Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

How much dough is put into these donuts?

Superior ingredients are just part of the story in Carlsbad

Assorted gourmet donuts, never more than a couple hours old at The Goods in Carlsbad Village
Assorted gourmet donuts, never more than a couple hours old at The Goods in Carlsbad Village

“There are two sides to every story.” This phrase has been following me around for several weeks. Maybe it’s the alternative facts-age replacement for that cliché of acceptance, “It is what it is.” Whatever the reason, people keep offering me the “two sides” adage to explain away any contentious dispute, so it pops into my head while I’m doing something so noncontroversial as eating donuts.

Place

The Goods

2965 State St, Carlsbad

Make that gourmet donuts, what some like to call artisan donuts. Plenty among us would argue artisan donuts are a pointless waste of money. That there’s little one can do to a single donut to make it worth paying three or four dollars, when you can get a dozen conventional donuts for less than a buck apiece. It’s a fair point, considering the base ingredients don’t vary all that much. Artisan donuts tend to rely upon flour, butter, and sugar, just like any other.

Sponsored
Sponsored
A chocolate ganache raised donut, and mixed berry jelly donut topped with fruit

Last year, the urban gourmet donut trend made its way into Carlsbad Village, where The Goods began marketing donuts in the three to four dollar range. Paying a visit, I found myself browsing the likes of s’mores donuts, boasting a chocolate glaze topped by toasted graham cracker crumbs and “brûléed” mini marshmallows.

However, unlike other gourmet donut makers, which seem to specialize in unexpected flavor combinations that might involve the likes of tea, breakfast cereal, or root vegetables, The Goods seems to emphasize making elevated versions of classic donut styles, offering most as either cake donut, or the billowy, raised yeast variety. A fine example is The Goods’ use of Tahitian vanilla beans to cook up a vanilla glaze from scratch.

My favorite of the bunch has been the simple chocolate glaze donut, presented here as a Chocolate Ganache, owing to a glaze made from a “housemade blend of cacao berry, milk, and dark chocolate.” A lifetime of eating basic chocolate glazes has taught me to expect little actual chocolate flavor. Typically, it’s a bare hint of fudge enveloped in a frost of crystalized sugar.

Easily enough to touch any childlike heart, but a far cry from the darker, relatively complex chocolate notes provided by this ganache. It’s only a bit larger than a conventional donut, but here The Goods’ insistence on a richly genuine chocolate experience justifies the higher price tag. If you buy my side of the story, that is.

Such improvements aren’t guaranteed to win everybody over. Most of my life, my favorite donut glaze has been maple, even though years have gone by since I’ve been naïve enough to expect genuine maple be involved. And yet, here it was: the Vermont maple glaze, promising “100% pure maple syrup combined with butter and powdered sugar.” I almost tripped over myself ordering it, but unlike the chocolate, the ratio here didn’t win me over: the genuine maple got lost in a lot of cloying powdered sugar sweetness.

Then again, that powdered sugar played well as a coating to a mixed berry jelly donut, balancing the tartness of the fruity jam, and the doughy biscuit flavors of the pastry. Whether it tastes like an extra couple of bucks is debatable, but I’d rather eat one of these than three old school donuts. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Houston ex-mayor donates to Toni Atkins governor fund

LGBT fights in common
Next Article

San Diego beaches not that nice to dogs

Bacteria and seawater itself not that great
Assorted gourmet donuts, never more than a couple hours old at The Goods in Carlsbad Village
Assorted gourmet donuts, never more than a couple hours old at The Goods in Carlsbad Village

“There are two sides to every story.” This phrase has been following me around for several weeks. Maybe it’s the alternative facts-age replacement for that cliché of acceptance, “It is what it is.” Whatever the reason, people keep offering me the “two sides” adage to explain away any contentious dispute, so it pops into my head while I’m doing something so noncontroversial as eating donuts.

Place

The Goods

2965 State St, Carlsbad

Make that gourmet donuts, what some like to call artisan donuts. Plenty among us would argue artisan donuts are a pointless waste of money. That there’s little one can do to a single donut to make it worth paying three or four dollars, when you can get a dozen conventional donuts for less than a buck apiece. It’s a fair point, considering the base ingredients don’t vary all that much. Artisan donuts tend to rely upon flour, butter, and sugar, just like any other.

Sponsored
Sponsored
A chocolate ganache raised donut, and mixed berry jelly donut topped with fruit

Last year, the urban gourmet donut trend made its way into Carlsbad Village, where The Goods began marketing donuts in the three to four dollar range. Paying a visit, I found myself browsing the likes of s’mores donuts, boasting a chocolate glaze topped by toasted graham cracker crumbs and “brûléed” mini marshmallows.

However, unlike other gourmet donut makers, which seem to specialize in unexpected flavor combinations that might involve the likes of tea, breakfast cereal, or root vegetables, The Goods seems to emphasize making elevated versions of classic donut styles, offering most as either cake donut, or the billowy, raised yeast variety. A fine example is The Goods’ use of Tahitian vanilla beans to cook up a vanilla glaze from scratch.

My favorite of the bunch has been the simple chocolate glaze donut, presented here as a Chocolate Ganache, owing to a glaze made from a “housemade blend of cacao berry, milk, and dark chocolate.” A lifetime of eating basic chocolate glazes has taught me to expect little actual chocolate flavor. Typically, it’s a bare hint of fudge enveloped in a frost of crystalized sugar.

Easily enough to touch any childlike heart, but a far cry from the darker, relatively complex chocolate notes provided by this ganache. It’s only a bit larger than a conventional donut, but here The Goods’ insistence on a richly genuine chocolate experience justifies the higher price tag. If you buy my side of the story, that is.

Such improvements aren’t guaranteed to win everybody over. Most of my life, my favorite donut glaze has been maple, even though years have gone by since I’ve been naïve enough to expect genuine maple be involved. And yet, here it was: the Vermont maple glaze, promising “100% pure maple syrup combined with butter and powdered sugar.” I almost tripped over myself ordering it, but unlike the chocolate, the ratio here didn’t win me over: the genuine maple got lost in a lot of cloying powdered sugar sweetness.

Then again, that powdered sugar played well as a coating to a mixed berry jelly donut, balancing the tartness of the fruity jam, and the doughy biscuit flavors of the pastry. Whether it tastes like an extra couple of bucks is debatable, but I’d rather eat one of these than three old school donuts. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Hike off those holiday calories, Poinsettias are peaking

Winter Solstice is here and what is winter?
Next Article

Born & Raised offers a less decadent Holiday Punch

Cognac serves to lighten the mood
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader