.

A real show stopper was the Hungarian Kurtosh Donut Cone at The Hungry Boys stall. They reminded me of Romanian kürtőskalács. Everyone who walked passed had a good look, including me, but I was the first to stop and buy one! There was no way I could resist a donut moulded into the shape of an ice cream cone which is then filled with warm, creamy delights.

You could choose a banana or an apple filling but as Paul cannot eat bananas we chose:
Mama’s Apple Pie
The cold donut cone was filled with stewed cinnamon apples, toasted granola and heaping scoops of vanilla ice cream. It was topped with whipped cream, caramel sauce and a chocolate biscuit. It took a while to make our way through this enormous donut but we did! Having so much creamy goodness made the task easier, as did the comforting flavours.

With almost no room left in our bellies we made our way to Blondies Doughnuts. Thankfully their specialty is mini doughnuts 🙂

We chose a tried and true classic:
Mini Cinnamon Sugar
I really think hot cinnamon donuts are the best and these mini morsels were outstanding. I was considering having a second serve but I thought that would be tempting fate. Plus, we hadn’t even started the beer tastings.

After a fortifying coffee we tasted a few Indian Pale Ales. There was also a mulled wine stall which I quickly made my way to. The warm wine was sweetened with molasses and spices and was divine. They were selling jars of their concentrated mulling syrup which I bought. Now when I want a mulled wine I can make an individual cup, adding one or two teaspoons of their Smoking Bishop Syrup. I can’t wait to start mulling 🙂