Cartems Donuterie- Earl Grey and Maple Bacon Bourbon Donuts

I first read about Cartems Donuterie in the Vancouver Sun and ever since then I’ve wanted to pay a visit. Their Bacon Maple Bourbon donut in particular intrigued me because I wanted to see if they were better than the ones I made for my Marketing class last year! If you haven’t read my not too shabby attempt in making and selling Maple Bacon donuts, read it here. They sold like hotcakes at the SFU campus so I kind of regret not capitalizing on the idea right then and there! Haha

So anyways, Rae and I ventured to Gastown a few days ago and bought ourselves half a dozen to share. The pop up shop is very discreet and you can easily miss it if you don’t see the small white piece of paper that says “Cartems”.

We knew they opened at 10am so we arrived shortly after around 10:20am. As you can see, most of the donuts were already gone! Luckily, there were more flavours at the back so it wasn’t as sold out as we thought. We almost had a heart attack when we thought there was no more Earl Grey donut left!

The service is friendly and I like how they have branded their donuterie to be all about using the finest and most local ingredients. It’s nice to know that everything is handmade and all the ingredients are selected with care.

Voila! Look at our half dozen donuts ($15) sitting all pretty in the box. These babies do not come cheap however as they are $3 a piece.

The Earl Grey donut was the most anticipated since it’s their best seller and looked ever so gorgeous. This cake based donut is infused with organic earl grey tea, topped with earl grey glaze and a sprinkle of mallow flavours. It sounded wonderful and all but when I bit into it, I was taken back because I couldn’t taste a hint of earl grey. :( Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely scrumptious! But if you didn’t tell me it was earl grey flavoured, I wouldn’t have known.

Next up was the Maple Bacon Bourbon donut and this was by far the best one of the bunch. The bourbon was faint but noticeable and the bacon had a sweetness to it, almost as if they were candied bacon.

We had mixed feelings about the Sweet Heat donut because Rae couldn’t taste any spiciness at all when I was going “Whoa! So spicy!”. One thing I’d like to mention about Cartem’s donuts is that they are all quite dense and heavy. They are completely different from the yeast based donuts you get at Tim Horton’s so it might not be for everyone. It’s almost like eating cake in donut form!

The Cinnamon Sugar donut is covered in organic cinnamon/sugar. This was one of my favourites but others who had a bite thought it was nothing special and tasted almost stale.

I quite enjoyed the Sweet Snow donut. I was especially fond of the large organic coconut shavings!

Calling all chocolate lovers! Rae’s favourite was this Baked Vegan Chocolate donut. There was so much chocolate involved but it wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet!

Overall, I enjoyed all of the donuts from Cartems and my very satisfied belly can testify to that. However, I generally prefer yeast based donuts because it’s lighter so Cartems may not be my go-to donut shop whenever I’m craving donuts.  It’s also a pricier than Tim Horton’s so I might have to just stick with Timmy Ho’s for now. :P

Service Rating: N/A

Food Rating: 3/5

Price: $

Overall Rating: 3/5

Happy Eating!

courtesy of http://www.urlesque.com/2010/06/25/29-crazily-delicious-donuts/