A Trip to Wooster for Lerch's Donuts

If you happen to find yourself near Wooster, Ohio, you might want to take a moment to find one of it's hidden treasures. A friend of mine alerted me to the presence of Lerch's Donuts (Twitter feed here) and suggested that I give them a try. Unfortunately, I had a problem. The website only lists their permanent location as "Portage Square Plaza". Both Google and Yahoo had a hard time putting an exact address to that search term. Fortunately, another Wooster-related site that allows users to comment on local businesses had an entry on Lerch's along with their location information. Specifically they are at 2312 Akron Road, Wooster, OH 44691. Akron Road also happens to be Rt. 585, the same one that connects Barberton to Wooster.

Unable to verify when their hours were (having a website is nice, but leaving off things like a street address and business hours seems a little pointless, no?), I decided to throw caution to the wind and drive down anyway as it was a lovely day. After weaving around left and right turns on Rt. 585, I finally came to the intersection of Akron and Portage Roads and immediately saw what I was looking for, a tiny little fair-style cart sitting in front of what used to be Hawkins Market (which has huge lettering by the way, hard to miss) on the right hand side of the road.

I pulled off and found a place to park and walked up to this:


The menu is simple: donuts, French waffles, and freshly squeezed lemonade. And even the donuts were simple: plain, sugared, or cinnamon sugared. While this one location I was at is permanent, there are two other carts that travel local fairs and festivals. Clearly the menu is short and sweet because they know what they are good at and this is exactly the food product they are trying to provide. No artifice at all.

Looking over the prices, I decided to get the "6 donuts for $3" deal. Two of each please. I walked away with this:


I normally try to avoid getting parts of my hand in the shot, but it was an extremely windy day today and had I let the bag go, it would have either a) fallen over or b) been moving so much that I wouldn't have gotten a good photograph. I decided that I'd better do the taste test while sitting inside my car.

Having worked so well for my Swensons post, I decided to do the food-on-the-knee photography again. These are smaller donuts (much like The Fractured Prune) so there is no need to feel guilty about eating a couple at a time. Here are the three kinds:


At the top is the plain, at 4 o'clock is the cinnamon sugared and at 8 o'clock is the sugared. They are all made from the same basic cake donut batter, but then finished in different ways (again like The Fractured Prune). Here is a shot of the interior of the plain donut:


I was quite surprised when I went to lift the donuts up off the napkin to finally eat them. I found no grease spots whatsoever. This lack of greasiness definitely translated to a wonderful light-tasting experience when eating them.

In doing my research on Lerch's before making the decision to go, on more than one occasion I came across comments from both websites and people who said that these made-to-order donuts were superior because you received them right out of the fryer. Now this may very well be true if you hit them up first thing in the morning or when they are close to running low on inventory, but when I got there and ordered my six, the woman simply walked over to a set of trays, slid one out and filled my bag. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask when the donuts had been fried, but it had been long enough that they were the same temperature as the outside air.

When I finally had a chance to try them, I decided to start with the simplest of the three, the plain donut. It had an interesting "crunch" to the outside. More of a resistance than a crunch really. I liked it. The donut itself was nice and fresh on the inside and what really surprised me a lot was the controlled level of sweetness. It wasn't cloyingly sweet like a Krispy Kreme is. I also found that even with the cinnamon sugared and sugared donuts, they were equally as restrained on the sweetness factor. I found that I rather enjoyed them.

I ate three of them sitting in my car and then brought the other three home with me. I tried them again several hours later and found that while the flavor was still the same as it had been earlier, that elusive "crunch" was now missing; effects of the room's humidity no doubt. I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that they are probably at their peak when right out of the fryer and dredged in the cinnamon and/or sugar coatings.

Would I purposely drive the forty-five minutes it took me to get there again just for these donuts? Probably not. If I was within fifteen minutes of their location, would I change course for some of these donuts? Absolutely. And if one of the two extra Lerch's carts happened to be at a fair or festival I was attending? Perfect.

And before I forget to mention it, I asked the woman working behind the counter what their hours of operation are. Hours of operation are from 6:30 am - 6:30 pm, although the closer you get to 6:30 pm, the less inventory they may have available to sell.

While these donuts probably wouldn't appeal to the extreme sweet tooth readers out there, for everyone else they are a nice treat and I definitely recommend them.

Even Homer Would Be Drooling

Mmmmm, donuts.

One day, out on my lunch break in Massillon, Ohio, I happened to stumble onto a small donut and pastry shop located in a strip mall in a completely out of the way location. Always on the lookout for interesting and unusual places, I walked in to check it out. I'm so glad I did.

I am talking, of course, about Johnnie's Pastry Shop located at 232 Federal Avenue NW, Massillon, OH 44647. The phone number is 330-832-9666. There is no website at this time. Don't get this Johnnie's confused with the Johnnie's just outside of downtown Canton. They are in no way related (trust me, I made this mistake only once), though I'm sure the latter is a fine place to visit as well.

The first thing you notice about the donuts at Johnnie's is how nice and large they are. They looked quite good even though I knew they had been sitting in the glass display cases since that morning. Looking over my choices, I noticed they had several filled varieties and asked the counter person to explain the different choices. When she got to the custard filled with a chocolate glaze, I stopped her right there. "One, please!"

Initially I thought it was a tad expensive that that the donuts were one dollar each, but when she finally handed me my little bag with my donut in it, I was taken aback at how heavy it was. These donuts are about twice as big and twice as heavy as the ones you'll get at your local Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kreme store.

I debated on whether or not to wait until later to eat my donut since I had just had lunch, but when I got back in my car I decided to eat my sweet treat right then and there. It was at that moment that I discovered the magic of Johnnie's wonderfully rich and eggy dough with just a hint of cinnamon spice. And they were filled with the most fantastic pastry cream that was sweet but not too sweet. I was instantly hooked and I realized that there was no doubt that this was SO worth the money.

Fast forward to today. Realizing that it had been a while since I had one of their donuts, I decided to grab lunch at a small Chinese place near Johnnie's so I could drop by and pick up an assortment of their goodies for your viewing (and my eating) pleasure.

Here is the box from the store:


And a shot of the assorted donuts I purchased today:


There is a custard filled, jelly filled, glazed, and one of their famous Danish crullers. Now lest you, gentle reader, think I am silly enough to try and eat all four donuts, don't worry. The resulting stomach ache and sugar coma would've made writing this review impossible. After photographing each one, I split them up with work colleagues who were all too eager to scarf them down. Although, to be fair, I've had these enough times that I could probably describe each and every one without having to taste them first. But, in the interest of culinary science, I pushed myself to re-taste each variety. I know, it sucks to be me.

Let's talk about the high notes of each of the donuts. Here is a shot of the exterior and interior of the custard filled:



Do note that the glaze on both the custard filled and jelly filled are going to look a little wonky. Unfortunately, they sat in my hot car on the ride back from lunch and the glaze more or less did what glaze does at that temperature; it melted. When you get them at the shop, I assure you they have a much nicer finished look to them.

This is just an amazing combination of wonderfully tender dough along with the vanilla pudding-like texture and flavor of a good pastry cream. After my initial visit, I talked to one of the counter people about the incredibly deep yellow, almost goldenrod, color of the donut and she said it was due to the number and quality of the eggs that are used in the batter. No artificial coloring is used at all.

Additionally, all their donuts are fried in lard. I'm assuming it is hydrogenated lard as that would be the more common product. I didn't want to push the counter person too much further because she had already started getting a glazed look in her eye when I asked about the frying fat used. In any event, the donuts always have a clean fried flavor without any of that "used oil" smell or taste. And even though they are fried, they are never greasy.

Next up, the jelly filled:



This uses the same egg-rich batter as the custard filled, but is injected with a seedless raspberry filling and glazed with a vanilla glaze. While the custard filled has always been my favorite, if they are out of those (and many times by noon they are), I am certainly happy to have one of these in its place.

Third on the list is the simple glazed donut. Not being quite as complex as the other donuts, these only cost $0.80 a piece.



There are no competing flavors in this donut. When you break it apart, you see the yellow eggy goodness and when you give it a sniff? Eggs, eggs, and more eggs! It almost has a brioche like quality to it and even more to a point, a Rich Man's brioche. Like I mentioned earlier, there is just a hint of cinnamon spice in the batter, too. In fact, if you look closely at the dough, you can see little specks of it. Amazingly tender, this really is a wonderful example of a simple glazed donut. And while I do like a hot glazed Krispy Kreme right off the line every now and again, Johnnie's glazed donut is much more restrained on the sugar and in the end, a more balanced product.

Finally, the specialty of the house, the Danish cruller. These are available with or without chopped peanuts:



This is similar in flavor to the plain glazed donut, only in cruller form. Because the two sides of the cruller are a little thinner, these tend to dry out sooner than a glazed would. Then again, if chopped peanuts are your thing, this guy is the one for you.

The one type of donut that I wasn't all that impressed with in past visits were the creme sticks. But I don't fault Johnnie's for that. They use the same wonderful donut batter for the donut itself. I'm just not a fan of the "creme" that most pastry and donut places use. Something about sweetened vegetable shortening just doesn't appeal to my palate.

I was originally going to end this write-up with:

"So, if you happen to be in the Massillon area and looking for an outstanding donut experience, I heartily recommend Johnnie's."

Um, no. I've changed my mind. Strike the above sentence.

DRIVE to Massillon and buy yourself some of these outstanding donuts. I think you will love them as much as I do. Just make sure you get there early enough to ensure that the custard filled chocolate glazed haven't sold out.

And if driving all that way seems like too guilty of a pleasure just for donuts, stop by the Riverbank General Store on your way back to pick up some wonderful Hartzler dairy products like milk, unsalted butter and ice cream. They also have organic grains and grass-fed meats as well as locally produced honey and maple syrup.

The Fractured Prune and other magical fruits

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Fractured Prune:


Located at 8254 High St. N.E., Warren, OH 44484, I found out about this store from a post on the Cleveland Food and Wine Forum hosted by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. There has been much discussion about finding a place where the donuts are made fresh and served hot. Nerve44 was good enough to post a link to the Fractured Prune's website. It was here I discovered that not too far from my house was an actual location. Thinking to myself that it would make an excellent day trip (is 45 minutes each way too far for a fantastically good donut?), I resigned that I would try them very soon.

As it turns out, I have the day off of work today ... and absolutely nothing on my schedule. No gifts to return, no malls to visit, no family obligations. At around 9 am it dawns on me: TODAY would be an excellent day for a food outing. In addition, the Fractured Prune was also on my way to another restaurant that I've been dying to get to in the last six years in Buffalo, NY. More about that in my next post.

So, I downloaded all the maps and contact information onto my G1 and headed out the door around 10:15 am. Everything went pretty smoothly on the drive over until I missed my exit onto Route 46. Oops. And of course, the next exit was another 5 miles down the road. But, in the end, I got there around 11:10 or so and was duly rewarded for my patience.

From what I had read, the place was always swamped with regulars, so I kind of figured that I wouldn't be able to get the face time with the person behind the counter to talk about their product. But I was fortunate to hit them exactly at a window where I was the only one in the store. The store's owner, Wendy, warmly greeted me and when she found out that I had driven all the way from Akron just to try them out quickly offered me one of their signature glazed donuts on the house.

Before I get to the donuts, a little bit of what I observed when I walked into the store. First, there are maybe 2 or 3 tables, not many, but most people are probably taking their donuts on the go. Behind the counter on the left is where the donuts are deposited into the oil, move along and come out the other side. I was surprised at how quickly this happens. From start to finish my donut was ready within about 1-2 minutes. I realized that to get this speed, the donuts are smaller than other competitors, but they are still a decent size (you'll see in the photos). To the right is the dipping and topping station where you can choose from 15 glazes, 7 toppings, and 3 sugars. If my math is correct (and it *always* is), if you choose a glaze, a topping, and a sugar, that's 315 possible combinations.

Besides donuts, they also offer bagels and breakfast sandwich combinations as well as a more decadent scoop of ice cream on top of your hot donut type dessert. While they all sounded good, I was here for the donuts.

Now let's get on to the good stuff, the donuts. First off, the glazed donut.


This was SO good, and in my opinion the best of the three that I tried. Crispy on the outside, hot and creamy on the inside, with just enough sweetness from the glaze. All of the donuts they offer are based on the same cake donut batter, so don't bother asking about any yeast-raised donuts. The paper plate it was served on was just your standard small paper plate you can get at any grocery store ... just to give you some perspective on the size of the actual donut.

Next up, the Chocolate Covered Cherry donut.


By the time she brought over the finished donut, the mini chocolate chips had started to melt. They were in that state between hard and soft. Also quite delicious. Although I discovered that with any of the donuts with the glazes that they could get a little messy when they were still hot. But OH so worth it.

Finally, I asked Wendy about one of their other popular donuts on the menu. She indicated that the Blueberry Hill donut was very popular. Consisting of a blueberry glaze and powdered sugar, this one looked like:


I thought it was better than the chocolate covered cherry, but not as good as that stellar glazed donut that I started with.

I did ask Wendy about the type of oil they used to fry their donuts in and she told me that they used vegetable shortening for now. However, the franchise is currently in the process of finding a trans-fat free oil to use in its place in short order.

Overall, I had a great experience at the Fractured Prune. The counter service was friendly, helpful, and willing to answer all my questions. Not to mention, the product was incredibly delicious. And because the donuts themselves aren't overly large, you can try several and see which one is your favorite.