Artisanal doughnuts trend on menus

As the cupcake craze begins to fade another nostalgia-inducing treat is gaining popularity: doughnuts. Made-to-order with premium ingredients and served hot, artisanal doughnuts are increasingly showing up on restaurant menus.

According to research firm Datassential's MenusTrends data, doughnuts appear on 4 percent of all restaurant menus, an increase of 27 percent since 2008. Doughnuts are now available in nearly every segment, but the biggest increase has come from fine dining, where they appear on 6 percent of all menus — a 100-percent increase in the last four years.

“People are always looking for anything that is tasty, that is sweet, that is not a cupcake,” said Tom Henneman, co-owner of Federal Donuts, a wildly popular fried chicken and doughnut shop in Philadelphia. “A hot, fresh doughnut — you can’t beat it.”

Consumers seem to agree with Henneman, who co-owns the shop with Steven Cook and chef Michael Solomonov. Customers can often be found lining up outside of the shop’s South Philly and Center City locations for a chance to order some of the only 200 “fancy” doughnuts made there each day, including flavors such as cherry almond, pistachio, double chocolate, French toast and chocolate peanut butter. Others show up later in the day to watch the shop’s doughnut robot fry to order “hot fresh” doughnuts, such as strawberry-lavender, vanilla spice and cinnamon-brown sugar.

Drawing inspiration from cultures around the globe, chefs have added fried dough treats by many names to their menu.

Farmers Fishers Bakers in Washington, D.C., currently offers Uncle Buck's Beignets, served with raspberry coulis, semisweet chocolate and bourbon caramel sauces, on its dessert and breakfast menus. At Street in Hollywood, Calif., there are Croatian sour apple fritters and Turkish doughnuts with rose-hip jam. And the menu at the recently opened Earth + Ocean Food and Drink in Mt. Prospect, Ill., features Portuguese doughnuts called malsadas.