Donut vs. Donut

It started when I was shopping at Stew Leonard's in Norwalk, Connecticut. Stew Leonard's is not your typical dairy/supermarket, besides fresh fruit and vegetables, they also sell their own meat, dairy, and baked goods amongst animated singing robots. Kind of like shopping for groceries at Disneyland's "Its a Small World".

I was walking through their bakery department as they were making apple cider donuts right in front of a crowd. There was a sign above the fry-o-lator that said you couldn't find fresher cider donuts than these. Right then and there I knew they were wrong. I knew of at least one other place that made fantastic apple cider donuts and now I had a strong hankering for some.

I began to make plans to head towards Ipswich, Massachusetts for Russell Orchards. It is a pick your own farm that makes apple cider from the fruit in their orchards and apple cider donuts right in front of you.

Before I was able to go, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail that contained the results of a poll of best apple cider donuts in New England. It was a poll from viewers of New England Cable News (NECN). The poll had Russell Orchards on it but in a distant second place with 28% of the vote. In first place was Parlee Farms in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts with 47%. The rest of the places were in single digits.

Not willing to just settle for the second best donuts I wanted to try Parlee Farms. I found out that they are also a pick your own farm but that their last day of the season was that upcoming Sunday. I quickly made plans to go with a few friends to Tynsboro which is near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.


The place was pretty festive when we got there. They were celebrating Halloween and everyone that was working there was in costume. They were giving out free hayrides and for $20 you could get as many pumpkins as you could fit onto a red wagon. Inside the main building they were selling popcorn, baked goods, jams, and of course apple cider donuts. You could see them making the donuts in front of you and unlike Russell Orchards they dunked the donuts in granulated sugar at the end to give it a sweeter taste. The donuts were really mini-donuts, the size of a half-dollar and cost $2 for a bag of 5, but they were going fast.


I bought two bags of donuts, one with the sugar on it and I requested one bag without the extra sugar. The donuts were quite tasty. Nothing like hot fresh donuts to warm one's soul and these were really good. But it wasn't the best apple cider donuts I ever had as there was very little apple cider flavor. They were fine donuts on their own, warm, tender, and sweet but they tasted like a regular donut.


I was glad that I went as I also went on my first hayride, but this was not the shangri la of apple cider donuts. For that I had to go to Russell Orchards and they did not disappoint.

I had accidentally stumbled across Russell Orchards over 15 years ago while driving around Ipswich looking for the best fried clams. Looking back I don't know how I found the place as it is kind of located on the back roads and this was way before I had my trusty GPS. I also used to get lost a lot.

I got to Russell Orchards just as they were starting to make the donuts. They have a secret recipe and use an old donut making machine. They claim to be green in that they re-cycle the used oil to make bio-diesel fuel. Their donuts are much bigger than Parlee Farms, about 4 inches in width and much darker in color. But what really makes the big difference is the more pronounced apple cider flavor. Eating their hot fresh donuts along with a cup of their cold apple cider is pure ambrosia.


Russell Orchards also sells a host of their own baked goods from pies to scones to apple crisp and they also have their own honey and wine. The donuts are 80 cents a piece or $4 for half a dozen. They are open May through the end of November.