Fractured Prune

This week on Kellie’s Sweet Spots, we’re traveling to Arizona for truly one-of-a-kind doughnuts!

Raise your hand if you’ve ever associated a “fractured prune” with a doughnut shop.

Yeah, me neither.

But stick with me and you’ll be hooked.

Fractured Prune is a doughnut franchise with stores all across the United States. Unfortunately, they have yet to open one in California. Anyone want to go in on opening a shop with me here in Los Angeles? 😉

So what makes this place the home of unbelievable doughnuts? Well, YOU get to create your own freshly baked and dunked doughnut.

They have a menu on the wall that lists various popular doughnut creations, such as Cookies & Cream (vanilla glaze + Oreo cookie crumbs), Death By Chocolate (chocolate glaze + Oreo cookie crumbs + chocolate sprinkles), and S’more (marshmallow glaze + graham crackers + mini chocolate chips), but if you’re feeling creative, the good news is, you get to let your inner doughnut genius run wild. Each location offers at least a dozen different glazes and toppings so you can pick what will satisfy your doughnut craving.

Next up, be prepared to be mesmerized. They make your doughnut right there in front of you, from the stage of frying the doughnut to the end result of dipping the doughnut in the various glazes and toppings.

Think Chipotle. It’s kind of like that where it’s a cafeteria-style system. The doughnut dough is squeezed out of a machine and is dropped directly into the frying pan. The doughnut travels down the frying pan, is automatically flipped so both sides are evenly fried, and it makes its way to a dry spot in the machine. Still hot, the employee (who’s wearing gloves) follows the directions on your handwritten list and plops the doughnut into the glaze for a few seconds, transfers it to the toppings, pressing it down slightly so the toppings stick to the warm glaze, and places that beautiful work of art into a box to go (or onto a plate if you’re eating there). The process of glazing the doughnut to topping it off and putting it in the box is a total of about 5-7 seconds. It’s nearly a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” type of thing.

Now for the flavor of the doughnuts… Because the turn-around time for making these doughnuts is relatively quick, you would think the quality is not there, but let me tell you, oh it 100% is. These are some of the best doughnuts I’ve ever had. Perhaps it’s because I chose the toppings what I knew I already loved (like M&Ms and graham crackers and Oreo cookie crumbs), but even the quality of the dough itself is light, airy, and simply delicious.

The best part about this place is each doughnut is handmade just to your liking. I bought a dozen doughnuts, ate two in the morning, came back to the kitchen for an afternoon snack and had two more! Trust me, they’re great when they’re fresh, but they’re still phenomenal a few hours later!

Oh and how could I forget the price? I paid $15.99 for a dozen doughnuts (plus they give you a free coffee when you purchase a dozen). And each individual doughnut is $1.69. LESS THAN TWO DOLLARS TO CREATE THE DOUGHNUT OF YOUR CHOICE? HOW DO THEY MAKE MONEY!?!?

All I’m saying is California needs to get on this fad PRONTO because this idea is pure genius. Thank you, Fractured Prune, for opening my eyes to a whole new world of doughnuts. I will ABSOLUTELY be back.