It's National Donut Day!

Hubby and I celebrated by getting up early (for us...) to go on a quick donut tour of our hometown. We hit three places and got a selection of donuts to try throughout the day. Look for reviews in the next couple of weeks! How are you celebrating National Donut Day???

Siedlik Bakery

What: Glazed Croissant

Where: 4524 S. 84th St, Omaha NE

When: Wednesday, March 28, 2017

I'm not sure if you've heard about what happens to my mother when she comes to visit Omaha. It's quite a spectacle. Obviously in a good way. But one of her trademark Omaha habits is showing up back at my aunts from some errand with a ton of donuts from some bakery she passed along the way. And this time was no different, a huge box from Siedlik suddenly appeared.

Sadly, I was not feeling the greatest by this time in her visit (we all passed around a pretty bad cold) but I still managed to get the last glazed croissant in the box. Glazed croissants may be my new favorite. I always like croissants anyways for their flakey, buttery goodness, but add donut glaze to that and I'm hooked. So hooked in fact, I forgot to take a picture till I was about halfway through it! Delicious! 5/5 and why hadn't I heard about this bakery before??

Wahoo Bakery

What: Chocolate cake, cherry cheese kolache

Where: Wahoo, NE

When: Friday, April 14th, 2017

website

The Wahoo Bakery is one of my favorite small town bakeries ever. Wahoo is a town of about 4,500 north of Lincoln. My mom discovered their donuts on one of her crazy Nebraska road trips with her sister a couple of years ago. Hubby and I don't make it to Wahoo very often, but when we do we always hit up the bakery and the Wahoo Meat Locker. Normally in that order.

This time their selection wasn't the largest (probably because we didn't make it there till about 11am which is not prime time for donut selection) so I ended up with a kolache. Hands down one of the best kolache's I've ever had. The dough was not sweet at all but delicious and the filling was the right level of sweetness to pair with the dough. I could have eaten 3 more, but thankfully I only bought one. 5/5.

The chocolate cake is one of Hubby's favorites normally so the selection was not disappointing for him at all. I had to stop myself from eating more than the bite he offered me because it was also delicious. I'm kind of glad we don't live in Wahoo...

Also, for anyone wondering about the Meat Locker, excellent meat and an adorable selection of kitchen gadgets. My favorite are the Hawaiian wieners which are a touch spicy and have little tiny chunks of pineapple in them and Hubby picked out a honey bbq smoked sausage that people were fighting over at Easter dinner. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

I did not win the contest for how many eggs were in the window :-(

Hurt's Donut with Boiler Room Brewery

A couple weeks ago Hurt's did a special donut with the brewery located in the basement of their building. Saw it on facebook, headed up.

But this is what I remember about the experience: the two women in front of me ordering mixed dozens as sloooooow as humanly possible. Seriously, woman #1 took at least 5-10 minutes. Was woman #2 figuring out what she wanted in that time? Nope! She took just as long to walk back and forth in front of the two giant display cases (because Hurt's has a bazillion options).

I couldn't even tell you what kind of donut it was, but it was the one on the right. And you can see the orange peel in the glaze. It was pretty good though. I look forward to more collaborations!

Explore Valentine

One thing Hubby and I keep talking about is making it out to Cherry County. Cherry County is larger than the state of Connecticut! And it has one of the lowest populations as well. Just one big empty county.

Now that our camping plans fell through for this weekend, maybe we'll take the new ride out to Valentine!

In the meantime, enjoy pictures of all the travel guides we picked up at the Omaha Boat and Travel show. Or get your own and get planning!

Sehnert Bakery

You guys, I totally forgot about this review! It's from last July when Hubby and I went to McCook as part of our Nebraska Passport summer travels. But I don't remember the donut! So this is definitely a non review...

Stan's Bakery

I forgot about this review! My apologies to anyone who was disappointed in just getting pictures of a donut!

We got this lovely donut from a gas station near Platte River State Park when we stayed out there in February. It wasn't the worst gas station donut, but it wasn't the best. I always wonder how often the donuts get delivered at gas stations and if you're really getting the best example of the bakery's work. Maybe I'll make it up to you by actually going to Stan's some day.

Avoca Quackoff

This year hubby got switched from a Tues-Sat schedule to a Mon-Thurs 4 by 10 schedule and his first Saturday off was the day of the Avoca Quackoff! I was so excited to get to go to the Quackoff this year. It is an annual fundraiser for the Avoca fire department and this was the 37th year. The town of Avoca is about 30-45 minutes east of Lincoln and normally has a population of 242. For the Quackoff, that may quadruple. There are party buses that leave from Omaha and Lincoln to bring people in. We drove out there with a small cooler and quickly realized we didn't do it right. Why didn't we bring our fire pit? (Seriously, some people brought fire pits to sit around! Looked so warm and cozy).

You may still be wondering what the Quackoff is anyways. It's a giant duck race! You pay $25 to enter the race, which includes a duck rental. Once you register, you get a number (they went into the 300s!) and the races began around 1pm. When it was your number range, you got a duck from the duck truck and went into the arena. You couldn't touch the duck while it was racing, but you could definitely race after it and encourage it to go the right way. If you won your heat, you got an orange sticker and then came back in the next round.

While people were racing, we may have been enjoying some beverages from our backpack. I also got to pet a duck! And talk to a lot of people around us who came from all over to see the ducks. Oh, I almost forgot, there was an auction caller there calling the races! Seriously, one of the best small town events we've been to.

Hurt's Donuts and Boiler Room Brewing

What: Andes Mint donut, S'mores donut, lots of beer

Where: Hurt's Donut, Lincoln NE

When: Wednesday, December 28th 2016

I really do like Hurt's donuts, but man are they huge. S'mores may be my favorite one. It's on a plain yeast donut, the Andes Mint one is on a chocolate cake donut. Donuts 4/5

As for the beer, I call Boiler Room as sipping beers. Very flavorful, and thankfully sold in 4 oz tasters, so you can basically make your own flight anytime you want. Many I couldn't drink a whole pint of, but the hubby does like some enough to get full glasses.  Beers 3.5/5

Kitchen Sink

What: Chocolate cookie! And Pumpkin Spice Latte woopie pie

Where: Kitchen Sink Cookies, 27th and O, Lincoln NE

When: Saturday, September 3rd, 2016

I've had a lot of nonreviews recently, or reviews of nondonuts, I haven't had many new donut places to try recently. I guess I need to travel more! Here is a donut cookie from one of my favorite cookie places, Kitchen Sink Cookies. They make amazing cookies and have some first class decorators.

The chocolate cookie looked better than it tasted but the pumpkin latte was AMAZING. Super soft woopie pie, the coffee frosting in the middle, and the chocolate ganache was a great combination. I can't wait to try another one! 5/5 for sure

Aloy's 125th Anniversary

My mom is from a small town in Eastern Nebraska. Like tiny small. It is just an intersection now. There are a couple houses and a church. And the church is now 125 years old! We were able to go to the anniversary party and it was pretty awesome.

We stopped at a Nebraska Passport stop on the way in Columbus (Sip Espresso Bar) and I got a pretty awesome ice cream sandwich. Hubby got a cookie. I think my ice cream sandwich was better.

The scenery was pretty awesome on the drive too. 

At the church there was a special mass, a blessing of a new statue of Mary, a big dinner, a keg, and tons of pictures to check out. This one of the guys digging possibly the church basement, had my great-grandfather in it!

There was quite the crowd there, and it was almost a small family reunion of my mom's dad's side.

Don Leden's Cafe & Donuts

While in the small town of Stromsburg (Swedish Capital of Nebraska) for a Passport Tour stop, my eye found the local donut place. Because of course I always see donut signs! Sadly, it was closed. One of my favorite closed signs, and I hope this means we can check it out in the fall!

Blue Blood Brewing

What: Donut holes
Where: Blue Blood Brewing, 925 Robbers Cave Road, Lincoln NE 68502
When: Monday, August 15th, 2016

website

I know, a brewery. And donuts. Crazy! We went out recently for our dating anniversary because why not celebrate everything? Tried out the new tap room for a local brewery and it was very nice. Hubby was making me dinner, so we just got an appetizer. And a dessert of course! 

The donut holes were super fresh, very warm and coated in cinnamon and sugar. They seemed to be more whole wheat than a standard raised donut and oaty. The dipping sauce was too much coffee, not enough chocolate for me. I'd give them 2/5. The onion rings were definitely worth going back for, but probably not the donuts.

City Cafe

What: Maple twist

Where:  423 S. 9th St, Broken Bow, NE

When: Wednesday, July 27th, 2016

I apparently did not have a donut review for you guys last week, so this week you get two! This was another stop on our passport adventure that wasn't actually on the passport. My aunt said she remembered stopping there as soon as we walked in the door. Apparently the woman who runs it does it all, orders and cooking and ringing people up! Crazy!

We were there a little late in the morning for the best selection, but there was a maple something left so I had to check it out. I would say it was ok, not super mapley. The donut part was a little dry, I would give it a 3/5 total.

Sweet Shoppe

What: Maple Raised

Where: 605 Howard St, St. Paul, NE

When: July 28th, 2016

On my biggest Nebraska Passport trip to date, we spent more time in bakeries than getting stamps for our passport! We should have walked the whole thing to lose all weight we put on.
The Sweet Shoppe in St. Paul wasn't even on this year's passport (but was on last years) but that didn't stop us from going in. We got some pecan rolls as well, but I can't review it because the hubby ate the whole roll without sharing! I can only talk about my maple donut, which was near perfect. It was quite large and a great basic donut. The frosting was perfect and tasted very fresh. I would give it a 5/5.

College World Series

Hubby is a huge baseball fan. Huge. I kind of hate baseball. But now I watch a lot of it. And whine about some stuff. But know more about the game than I wish I did. Anyways, he and his family have been going to the College World Series forever. His mom's aunt and uncle first got season tickets maybe in the 60's. His uncle still gets season tickets, but mostly it's the cousins that go to the games now. Hubby tries to go to every game possible. This year I think he made it to 6. I went to 3. I like the tailgating better. I think I tailgating more games than I went to.

At the second game I was at, we did get some of the stadium donuts. For reviewing of course! They were the mini donuts that are made with a conveyer belt contraption that they put in a bag and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar while they're hot so the sugar starts to melt just right.

 

They were surprisingly tasty for stadium food, although somewhat pricy. I would give them a 4/5 for taste and a 2/5 for value. I guess that averages to a 3/5 doesn't it.

And now to end with some lovely sunset photos we took while waiting for traffic to clear because Omaha scheduled both the College World Series and the Olympic Swim Trials the same weekend with similar ending times. Yeah. Not smart.

Hurt's Donut, the actual review

What: Peanut Butter Oreo and Andes Mint

When: Monday, June 27th, 2016

Where: 10th and P, Lincoln NE

We kept it simple for our first visit, also because we were half asleep. Hubby was excited to try a mint donut since he had never seen one (I don't think I have either) and I couldn't move past the peanut butter oreo once I saw it.

They were both fantastic. They were on giant chocolate cake donuts and there was no scrimping on frosting or toppings. I thought the cake donut was a perfect base for them because it was fluffy and moist and not overpower so the frosting and toppings got to be the stars. I would give both a 5/5 and I can't wait to go back to get more. They were $2 each, but because I bought a shirt (for $22) we got one free. Only 10 more visits to pay for the shirt...They also felt so heavy, I wanted to weigh them when we got home. Just to see. Quarter pound donuts!