Editor’s note:  In 2016, my adventurous, world traveling daughter spent most of the year in Australia courtesy of a Working Holiday visa. Her never boring and often hilarious blog, Naptime With Yasmine , documents much of her experiences there.  Last month, Roy and I met up with her and one of our other daughters in Sydney, and then traveled on to Melbourne. While walking around the city, I was enchanted by the window display of Doughnut Time. Besides looking absolutely delicious, the pastries displayed sported catchy little names such as “Yass Girl, You Sleigh” (red velvet with candy canes) and “O Holey Night” (Christmas cream glaze with festive sprinkles). But do they taste as good as they look? Here’s the scoop from Yasmine – but you can call her Allison.

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Make Time For Melbourne’s Doughnut Time

Look through Doughnut Time’s Instagram . Do yourself a favor and open it now. It’s enough to make me want to jump out of my balcony, into the street, and sprint right down to Degraves Street in the CBD and spend another $6 to satisfy this demanding craving that’s plagued me since the first moment one of their doughnuts grazed my lips.

Doughnut time has become a massive craze. Its hashtag is everywhere, dominating Twitter and Instagram. The line is always out enormously long. Walking past the store, there are, without fail, hordes of young girls instagramming pictures of chocolate filling spewing out of the crispy pastries.

 

So, if the concept of doughnuts isn’t new, what makes Doughnut Time so special? In an age of nutrition-obsessed, health-conscious consumers, how can a doughnut shop not only survive, but thrive? How can a chain go from one store in Brisbane to selling in over 15 locations just a few months later? The publication Time Out Melbourne even listed it as some of the best doughnuts in all of the city. After resisting for months buying what I claimed was an overpriced item to only make me fat, I finally caved. I set off to find out.

They refer to their donuts as “works of art.” And aren’t they, though? Their website  features an array of unique creations with cheeky names and equally impressive ingredients. They have doughnuts called “The Gluten that Got Away,” “The Ed Sheeran,” and “Glazed and Confused.” Unfortunately their current menu doesn’t include those, but I opted for one that satisfied both my need for a trendy name and my chocolate craving. I didn’t leave disappointed.

I arrived at the Melbourne CBD location on Degraves Street, just a few meters from Flinders Street Station around 1:00pm, ready to take the plunge. I waited in line behind five people, but not for long. Within seconds I was at the front of the line, chatting with the two teenage girls behind the counter. “I’ll have the Zero Chills,” I said. The name of the doughnut I chose (butterscotch glaze topped with Hershey’s kisses and crushed Oreo), a popular slang term to mean that I “do what I have to do,” seemed fitting for the occasion.

They packaged my doughnut in a light blue, retro-inspired takeaway box that had, “Honey, I think it’s time. Call now” and “It’s always a good time” written on the side.  It’s as if they were mocking me for holding out for so long. They knew I couldn’t be kept away forever.

On my way to devour my doughnut in Federation Square, I stopped by 7/11 for some cheap coffee (it’s not even as bad as they say it is). After all, who can afford a $6 doughnut and coffee as expensive as it is in Melbourne ?

I took one bite. The outer edge of the doughnut had a slight crunch, but the inside was moist, fluffy, and utterly irresistible. I smeared chocolate all over my face. I licked my lips and dropped pieces of the butterscotch glaze all over my shirt. I felt full and slightly sick after my third bite, but I didn’t let that get in the way of me finishing the entire thing. I had zero chills about what other people thought. I was enjoying a special moment with this insanely sugary, insanely expensive, but insanely breathtaking dessert.

So, I asked myself again, what makes Doughnut Time so special? It’s the taste for sure. It’s absolutely about the quality. But most of all, it’s about having a fast-food, chic, hole-in-the-wall (literally) doughnut shop that gets us. They know their consumers. We want to have aesthetically pleasing desserts to Instagram and hilarious names that make references we understand. We want to frequent a place that thinks of combinations and creations that are close to home and familiar but widely unheard of and somehow still tantalizingly rare. We wanted it, and we found it. At least I did, anyway. Me and 11,000 other followers.

On that note, please excuse me. It’s Doughnut Time.

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All photos taken by Allison Yates

Please visit the insanely entertaining Naptime With Yasmine , a blog that focuses on people, travel, and living and working abroad with a sense of humor and a social conscience. She is a traveler, but also a feminist and advocate, questioning the impact of her presence and the implications of her actions abroad.

My personal favorite posts have to be the great stories she tells about the year she lived in Ibiza, Spain.

As Allison says, “Have a meaningful, and most importantly, entertaining life.”