Winner of our Best Small Batch Doughnut Award: Raised Doughnuts
Recommended by: One of our friends recommended Raised Doughnuts after seeing our Family Donut Shop review.
Description on the Raised Doughnut’s website: WE START OUR DAY AT 2AM. Scaling ingredients and mixing our dough. It takes five to six hours for our doughnuts to be made from start to finish. The dough is mixed in small batches, hand cut, shaped, fried and glazed every morning! FROM SCRATCH Our glazes, toppings and fillings are made from scratch using whole ingredients. We don’t use preservatives, fillers, or artificial coloring! Because of this, our doughnuts are best enjoyed as soon as possible!
Neighborhood/Type: Central District
Address: 1101 23rd Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
What we ate/drank: See below
Comments: One of our friends told us we should try Raised Doughnuts. We’d heard great things about them since they opened up back in the summer of 2018, but we’d never visited Raised Doughnuts since it’s a bit out of the way for us.
We decided to go early on a Monday morning and made it there right before 9:00am. Even though we arrived early on a weekday, one of their doughnuts(the mochi sugar) was already sold out. They have 6 original doughnuts which they serve daily. They also have 4 monthly special doughnuts and have also have 3 weekend special doughnuts.
On this particular occasion we ordered each of the 4 monthly special doughnuts along with a couple of their originals, the maple bar and the apple fritter. The person serving us( I believe the owner) gave us a extra apple fritter for free because she deemed the fritter a bit on the small size. Score!
Before talking about the doughnuts, we wanted to talk about Raised Doughnuts. During the time we visited, dine-in wasn’t an option due to the Covid-19 situation, so we were met at the door with a menu posted on the wall for available doughnuts. Although we weren’t allowed inside we could see inside and it looks like it’s somebody’s house with doughnut shop inside it.
Finding parking was a bitch. I think they have two spots outside their building otherwise it’s street parking.
The owner worked at Macrina Bakery for 10 years, so she definitely has a pedigree. For those of you not familiar with Macrina Bakery, they are probably the most popular bakery in Seattle. And not only did she work there, she was actually the head pastry chef.
With that background, it’s no wonder the owner of Eastern Cafe decided to form a business partnership to make Raised Doughnuts into a brick and mortar business after having done numerous pop-ups around Seattle.
During regular times(non-Covid), Raised Doughnuts also offers classes for making doughnuts, cakes and cookies.
And here are some other interesting things about Raised Doughnuts from their website:
- ANTI WASTE There is a lot of food waste in our industry and we don’t want to add to it! We strive to avoid waste at all costs. This is why we choose to make one big batch a day and sell them until they’re gone! We also use every last bit of our dough, recycling the scraps into fritters and holes.
- WEEKENDS We bust out our maximum capacity. Which comes out to approx. 1500+ doughnuts a day on the weekend.
- WEEKDAYS Our weekday batches vary and are determined using our gut and past sales. Sometimes we sell dozens at a time and other days just a few per person. Because of this unpredictability, some days we sell out quickly while other days we last all day. We encourage preordering or calling ahead to put some aside. No minimum required! We just ask you to pick them up by 1PM!
On to the doughnuts. The Cranberry Thyme had a nice thick glaze with sprinkled cranberries on it. It was nice and sweet and perfect with a cup of coffee, but couldn’t really taste the cranberry. Perhaps it’s mainly for aesthetics. Another of the monthly specials was the Gingerbread Fritter, which again had ample amounts of glaze and definitely had a festive look with red(peppermint?) and white toppings and was the favorite of our daughter. The Pandan Mochi is all about the texture. It’s light, but chewy like a mochi doughnut should. We both took a bite and were surprised by the chewiness. We’re thinking it’s harder to make a mochi doughnut in a traditional doughnut shape versus the connected little balls at Dochi.
White Choc Peppermint Bark Bar -$3.50
The White Choc Peppermint Bark Bar was my personal favorite. It was like eating a candy cane doughnut. Really minty fresh. Perfect for the holiday season. The apple fritter doesn’t look like your traditional round flat fritter. The fritter here is actually dense, shaped almost like a muffin. Fluffy with bits of apple, this was another winner. I’m not a huge fan of maple bars and usually maple bars may have a hint of maple syrup. The Raised Doughnut maple bar strongly tastes like maple syrup, so if you’re a fan, grab one of these.
The higher quality(and higher prices) and the one-of-a-kind doughnuts remind us of Half N Half Doughnut Co.
As mentioned Raised Doughnuts is a bit of a trek for us and the doughnuts are a bit on the higher priced side, but you just get the feeling a lot of thought, care and personal touch is put into these one-of-a-kind doughnuts. Our recommendation is to try the specials. The originals are good but, the specials are exceptional. If we have a hankering for doughnuts we’re likely to go to some of the donut places closer to home, but on special occasions or if we want to impress out-of-town visitors, we’ll definitely hit up Raised Doughnuts.
Ratings:
Atmosphere: N/A (During Covid 19, so no entry)
Service: 4.75
Food/Drinks: 4.75
Bang for the Buck: 4.25
Overall: 4.65
Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.
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- Well known or Touristy. Most locals don’t go there unless they have business dinners or visitors in town.
- Most locals know about it
- Locals “in the know” know about it
- Only those who live close by know about it.
- You’re in on the secret. Don’t tell anybody!
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