Glazed & Infused Doughnut Shop | Chicago
There's a power duo behind Chicago's newest doughnut shop
Ed.'s note: As of November, 2012, Christine McCabe is no longer involved with Glazed & Infused. She's opened a new bakery, InterUrban
There are two ways to stand out in the increasingly crowded doughnut game: eye-catching flavors or serious pedigree.
The city's newest fried-dough outpost, Glazed and Infused, has both.
The two pastry chefs behind the venture pack a wallop of dessert savvy. Tom Culleeney spent years working with Krispy Kreme, and Christine McCabe's résumé lists Joël Robuchon, Charlie Trotter's, and a Pastry Chef of the Year title from Bon Appétit.
Culleeney crafts the light, fluffy yeast doughnuts ($1.75 to $3.50), which McCabe tops with glazes flavored with Madagascar vanilla-bean peanut butter and house-made raspberry jam. Some donuts are closer to a plated dessert than a breakfast standard–like the crème brûlée, stuffed with vanilla crème and crowned with a golden-brown layer of brûléed sugar.
The cake doughnut menu has the obligatory buttermilk old-fashioned and a chocolate fudge-filled whopper, but it was the yuzu-curd-filled lemon cake, topped with lemon glaze and candied lemon zest, that won our hearts.
Doughnuts are made hourly, and the duo has ambitious weekly specials in the works–like a banana cake doughnut drizzled with sea-salt caramel, and a Bismarck filled with malted-milk custard and draped in malt glaze.
Glazed and Infused, 1553 N. Damen Ave., 773-770-0184; or 813 W. Fulton Market, 312-226-5556; glazedandinfuseddoughnuts.com