Seattle’s best doughnuts

#3 Mighty-O Donut

Mighty-O Donut in Wallingford sells 100% vegan products and one of their most popular pastries are their mini glazed doughnuts.

“The Mighty O looks like they’re not really glazed, but they look more like a cake doughnut,” says Seattle Kitchen Show host Tom Douglas.

Tom also noticed grease rings on his doughnuts, which he says shows that the cooking oil wasn’t hot enough and that more oil could have soaked into the doughnut.

Although co-host Thierry Rautureau is vegan and loves Mighty-O, he thinks that the doughnuts have too much sugar and don’t have that special trashy doughnut feeling that really makes your heart stop.

“I like the aftertaste of not too much sugar,” says Thierry. “I just tried one here that was really heavily glazed, that was too much sugar for me because all you taste at the end is sugar. And the sugar on the glaze is not really the taste of cooked sugar, more like a raw sugar taste.”

#2 Top Pot Doughnuts

Top Pot’s “hand forged” Raised Glazed Rings are some of the most popular local contenders, and one of Thierry’s favorites.

“What I want is what I obtain from Top Pot,” says Thierry, “which is something that has a nice little, almost a little crispiness on the outside and stays moist on the inside.”

Top Pot doughnuts tend to be heavier and more sugary than Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

“From a more chef-y standpoint, I like the gravity of the Top Pot glazed doughnut,” says Tom.

#1 Krispy Kreme

Krispy Kreme’s glazed doughnuts aren’t locally based, but Tom loves how light and sugary they are despite having the heaviest sugar glaze.

Tom says that a doughnut shouldn’t have a big grease ring, which indicates that the grease is too cold when frying doughnuts and soaks into the dough, rather than just crisping the outside. Krispy Kreme strikes an excellent balance between crisp, dry sugar glazing and soft, warm dough.

“They just feel the most trashy,” says Tom. “They just feel like you could eat a dozen and be really sick.”