Today has been a hungry day for me. Like I said, pickings have been slim. I've eaten out for lunch a few times this week, which isn't usually a good thing for me come weigh in on Saturday morning. When I was scavenging in my kitchen for breakfast this morning, all I could think of was donuts. There were no donuts in my kitchen and the donut that I had on my mind only exists in North Carolina (that I know of). I was thinking, of course, of Duck Donuts in Duck, NC.
Duck is one of the little towns on the Outer Banks near Corolla. When I was researching things to do on the Outer Banks, one of the categories was "places to eat". Duck Donuts was on just about every list. On that Sunday morning when we were driving to Corolla and we figured out we'd be going through Duck, I begged MT to stop there so we could try it out. It was super easy to find, right on the main road. Tiny parking lot, though.
We didn't really know what to expect. Duck Donuts is in a tourist-y little complex with a patio in the middle and stores on either side of the patio. We walked into the Duck Donuts shop and there were no donuts in there. What happens is that you order the donuts how you want them to be "dressed" then the donuts are made to your order specifications. Again, we didn't really know what to expect, but we each ordered a couple of donuts. We were given an order number and told to go across the patio and our donuts would be ready soon.
We crossed the patio and went into another Duck Donuts shop. This is where the magic happens. It smelled like donut heaven in there. All of the donuts are of the cake variety, shaped and fried and iced right there in front of you, served up hot and drippy and delicious. Here's a photo of our donuts:
Let me give you a tour: the two donuts at the top of the photo are the same flavor - chocolate iced with vanilla. In the second row, the donut on the left is maple icing with bacon bits sprinkled liberally on top. Next to it is a french toast flavored donut with powdered sugar. The bottom left donut is peanut butter and chocolate and next to it is pumpkin spice.
The cake donut itself is pretty much a blank slate of vanilla cake. The flavors come from the icing. They were all spectacularly delicious. That maple bacon business is legit. Since the donuts were hot, the icing was tricking down and puddling in the box and that includes maple icing with bacon bits. I believe some rather unattractive snorting noises were coming from me as I ran my finger through the icing. We did have forks, come to think of it.
I would have been happy to have Duck Donuts more often during our stay, but it didn't happen. There are multiple locations of this lovely little franchise along the Outer Banks, including one in Corolla, but it was always closed when we went by it. It's probably for the best.
In fine form, though, we closed the circle and did have Duck Donuts on our way out of town on the last day. That time we DID know what to expect and we ordered and ate like professionals! Seriously, these donuts are damn good. If you have the good fortune of being in the Outer Banks and you find a Duck Donuts, don't let the lines deter you from having a nice treat.
Wait! I was just looking at the Duck Donuts website that I linked earlier in the post. There are lots of Duck Donut locations, but the furthest west is in Texas. Oh well. That's probably okay.
Have I already written a post about these donuts? I don't remember, but I might have. If I did, I sure don't remember going into this level of detail. :)
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