National Doughnut Day is Friday

By JUSTIN DENNIS

jdennis@vindy.com

Several area pastry shops on Friday plan to honor a sweet, sticky – and sometimes cream-filled – American wartime tradition.

National Doughnut Day, set for the first Friday in June, celebrates Salvation Army “Doughnut Dollies” who served fried dough rings to G.I.s during World War I.

At least five area doughnut shops are giving away or discounting doughnuts Friday, one of which is also preparing a massive springtime bash.

CLASSIC BAKERY

Owner Paul Rovnak said the Tiffany Plaza store plans to give away one dozen doughnuts to all active military or veterans who visit the store Friday – but only while supplies last. The free dozens may be ordered in advance, he said.

“National Doughnut Day originated because of the volunteers that were working for the Salvation Army that decided to provide doughnuts for some of the troops,” he said.

It’s the first time Classic Bakery is giving away doughnuts on such a scale in the store’s 20-year history, Rovnak said.

Baking has run in the family for at least 60 years, he said. His father was “Mr. Paul” of the former Mr. Paul’s Bakery along Glenwood Avenue on Youngstown’s South Side.

“I grew up in the business. … I could remember when I wasn’t in school going down to the bakery with my father on Monday and we would deliver pizza dough to The Elmton [restaurant in Struthers],” Rovnak said.

He said the bakery is best known for its cream sticks, filled with buttercream made from scratch through a secret family recipe, but its daily stock is best known for its freshness.

“We make them fresh every morning before the store opens,” Rovnak said.

AUNT MARTHA’S DONUTS

& COFFEE SHOPPE

This South Avenue, Boardman, shop opened inside The Amish Market – or The Valley Marketplace – six years ago, but its doughnuts have been around for much longer.

Bill Kuhns, who co-owns the shop with his mother, Martha, who started churning out five to 10 dozen doughnuts a week out of her kitchen. Kuhns’ younger sisters packed them into a cart and went door-to-door when they were young, he said. They still work at the shop.

“[Martha] tries to make the style of doughnuts that the Amish people have made for generations. We try to copy that recipe, that taste,” Kuhns said.

Now, on any given Saturday, the line for Aunt Martha’s doughnuts stretches far beyond the shop’s small alcove. Most come for the shop’s made-from-scratch apple fritters. Kuhns wouldn’t tell us what goes into the special filling – trade secrets.

“It’s almost overwhelming, but we feel very blessed to be where we’re at,” Kuhns said. “We’re having fun doing what we’re doing as a family and we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew by opening up more shops.”

The Amish market’s annual spring festival kicks off Thursday and coincides with National Doughnut Day. Vendors plan to barbecue, cook kettle corn and sell discounted furniture. Aunt Martha’s plans to discount its famous apple fritters, Kuhns said.

OH DONUT CO.

Morgan Reamer, her mother Bergen Giordani and Poland doctor Nino Rubino opened this Boardman doughnut shop and burgeoning brunch spot in early April.

Giordani and Reamer also own One Hot Cookie along West Commerce Street in downtown Youngstown, which opened in 2013.

“We love sweet treats, and we saw a need in the market for them. We love doughnuts,” Reamer said. “We’ve had a great response from the community.”

On Friday, the Boardman-Canfield road store plans to sell 25-cent doughnuts – limited to two per customer – and buy-one-get-one dozens, Reamer said.

She said the bakery’s salty-and-sweet peanut butter cup doughnut is the most popular treat, but it also offers a unique doughnut with gourmet cake dough and toppings and flavors that change every couple weeks.

The shop also serves local Branch Street coffee and has started a brunch menu including waffles, egg cups and breakfast sandwiches.

PLAZA DONUTS

This Belmont Avenue shop first opened Nov. 22, 1963 – the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated – and has remained a local icon. When the owners, the Froomkin family, decided to hang up their aprons and close the doughnut shop if it couldn’t sell, Tangier Express owner Amy Spencer and her husband put in their bid. They took over this last September.

“We’d hate to see something like that close. And there’s just so few places that make their own doughnuts,” Spencer said. “For the most part, especially the chains, it’s all frozen, it’s all coming off a truck.

“We were excited to try our hand at it.”

The Froomkin family recipes are still a staple – the Spencers practiced them for a month before reopening, Amy said – but now Plaza offers the Spencers’ own creations, such as cereal and Nutella doughnuts and the “Peggy,” which is a jelly doughnut/creamstick combo.

Spencer said the bakery’s new seasonal offerings include pineapple, peaches and cream, strawberry shortcake, pina colada and Guinness – yes, like the beer, the glaze for which is made with an Irish stout reduction.

“We do make them from scratch every day. Nothing’s ever frozen. Nothing needs to be thawed,” Spencer said.

For the store’s 56th National Doughnut Day, patrons can get a free doughnut when they buy a large hot or iced coffee or a bubble tea, which was recently introduced.

WHITE HOUSE FRUIT FARM

For Mahoning Valley natives, this Green Township produce store’s blueberry doughnuts are legendary and sell out quickly.

“We honestly have no idea why they’ve taken off like they have. They’re a very, very unique, pretty good-tasting doughnut,” said Debbie (Hull) Pifer, whose family started the Youngstown-Salem Road farm in 1924.

They started baking doughnuts about 30 years ago, and offered only a handful of varieties for the next two decades. Now they make about 35 different kinds each day, Pifer said.

She said the blueberry doughnuts were “put on the map” during Super Bowl XLVI in 2012, when the mother of a New York Giants player brought them to Indianapolis. Media from across the country swooped in.

“Then the Giants won, so of course it was because of the doughnuts,” Pifer laughed.

On Friday, White House plans to offer one free cinnamon doughnut to every customer. If the farm’s homegrown strawberries are ripened, they’ll also be ready for Friday shoppers, she said. Strawberry doughnuts are the monthly flavor for June.

“That’s the only time of the year you can buy them. You gotta come and get them while they’re here,”

Pifer said.