Pick Your Favorite Donuts

[CellarDweller]

(Has anyone tried the Hot (White) Chocolate on an especially cold day? Yum!)

Me!  it' sooooooo good!

[serious crayons]

Katherine, we New Yorkers no nothing about 'jimmies,' unless somebody wants to jimmy a locked door -  )

I actually don't really call them jimmies, either. They're sprinkles or ... what about nonpareils? That's the weirdest name of all, and not just because it violates the "i before e" rule.

Though actually I think nonpareils are those crunchier round things:

Nonpareils
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nonpareils are a decorative confection of tiny sugar balls, traditionally an opaque white but now available in myriad colors. They are better known as hundreds and thousands or sprinkles in many Western countries. Their origin is uncertain, but they may have evolved out of the pharmaceutical use of sugar, as they were a miniature version of comfits [1]. The French name has been interpreted to mean they were "without equal" for intricate decoration of cakes, desserts, and other sweets, and the elaborate pièces montées constructed as table ornaments [2].

An 18th century American recipe for a frosted wedding cake calls for nonpareils as decoration. By the early 19th century, colored nonpareils seem to have been available in the U.S. The popular cookbook author Eliza Leslie suggests the use of red and green nonpareils for decorating a Queen cake, but strongly suggests white nonpareils are most suitable for pink icing on a pound cake in her 1828 Seventy-five Receipts for Pastries, Cakes and Sweetmeats [3].

In 1844, Eleanor Parkinson, of a well-known Philadelphia family of professional confectioners, first published her book The Complete Confectioner[4], in which she described how to make nonpareils following her comfit-making procedure. It was not for the faint-hearted, as it involved multiple hot pots, hot syrup, a steady hand, and a good deal of patience.

Traditional nonpareils gave way for most purposes by the mid 20th century to "sprinkles" (known to many as "jimmies"), confections nearly as small but usually oblong rather than round and soft rather than brittle. Like nonpareils, their function is more decorative than gustatory as their actual taste is indistinct, and the products they are applied to are usually themselves very high in sugar.



"Hundreds and thousands"?!

[Jeff Wrangler]

I actually don't really call them jimmies, either. They're sprinkles or ... what about nonpareils? That's the weirdest name of all, and not just because it violates the "i before e" rule.

There's no accounting for the French. ...

"Nonpareils" is what we always called little round pieces of chocolate, usually dark chocolate, about the size of a U.S. quarter, covered with white jimmies/sprinkles.

Grandma and Grandpa always had a covered glass bowl filled with them on an end table in the living room. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Don't forget the coffee to go with. I'd rather have Dunkin Donuts coffee than Starbucks any day. 

Except the Starbucks Christmas Blend. ...

[louisev]

no donuts for me... they're made with wheat.

[Brown Eyes]

Nonpareils can also be large enough to be individual candies (approximately of the same scale as Hersheys kisses or smaller like Snowcaps).  My Dad has told me that nonpareils were among his mother's favorite types of candies.  I never met her because she passed away when my Dad was 17.  But, I always think of this long lost grandma when I hear the term nonpareil.

He said that she used to keep bowls of nonpareils out in the house when he was growing up.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/7220334-a67.jpg" border="0" />
<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/7220333-9bc.jpg" border="0" />

I actually don't really call them jimmies, either. They're sprinkles or ... what about nonpareils? That's the weirdest name of all, and not just because it violates the "i before e" rule.

Though actually I think nonpareils are those crunchier round things:

Nonpareils
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nonpareils are a decorative confection of tiny sugar balls, traditionally an opaque white but now available in myriad colors. They are better known as hundreds and thousands or sprinkles in many Western countries. Their origin is uncertain, but they may have evolved out of the pharmaceutical use of sugar, as they were a miniature version of comfits [1]. The French name has been interpreted to mean they were "without equal" for intricate decoration of cakes, desserts, and other sweets, and the elaborate pièces montées constructed as table ornaments [2].

An 18th century American recipe for a frosted wedding cake calls for nonpareils as decoration. By the early 19th century, colored nonpareils seem to have been available in the U.S. The popular cookbook author Eliza Leslie suggests the use of red and green nonpareils for decorating a Queen cake, but strongly suggests white nonpareils are most suitable for pink icing on a pound cake in her 1828 Seventy-five Receipts for Pastries, Cakes and Sweetmeats [3].

In 1844, Eleanor Parkinson, of a well-known Philadelphia family of professional confectioners, first published her book The Complete Confectioner[4], in which she described how to make nonpareils following her comfit-making procedure. It was not for the faint-hearted, as it involved multiple hot pots, hot syrup, a steady hand, and a good deal of patience.

Traditional nonpareils gave way for most purposes by the mid 20th century to "sprinkles" (known to many as "jimmies"), confections nearly as small but usually oblong rather than round and soft rather than brittle. Like nonpareils, their function is more decorative than gustatory as their actual taste is indistinct, and the products they are applied to are usually themselves very high in sugar.



"Hundreds and thousands"?!

[Jeff Wrangler]

That list doesn't seem to have what the shop near my office has been selling for some time as "Manager's Special." It's a doughnut filled with a sort of vanilla pudding (not the filling used in cream-filled or Boston cream doughnuts) and frosted with chocolate frosting sprinkled with sprinkles/jimmies. It's very yummy, and what I meant when I picked "Other" as one of my choices.

[serious crayons]

That list doesn't seem to have what the shop near my office has been selling for some time as "Manager's Special." It's a doughnut filled with a sort of vanilla pudding (not the filling used in cream-filled or Boston cream doughnuts) and frosted with chocolate frosting sprinkled with sprinkles/jimmies. It's very yummy, and what I meant when I picked "Other" as one of my choices.

That's what I think of as a Boston cream, though maybe without the hundreds and thousands. The cream inside a Boston cream should be more like vanilla pudding or custard than whippped cream, IMO.

[Brown Eyes]

That's what I think of as a Boston cream, though maybe without the hundreds and thousands. The cream inside a Boston cream should be more like vanilla pudding or custard than whippped cream, IMO.

Yes, the filling in Boston cream should be like vanilla pudding, or vanilla pastry cream... essentially like a donut version of an eclair.

[louisev]

yep, leave off the jimmies and that's a classic Boston Cream, which is sort of a scaled down version of the Boston Cream Pie.