Prune-Filled Donuts Are Bliss! Who Knew?

Hartman’s Bakery & Pastry
901 North 11th Street
Manitowoc, WI 54220‎

On the way to Elkhart Lake last weekend we passed this little bakery on a sleepy corner in Manitowoc, WI. I demanded that we stop.

Inside there was a line and a lot of plaques on the wall awarding them Best Donuts in the County honors. Could we have stumbled upon a winner?

This is an old-fashioned bakery where they make a lot of regional specialties and you can still get a cookie or a bar for way under $1. This beautiful tray of 7 donuts was $5.

Up in the left hand corner is a divine frosted sweet roll with pastry cream filling.

Hiding underneath there’s a scrumptious apple fritter full of diced apple. There’s also a glazed confection the counter woman called a cruller, but was more like an old-fashioned donut, shaped like a banana.

The cake doughts had real chocolate frosting spread on them.

In the upper right hand corner is a Persian. Persians orignated in Thunder Bay, but have drifted down to the Wisconsin lakeshore. They are basically frosted cinnamon buns, but there’s nothing basic about them. This one was moist and chewy, frosted with maple frosting and topped with crunch. Swoon-worthy. I think my husband was groaning while he was eating it, but I couldn’t hear too well over the num-num sounds I was making.

With a nod to the Eastern-European heritage of the area, there were granuated sugar coated donuts filled with prune or poppyseed filling. Im a sucker for any kind of filled donut and I just had to try one. I chose the prune and it was a delightful revelation; one of the best filled donuts I’ve ever had. Sweet, but not too sweet. A mix of my favorite textures, chewy and moist donut, crunchy sugar, creamy smooth filling.

I’m going to be thinking about these donuts for a long time.