Gourdough

Yes, we’ve been a little inactive on this blog due to some recent travel and an even busier return.  But with Besh gone to Camp Nonni over the weekend, it was quite fortunate that a Facebook friend informed Sara of a new doughnut trailer in Austin that served, among other things, bacon doughnuts.

Oh sweetness.

Let’s say I’m fond of bacon and leave it at that.  No, let’s put it up one notch: Bacon is the single greatest food on the planet.  Okay, one more: Bacon is proof of the divine.  There.  And the only thing better than bacon in regular food is bacon in dessert.  Which is why I’m a huge fan of the Man Bait lollipops from Das Foods–the fantastic sweet/salty combination of maple syrup and bacon.  So to find out a doughnut is using these flavors–let’s just say we managed to get there about five minutes after it opened the very next day.

The cart has a great location–across the street and a bit south from the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse.  It’s in a small lot with Brevita, a coffee trailer/drive-thru (sadly, closed on Sundays when we were there).  In addition to the typical South Austin food trailer they have some tables and chairs and umbrellas, fairly bare bones typical of the food trailer scene.

But the menu.  Oh the menu.  You’ll stand in amazement, reading for far too long.  Fantastic combinations.  And, to top it all off, you can make your own from literally everything on the menu.  And I have the feeling you could just walk up with anything and say, “Make me a doughnut with this!” and they would.  And it would be good.

Since we hadn’t eaten that day, we each picked two doughnuts.  I, of course, went with the Flying Pig and the Black Out.  Sara went with Naughty & Nice and Miss Shortcake.

Let me cut right to the chase: the Flying Pig doughnut is, hands down, the best dessert I have ever had.  It’s sheer awesomeness and relatively close proximity to my house is very, very dangerous to my waistline.  The maple syrup is not overly sweet or overly thick, just perfect.  And the bacon–well, it’s bacon, of course.  But combined with the thick cake of the doughnut the three flavors and textures combine to be the greatest dessert you’ve ever eaten.  It’s a sweet/salty/savory flavor explosion set to syrupy/crunchy/chewy textures that just sends it all over the top.  I’d like to say more, but I’m scared of what my stomach my do, so let’s just say I’ll be back and you really need to go try it.

The overall doughnut from Gourdough is a fantastic mix of slightly flaky but mostly caky–but a light cake, not incredibly (overly, in my opinion) dense like a Dunkin Doughnut.  But substantial enough to handle the various toppings, fillings, and glazes.  And I do mean various, but you can see from the menu.

I wasn’t fond of my other doughnut, the Black Out.  Not that it was bad–it was just a bit too sweet.  Too much chocolate on chocolate.  And the neutral cake of the doughnut took on all the chocolate flavor so it turned into one of those chocolate cakes that are far too rich to finish after a bite or two.  But I pulled a doughnut-Kanye and insisted that Imma finish this doughnut but the Flying Pig was the best dessert I’ve ever had.  Probably a mistake to eat the Black Out after the Flying Pig.

Sara’s doughnuts were also great.  The best was the Naughty & Nice–it really showed off the overall doughnut with just a simple topping of cinnamon and sugar.  The Miss Shortcake was good, but the cream cheese icing was incredibly sweet, which combined with the sweet strawberries to make it a bit too sweet, similar to the Black Out.  Probably makes sense to avoid the doughnuts that put sweet on top of sweet there–plenty of other options and I’m sure we’ll be back.

Gourdough is also open daily from noon to 2am and has an incredibly nice bunch of folks working there.  Turned out that Sunday was their third day open, so you’ve got a great chance to get in early with this place–word of mouth is sure to get around.

And if you go and do not get a Flying Pig you are a fool.