Taylor's Donuts — Restaurant in Lawrence

Authentic donuts? I don’t know if I’d categorize Taylors Donuts in a category that is likely to draw comparison to your average donut shop where par for the course is using premade mixes and quick rising yeast doughs. Taylors Donuts take moderate level bakery skills and apply them to improve the typically low-cost breakfast snack. The result is donuts unlike any found in the region.

The multi-day process of creating donuts from finely prepared doughs using a longer fermentation process results in bread doughs more closely related to croissant doughs than a typical raised donut. Each pillowy bite is met with a springy-chew and the yeasty fermented taste synonymous with a long-fermented sourdough breads. This is just the base donut flavor you will enjoy with the flavor pairing, featuring tastes from the suppliers that bring seasonal flavors from around the region.

Taylors Donuts are crispy/darker on the outside. Their darker brown exterior creates the structure to hold shape around the light and airy inside, which more resembles bubbly inside layers of a butter croissant or sourdough bread than a typical dense yeast donut. The web of soft risen dough literally melts in your mouth as you eat these donuts.

I started with the basic Vanilla Glazed Ring donut to see where they stand against my memory of other donuts. The vanilla glaze over the crispy exterior was subtle and not over-powering to allow for the lovely flavor of the donut pastry to come through on it’s own. These donuts have an eggy-like flavor quality to them much the same as taste of a traditional French Cruller.

From here, we journeyed through samples of donuts of various shapes and sizes featuring glazes and toppings unique to my experiences with donuts. The Guava Glazed & Blueberry Jam Twist was a sweet donut with the thick strawberry and pear-like flavors of the guava glaze and the jammy-blueberry drizzle over top.

One of the more unique donuts in our box was the Vanilla with Strawberry Cornbread Crumbs. The topping was a crumbly combination of cornbread mixed with what I thought to be dehydrated strawberries crumbs that gave a real strawberry taste that is often so artificial tasting in typical donuts.

The Local Apple Fritter was probably the best item I ate on this trip. Traditional apple fritters use a canned apple filling to flavor the donuts. The tartness of the apples is the most memorable part of this fritter. I was always a fan of fritter textures, but now it’s the fresh locally grown apple.

Available by the dozen, or you can make it your coffee + donut stop with a black cup of coffee (Onyx Coffee Lab) or a chilled option featuring Nitro Cold Brew or Draft flavored lattes and a donut of your choosing.

Taylors Donuts is situated in a walkable residential area with enough parking within a block to accommodate the high volume of customers coming in.

The staff was warm, welcoming, and very helpful. The room aesthetic was akin to other higher-end coffee shops, featuring a wraparound bar and boldly colored doors and trim painted in colors stolen from modern art covering the walls behind the counter. The bakery is mostly exposed to allow customers to witness the skill of the bakery team you don’t typically see in your community donut shop.

The 3-day process warrants valuing the product for what all goes into it beyond the higher-priced ingredients. If you miss discovering the love and care that went into preparing donuts, you are missing much of the reason why they are priced from $3.25 to $5.00 per donut. They are intended to be enjoyed slowly where you can pay attention to the unique texture and flavor combinations.

Taylors Donuts are a glorious retreat from your routine breakfast pastry experience. You should make a visit and see how they are redefining what donuts can be.

In our box: ORIGINAL VANILLA GLAZED RING DARK CHOCOLATE + SPRINKLES VANILLA + STRAWBERRY CORNBREAD CRUMBS MAPLE - BROWN BUTTER TWIST GUAVA GLAZED + BLUEBERRY JAM TWIST HONEY GLAZED + RASPBERRY JAM CLUSTER WILD PLUM AND HONEY FLUFF LOCAL...

Ate here on 5/31. We had the blueberry fritter, chocolate glazed with sprinkles, key lime pie twist, lemon crème filled, maple brownbutter twist, and peanut butter with jam glazed. All of the donuts were good except the chocolate glazed. It was very flavorless—really disappointed in such a simple staple donut. The key lime and peanut butter were particularly good. I’m giving 4 stars for a few reasons. One is the person who served us did not give us her full attention. When ready to pay, she told me the total, spun the screen at us, and walked away to help someone else. She didn’t give me the chance to tell her that I intended to pay cash. The second reason is the pricing. I understand where the owners are coming from in their explanation about the prices. I just simply don’t agree with it. $24 for 6 donuts and a small carton of chocolate milk is not worth it to me. There’s another bakery in town whose donuts are better or equal and much more affordable. That’s just my opinion—the owners have theirs and I have mine. The third reason—get a sign that says Taylor’s Donuts for the outside! At the very least go to a sign shop and get a banner to put up that has the...

My god, the donuts are stellar. I tried this place for the first time this weekend upon a friend’s recommendation, and returned today after obsessively thinking about the donuts for 3 days straight. They. Are. So. Good. To be fair, most donuts are pretty good, just by dint of being donuts, but Taylor’s takes theirs to the next level, and are positively gourmet. The dough is light, airy, but toothsome, and the toppings are creative and delicious. They are sweet, but not too sweet, and I think they do a great job of including a bit of acid in their toppings when possible, which balances things out nicely. I can tell that the donuts are a labor of love and careful development. A few recent standouts were a blueberry coffee cake crumble glazed donut, a lime coconut glazed donut, and a raspberry cheesecake donut. These are not $1 gas station donuts, and are worth every cent ($3.25 for glazed). They seem to run pretty frequent $2 donut specials in the afternoons, so if you are on a budget, that’s the time to visit! PS: I discovered the owner also runs 1900 Barker, who makes the #1 best croissants I have had outside of France. Dude is definitely doing...