Emma The Colonel loves his doughnuts. Whenever he is in Glasgow he makes a point of stopping at Tantrum Doughnuts in Gordon Street for a Double Blueberry and White Chocolate Old Fashioned.
On his recent trip to London, he, therefore, made a special point of dropping into Happy Donuts at 254 Portobello Road.
Happy Donuts was launched in 2016, and a few years ago the Colonel happened to be in the area, so he tried out a couple back then. Ever since he’s been keen to return, and now that pandemics and the like are (sort of) in the past, he was able to make his way there and try out a few flavours.
The Colonel purchased his doughnuts a little after lunchtime, and then walked around London for most of the day, so the doughnuts didn’t look in the best of condition when they reached his hotel – apologies for the terrible looking photos!
Lemon Meringue looked different to what is on their website, in this instance, it had orange icing. Don’t let that fool you though, this was full of lovely tangy lemon custard. The doughnut itself was somehow light but also heavy like you expect a doughnut to be. Perhaps a little too much custard though as it was incredibly filling to eat the entire doughnut in one sitting. This was common across all the doughnuts we tried, although not a negative – one doughnut at a time should really be sufficient!
The vanilla creme had lovely vanilla custard inside, and was probably the favourite of the four tried. Just the right amount of custard this time.
Encouraged by the staff in the shop to try the Oreo flavour, the Colonel expect this to have a white creme filling much like an Oreo cookie, but instead there was a kind of cookies’n’cream filling, much like oreos themselves had been blended together into a cream or a ganache. It was tasty but the filling got a bit much after a while.
Finally, the “Double the Chocolate” – a chocolate topping on the doughnut which was way more solid than the other ones – almost like a melted chocolate shell. Inside was a gooey chocolate filling – very rich tasting.
Overall – lovely flavours but sometimes a little too overpowering on the amount of custard or cream filling. The previous visit included trying a jam-filled doughnut which is why it wasn’t sampled this time, but we can recommend those.
Definitely worth a third visit to try some more flavours!
Where
Happy Donuts, 254 Portobello Road, London, W11 1LL
Opening hours
10 am to 6 pm daily
