Donut is the new Cupcake

Is it donut or doughnut??  I see it both ways.  Personally I prefer donut because I am lazy and it is less letters for me to type.  Anyway...I have always been a fan of donuts.  I'm going to blame this love on my grandfather.  I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house as a child, and my grandfather would always wake up, drive to the local bakery, and come back with a dozen donuts!  I LOVED those donuts and the quality was great.  Much better than the manufactured Dunkin and Tim Hortons we eat today.  Don't get me wrong, if I pass a Tim Hortons I will still stop and get a little box of Tim Bits.

It appears the donut trend is catching on outside of the chains we have grown up with over the years.  Not too long ago a hole-in-the-wall shop popped up in downtown Chicago - Doughnut Vault (http://thedoughnutvault.tumblr.com/).  Located just around the corner from Gilt Bar (love).  I call it hole-in-the-wall because it is just that.  You walk into a hallway where there is one girl a register and a couple bakers racks of donuts - that's it. 

One Friday morning, my friend Justin and I decided to go see what the hype was all about.  We had heard many stories about people waiting in line for an hour so they could get their donut of choice - I'm not kidding.  I didn't want to wait in line for an hour, for a donut, that's absurd.  Doughnut Vault opens at 8:30AM so I figured arriving by 8AM was reasonable.  30 minutes for a donut = not absurd.  I am not great at the whole twitter thing, but I tried following doughnut vault that whole week because they post tweet updates on the line and the inventory.  From my research 8:00 seemed perfectly reasonable.  When we arrived, there was only one other person waiting outside.  We were a bit confused as we expected to be arriving to a line of at least 20.  We quickly pulled out our iPhones and mapped the nearest Starbucks (lemons into lemonade).  There was a bux around the corner, so we went and grapped a cup then headed back to the vault.  By the time we got back there were about 10 people waiting.  This was at 8:20AM.  Not too bad.  They finally opened the doors and the line quickly grew behind us.  As you may know I am incredibly indecisive (read: i had to get one of each flavor).   I decided to bring a dozen back to my team for everyone to try.  I was able to try a piece of each flavor - I had to in order to judge fairly!

I LOVED the simple boxes

Heaven

The "stacks" came in these great little sacks (sack of stacks!)

Perfection

Buttermilk Old Fashioned

Gingerbread

Vanilla Glazed

Chestnut Glazed

Chocolate Glazed

Overall, I loved the doughnut vault and thought they were all delicious.  My favorite was the vanilla glazed and my least favorite was the buttermilk old fashioned.  They also have flavors of the week from time to time so I will have to go check those out.  My guess is that there won't be much of a line once winter actually hits here in Chicago.  I would def reco going and trying each one, but get there early because according to their tweets they are usually sold out of their best flavors by 10AM. 

enjoy!
j