Snack like Homer Simpson

As a child, I was always surprised by the number of doughnuts Homer Simpson managed to polish off in one session. And I wondered what this round pastry with a hole in the middle tasted like. In the 1990s, my only experience of deep-fried food was Berliner and Fasnachtschüechli pastries or Schenkeli biscuits. Back then, I thought doughnuts were something that only cartoon characters ate.

Then I visited Berlin and stuffed myself full of doughnuts at an American chain. The filling dripped onto my fingers and after a while my stomach started to hurt. But I didn’t care. Deep-fried food had always been my favourite.

The older I got, the less I wanted to hand my money over to fast-food giants. And when I finally decided to go vegan, doughnuts had to become a thing of a past. Just like almost all other sweet baked treats that don’t come from a health food store or aren’t homemade. Oh, well.

But a few months ago, I suddenly noticed a lot of doughnuts popping up on my Instagram feed. Vegans were discovering them at the Gnädinger bakery. Then Vegan.ch posted a video of the doughnuts and wrote: ‘We almost did a little happy cry when we opened this box – yesssss! This is what happiness looks like.’

So, I made the 20-minute tram journey to Schaffhauserplatz. A nice touch is that the bakery labels all of its vegan food with a little green leaf. And surprisingly, there are lots of them. But I spotted the doughnuts right away. I went for one with a caramel topping and one with white icing. ‘That’s the classic one,’ the shop assistant said about my second choice. Should I have chosen something more adventurous? I stuck by my decision anyway.

When I got home and scraped off some of the caramel frosting with my finger, I was delighted. It was so good! The doughnut itself was a little dry and the dough was compact. The classic doughnut was surprisingly airy. Even the white icing didn’t disappoint. It reminded me of the luxurious decoration on the cake I had for my twelfth birthday. Wow – a guilt-free sugary and deliciously satisfying treat!