While Blognut knows there’s a ton of artisanal, over-chefed and over-priced Donuts floating around this great city, none of which I assure you are nearly as satisfying as a Peter Pan glazed or a Tres Leches from the Doughnut Plant, I still find myself fascinated by these feeble attempts to gentrify the most common of all foods. For some reason chefs seem to take great pleasure in placing a working class ring of fried dough on their dessert menu alongside limoncello gelati and goat milk panna cotta with huckleberry compote while managing to please a room full of snooty gourmands.

There’s Tabla, the high-end Indian joint nestled in the bowels of the Met Life Tower known for its orange blossom fritters with a triad of dipping sauces: vanilla rum, caramel and berry jam spiked with Thai chili. Then there’s the pricey A Voce, serving Bombolini, tennis ball-sized Italian Donuts filled with rich vanilla cream that rest on a shallow pool of apricot marmalade. Now I’ve tried both of these – unfortunately, on both occasions I found myself without a camera and was therefore unable to properly review them on the pages of Blognut – and while delicious and innovative, they just weren’t quite worth the exorbitant prices - $8 and $10 per order, respectively. There’s also Riingo, a fancy sushi hole in Midtown serving Green Tea Doughnuts with green tea ice cream, sabayon and a slaw of Asian pears and apples. I haven’t tried these yet so I can’t comment.

And then there’s Hearth, a sleek yet warm spot in the East Village specializing in American Nouveau cuisine. A while back my friends C and E, who swear by this place, informed me that Hearth’s dessert menu included apple cider Donuts, and it’s been on my must-try list ever since. So how lucky am I when two weeks ago Mrs. Blognut surprises me with an early Christmas present – dinner, and more importantly dessert for two at Hearth.

I won’t bore you Donut aficionados babbling about appetizers and entrees, but let’s just say everything was great, from the grilled quail with tomato preserves to the roasted sturgeon with black olive and garlic. So with our main courses behind us, I anxiously await the waiter’s return with my dessert order already decided. He arrives at our table and starts reciting the evening’s offerings – this is when things get more complicated. “Our special tonight is Sufganiyah,” says the watier, “an Israeli Donut traditionally served on Hanukah. It’s basically a small, sugar-coated Donut filled with homemade raspberry jelly.” Rather than reveal my gluttonous ways to the garcon by ordering both, I manage to sway Mrs. Blognut away from the sorbet sampler and convince her that what she really wants are the apple cider Donuts, while I get the special.

The cider Donuts come with sides of apple compote and maple cream and are drizzled with a thick layer of moist glaze. Together the flavors are fresh, sweet and fruity and bring to mind fall days, newly tapped Vermont maples and leaky cow utters. Hearth manages to incorporate slightly more complex flavors while still maintaining the simplicity of an old-fashioned apple cider Donut. All in all they taste like a really good version of the dime a dozen Donuts fried at apple orchards all across the country. The only problem is that my Donuts are over-cooked to the point where their exterior is dark, burnt brown in color, and have the consistency of a piece of toast. It’s really too bad given the solid flavor.

The Sufganiyah are a different story – these are good all the way around. Roughly the size of a Titleist, each Sufganiyah is made with airy and perfectly-cooked yeast-raised dough with a slight external crispiness. They’re coated with granulated sugar and filled with a sweet and viscous raspberry jelly. I eat all five before Mrs. Blognut is able to try one.

So while I remain somewhat philosophically opposed to overly gourmet-ifying my favorite edible, I will say that Hearth’s Donuts manage to walk the line perfectly, likely able to please blubbery NYPD Dunkin’ munchers and wine guzzling foodies alike. Plus, if I’m going to pay $11 for two apple cider Donuts and a pile of cream, I at least want them to taste cheap.

Donut Scores:

Apple Cider -

Sufganiyah -

Oh yeah, and sorry about the crappy photos. With a dimly lit room and me not wanting to annoy a room full of fine diners with flash photography, this was the best I could do.

…for giving our readership a boost.

You see, Bobby has this show on the Food Network called Throwdown with Bobby Flay. The premise has the red-headed wonder challenging cooks around the country to a “throwdown” involving that particular person’s strong suit. He’s taken on New Jersey’s own Butch in a BBQ competition, Staten Island’s Giorgio Giove in Pizza, and Louisville, Kentucky’s Lynn Winter (owner of Lynn’s Paradise Café) in breakfast. But last weekend Flay threwdown something a bit closer to Blognut’s stomach, the Doughnut.

Now for Bobby to prove himself a worthy Nut-maker, there’s really only one person that comes to mind for him to do battle against – the nation’s foremost artisanal Doughnut monger, Mark Israel, owner and operator of NYC’s Doughnut Plant. And that’s just what he did.

Throwdown is an awkward enterprise for two reasons. One, Bobby’s competitors have no idea that they’re about to be challenged. Basically the Food Network contacts them asking to do a feature. FN execs are like, “Yeah, we just want to follow you around for a week watching you cook. Then we’ll throw a big party and film it, sort of a grand finale for you to showcase your speciality to millions of viewers.” Then the person they’ve contacted is like, “Count me in. I gonna be on the Food Network. Kick ass!” But what the Network doesn’t tell the competitor, is that just when the party’s about to begin, they plan to send in world-renowned chef Bobby Flay with 2 professional assistants and $50,000 in high-end cooking equipment, to challenge them, and potentially rip away their one source of pride. It’s really pretty messed up if you ask Blognut. Because it’s not like these people asked to be challenged by one of the most accomplished chefs in the country. And it’s not like they can decline, as this would one, appear cowardly, and two, most likely ruin their chances of ever appearing on the Food Network again.

So the second weird aspect of Throwdown, is that friends and family members of whomever Bobby is battling, are used as judges, so Flay never really has a chance. Now I assume this is to skirt the painful awkwardness of BF actually winning. But on the other hand, it makes for boring, predictable TV. Now I think the Food Network has begun to realize this, because the last two Throwdown episodes I’ve seen (battle-Doughnut included) have used blinded judges. And how hard was it to watch when Bobby actually beat a small-time seafood chowder maker from Williamsburg Brooklyn?! Bobby shows up unannounced, embarrasses the hell out of the guy in front of all his friends, and drives off in his shiny black pickup back to his throne in Manhattan. This is just a really bad idea for a show, no matter how you spin it.

So back to Doughnuts. To celebrate the Doughnut Plant’s 7th anniversary, Mark Israel and co are throwing a Doughnut Disco on a West Manhattan pier. As expected, Mark thinks all the cameras are there to film the event for his Food Network profile. But then guess what? Bobby Flay shows up.

Mark looks stunned as Bobby explains what’s happening, but agrees to the throwdown (I really hate this word by the way). As bobby walks away, Mark’s expression turns agitated. “What is this?! He tricked me into this! I’m not doing it!” (or words to that effect). Then comes a shot of a nervous looking Flay – as if thinking, this has never happened before. Now what? Next we see Isreal’s assistant giving him a pep talk and finally announcing, “We’ll do it. We’ll do it.” The only catch is Mark refuses to make any Nuts from scratch. He says he doesn’t have the right equipment with him, and that he will only compete if he can use the pre-made Doughnuts he brought with him to the Disco. Flay agrees to the terms.

This whole episode really bothered me. The Doughnut plant is one of my all time favorite Nut-houses, and witnessing such childish behavior from its founder was upsetting.

Bobby starts by unveiling his ever-so-chefy blackberry and white-chocolate ganache-filled yeast-raised with hazelnuts. Mark counters with his Chocolate Blackout – a chocolate cake Doughnut stuffed with chocolate pudding – and a raspberry-glazed (the chunks of fresh fruit in the glaze look amazing). At this point I start salivating. But the competitors can only submit one Nut to the judges. So Mark pulls out his secret weapon – his popular Tres Leches Cake Doughnut. Based on the tradiaional Mexican cake recipe, the TL is a cake-Doughnut injected with three different types of milk.

Mark released the Tres Leches this past May in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Blognut was there to try it at which point Mark said, “We may have to keep this one on the menu. Everyone seems to love it.”

While we know the Tres Leches is a top-notch Nut (Blognut gave it a near perfect 9.8), Bobby’s sounds equally spectacular. He busts out a Bourbon Pecan-glazed (which he likens to a Paula Dean creation). Now they try each others. “That’s really good,” Bobby says with a mouthful of Doughnut. “Doughy,” says Mark in reaction to Flay’s. Why must this guy be so unlikable?

In walk the judges – two NYPD cops. When asked what they look for in a Doughnut, one of the cops responds, “I want them light and not messy, so I can eat them on the go.” They start with Bobby’s Bourbon Pecan. “It’s too gooey, and the nuts would get all over my uniform. Plus, it’s challenging to chew.” And now Mark’s. “It’s fresh and airy. Just what I look for in a Doughnut. I do like the flavor of the Bourbon Pecan, but it’s not quite there. The Tres Leches wins.”

Mark looks relieved and smirks at the camera. He exchanges a painfully awkward handshake with Bobby, who flashes a toothy faux smile. At the beginning of the show, Flay had praised the Doughnut Plant as being his favorite Doughnut shop, and reported being a regular customer. But I’m pretty sure, that thanks to an awful premise for a television show, and a catty, unreceptive Doughnut Maker named Mark, he’ll never set foot in the Plant again.

But like I said at the beginning of this post, THANK YOU Bobby for throwing down with Mr. Isreal, because thanks to hundreds of people a day Google-ing “Tres Leches Doughnut,” Blognut’s readership has nearly doubled.