Happy One Year Doughnut Day!

On this day last year, Carter and I decided to do a doughnut tour of Pittsburgh. We deemed this day doughnut day, as we were planning to visit around 5 doughnut shops. Even though doughnut day was a year ago, I wanted to reminisce and share our doughnut experience with everyone, especially anyone who is in Pittsburgh and can go try these delicious doughnuts for themselves.

You may wonder, how did these two come up with a doughnut day? Well, one day in late January, Carter and I were trying to think of something fun to do on the weekend. Something that would mix things up from our typical Saturday. Out of nowhere, one of us decided that it was time we find the best doughnut in Pittsburgh. We searched on Google and Yelp for different doughnut shops and bakeries, until we were able to make a condensed list of places that were in a 20 minute radius of us. We decided Better Maid Donuts, Just Good Donuts, Donut Connection, Big Daddy’s Donuts, and Grandview Bakery would be our 5 stops.

To give you a background of how Carter and I rate doughnuts, we use a scale from 1-10 and a glaze doughnut as the “base.” Specifically, on our doughnut scale, getting anywhere from a 6 and above means the doughnut is good! It’s not until you hit the 8’s where the doughnut is out of this world. I’m most positive we have never even rated a doughnut above 8.2. So no shop should take any offense to the numbers being low compared to your typical rating. To compare it to another, well-know rating system, our scale is very similar to Dave Portnoy’s One Bite scale. He is harsh, but makes it known that lower numbers are still good ratings!

As for how we compare doughnut shops, we find that using a glaze doughnut is the best way. This is because every place that sells doughnuts has glaze and they are usually made in similar ways!

Better Maid Donuts - Crafton Heights 8.2/10

To kick off Doughnut Day, Carter and I went to Better Maid Donuts in Crafton Heights. This donut shop had the best reviews and said you had to get there early to get the doughnuts, as they typically sell out. So Carter and I got out the door, in hopes that not many people would want doughnuts on a cold Saturday morning. As we came up the hill, where Better Maid was located, we saw a “Fresh Donuts” sign in front of what looked like a little white house. Had that sign not been there, Carter and I probably would’ve missed the shop.

When we walked inside, we were greeted by a jolly couple — the owners of Better Maid. The man who gets up at the crack of dawn to make these amazing doughnuts was there and able to recommend the best doughnuts to us. Although some of the flavors were already gone, we were lucky enough to get glazed, blueberry cake, and chocolate cake, all flavors that we would have chosen had all the doughnuts been in stock.

If I remember correctly, I think we both tried the glaze first. The glaze was good, but not the best glaze that we’ve ever had (currently that is Krispy Kreme’s). Next we dug into the cake doughnuts. I made the big mistake of having the blueberry one before the chocolate. I say this because Better Maid’s blueberry cake donut is the best donut I’ve ever had. As soon as you bite into the doughnut, your taste buds are met with an extremely fresh blueberry flavor. The glaze melts in your mouth and isn’t too sweet. The doughnut itself is not as dense as your typical cake doughnuts and has actual blueberries in it. All in all, we both have not found a doughnut as good as this one. We’ve come close (at Sunnyside Pastries), but Better Maid is truly where doughnuts are made best

Just Good Donuts - South Side 6.7/10

The next stop on our doughnut tour was Just Good Donuts in South Side. Just Good is actually just donuts on a countertop inside the Pub Chip Shop, which is a fish and chip restaurant. While this may seem odd, the doughnuts there were very good. I’d say the glaze we had there was the best one we had in all of Pittsburgh. It was super fluffy and the glaze itself was almost like Krispy Kreme’s. If it was hot the doughnut would’ve been amazing.

As for the rest of the doughnuts, we got cookies and cream, a peanut butter doughnut for me, and a maple bacon doughnut for Carter. The cookies and cream doughnut was as good as it looks. With big Oreo chunks and a vanilla based frosting that had oreos in it, this doughnut was perfect for all cookie lovers. As for the peanut butter doughnut, I thought it was tasty, but the butterfinger’s on it were a little too much for me. Now, onto Carter’s sacred maple bacon doughnut. While I didn’t try the doughnut, I know that Carter highly enjoyed it. The real strips of bacon allowed it to have a ton of bacon flavor, compared to other doughnut places that just put little chunks of bacon on top.

While I wish I could say I enjoyed each doughnut immensely and finished them in a flash, I sadly got sugared out and could only eat 2.5 doughnuts. This messed up our original plan, as we were supposed to get half a dozen at each place. Doing so would have allowed us to try different flavors and different types of doughnuts (cake, yeast, etc.) to really narrow down which doughnut shop is the best. While Just Good was the last place we got 6 doughnuts, everything worked out, as there were slim pickings at the last 3 shops.

Donut Connection - Pittsburgh, PA 5.2/10

The third stop for doughnut day was at Donut Connection. As soon as we pulled up we both thought the place looked a little odd, with it’s outdated looking ads on the windows. Once we walked in, we could tell Donut Connection was Dunkin’s long lost cousin. The layout of the shop was just like a Dunkin and they sold more than just donuts, including coffee and bagels.

Now onto the doughnuts. We both found they actually were pretty similar to Dunkin. Not bad, but not anything super special. The texture was definitely there, but the glaze just wasn’t like that of a craft doughnut, thus making it fall further down on our scale. If you need a quick doughnut and coffee and find yourself near a Donut Connection then you should try it out, but I wouldn’t say you should go out of your way to go there.

Big Daddy's Donuts - Crafton 5.5/10

For our fourth stop, we made our way back towards Better Maid, to try a doughnut shop with an iconic name. Big Daddy’s Donuts lured us in with the name, but also the variety of donuts they sold. The doughnut shop had more than just glaze. Specifically, they had doughnuts with fruity pebbles, chocolate donuts, cherry donuts, and the list goes on. While Carter and I could’ve tried a fun flavor, we decided to stick with glaze, as we figured it’d be easier to compare to the previous places we had been.

The glaze doughnuts we had were you typical yeast doughnut. They were fluffy, but not as fluffy as the beloved Krispy Kreme. The glaze itself was sweet, but overall nothing special. We both agreed that Big Daddy’s was slightly better than Donut Connection, but both shops fall in the same category– plain old, but good doughnuts.

Grandview Bakery - Mount Washington 5.8/10

Our fifth and final stop of the day was actually an unplanned one. Carter and I were going to make the trip to Krispy Kreme, but it was 40 minutes away and we already knew what the doughnuts tasted like. Instead of stopping after 4 places, we really wanted to go to a fifth. So we had to pull over and brainstorm. I remember searching hard on Yelp to find a place that sells doughnuts close by, as there were many places north of Pittsburgh, but just too far for us. Luckily, we found Grandview Bakery in Mount Washington.

Grandview was your typical bakery. It had lots of cakes and cookies, but also a few doughnuts. When we got there, it was about 2:30, so there wasn’t a large variety of doughnuts, and we knew they wouldn’t be super fresh. I got a chocolate cake doughnut and Carter got a cinnamon sugar one! While we both agreed they weren’t bad, the doughnuts weren’t on the same caliber as other specialty doughnut places like Better Maid.

My chocolate cake doughnut was very similar to my old favorite – Pop’ems chocolate cake donuts. The doughnut was just as dense and had tons of sprinkles (which was a plus!) While I found the doughnut to be a little too dense, I did enjoy the chocolate glaze and the texture that the sprinkles brought.

Overall, Carter and I decided Better Maid is the best donut shop in Pittsburgh. The donuts were so fresh and we could not stop thinking about them the rest of the day. We still bring up how badly we want to go back to Better Maid because their donuts were out of this world!

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