Much excitement accompanied the opening of Melbourne’s Shortstop Coffee & Donuts in Barangaroo.
2016
I often lament that Sydney is much smaller than other global cities around the world, yet while I work in the CBD, a return trip to Barangaroo is still a good hour out of my way. After months of tempting photos of delicious doughnuts on the internet, though, I resolved to wake up early and make my way there before work.
There are twelve items on the menu, varying from raised, cake and filled doughnuts as well as cruellers.
This is the Earl Grey and Rose ($4.50), made with their classic cake batter mixed with Earl Grey tea before being injected with lemon myrtle and dipped into a rose water and rose petal icing.
An obvious choice for me, the doughnut is beautifully fragrant with pleasant floral rose notes in the icing and visible specks of Earl Grey tea in the light and fluffy and moist cake. The lemon myrtle jam gave the doughnut extra moisture and a citrus kick that you’d expect from Earl Grey, although I’m not the biggest fan of the lingering spiciness of lemon myrtle (and explains my dislike for Pukka’s Lemon & Mandarin Infusion). It’s subtle here.
This is the Cookies & Cream Cake ($4.00), a chocolate cake donut base dipped in a cookie crumb-laced sour cream glaze and topped with salted chocolate cookie chunks.
It’s the fluffiest, lightest chocolate doughnut you’ll ever eat. The sweetness in the cake is mellow to counter the sweetness in the glaze, whilst the cookie crumb on top adds a pleasant saltiness.
This is the Maple Walnut and Burnt Butter Raised ($5.00) with their raised doughnut topped with a rich, brown butter glaze and generously covered in maple roasted walnuts.
It’s hard for anything with maple syrup and burnt butter to not be delicious, and this doughnut was just that. The burnt butter gave a creaminess to the glaze that lends itself well to the slight bitter nutty notes of walnuts, which have been caramelised with maple. It is pillowy soft with a walnut sitting modestly on the doughnut hole.
This is their Tiramisu Filled ($5.50), a new style of doughnut at Short Stop that’s glazed in a milk chocolate & espresso glaze, then filled from the top, with a mascarpone cream and topped with a Kahlua creme patissier and finished with caramelised white chocolate.
The doughnut is dense compared to their cake and raised doughnuts, which I prefer, but it’s likely required to give the filling a sturdy transport. The glaze has a good hit of coffee in the chocolate, much like a good mocha. I’d have appreciated a stronger Kahlua hit in the creme patissier, which was pleasantly mellow in sweetness, while the marscapone provided a fresh relief from the sweetness of the glaze. I barely registered the caramelised white chocolate sprinkled, which was a lot less generous than their promotional image.
This is their Cookies & Cream Filled ($5.50) with a basic doughnut base filled with a cookie-laced, fluffy vanilla bean pastry cream, topped with a sour cream and cookie glaze and finished with chunks of their house made salted chocolate cookies.
As with the tiramisu filled, I found the doughnut base to be quite dense and dry. Again, the pastry cream isn’t very sweet, although the cookie-crumbs within are immediately obvious to the palate. The same icing is used as in the Cookies & Cream Cake, and is the main source of sweetness, and the cookie chunks here are much larger and generous.
And finally, this is the New Orleans Iced Coffee Crueller ($4.00), with cocoa added to their classic French Crueller, then dipped into a cold brew coffee (Market Lane’s Seasonal Espresso) and vanilla bean glaze (Heilala Vanilla).
This crueller smells amazing like an elegant coffee that’s perfectly sweet and bitter and acidic. The glaze gave a crisp shell that hides the light and airy chocolate innards. There’s no photo of the innards, though, ‘cause I inhaled its deliciousness before I remembered.
With such delicious doughnuts, is it a blessing or a curse that it’s so out of the way for me?
2019
I was after their oolong filled doughnut that unfortunately disappeared from their menu before the weekend and instead picked up this Coconut & Lemon Meringue Filled ($6.00), which is available exclusively on Sunday. It’s ‘filled with a tart lemon curd, topped with coconut meringue and freshly torched’.
The doughnut here is light with the meringue bringing a soft and prominent sweetness that contrasts with the intensely tart lemon curd to leave us salivating with every bite. The coconut added an extra layer of flavour but I’d have preferred the meringue without it.
This is the Plum Raised ($5.00), which is ‘topped with a slightly tart plum glaze’ made from fresh and in-season plums.
The raised doughnuts were about 50% larger than the filled ones and this one here has a pleasant sweet-tart flavour of cooked plums much like plum jam.
2017
This is their Lychee & Oolong Filled Donut ($6.00). It looks worse for wear, but that always seems to be the case when you visit during the morning when the doughnuts are fresh out of the kitchen and the glaze hasn’t had sufficient time to set. As its named suggests, the doughnut is filled with creme patissiere flavoured with a lychee-infused oolong and topped with oolong biscuits.
The creme patissiere is bright with a lychee oolong flavour and recalled the fruity, floral notes of the Lychee Oolong by Lupicia rather than the lightness of fresh lychees. It’s barely sweetened, relying on the sugar glaze which balances the flavour well. The raised doughnut is tender without being doughy, while the oolong biscuits atop lent a pleasant toasty flavour. They were soft, rather than crispy as expected, but it works.
Also part of their Lunar New Year lineup was this Houjicha Latte Cake Donut ($5.00), a hōjicha cake doughnut base, topped with a white chocolate and hōjicha glaze and finished with milk crumbs.
The hōjicha flavour in this doughnut is mellow and subtle, coming through in both the doughnut base and the glaze but the flavour was lost to only a hint in the finish when eaten together with the very milky-tasting milk crumbs. I imagine the milk crumbs is where the ‘latte’ part comes in, but I enjoyed the pleasant roasted green tea flavour of the doughnut more without it. The texture of the doughnut a bit denser than their Earl Grey & Rose Donut.
And to round off the tea-inspired doughnuts, is their staple Triple Matcha Cake Donut ($5.00), with a matcha cake doughnut base, topped with a white chocolate & matcha glaze and finished with matcha icing stripes.
The glaze is sweet with the flavour of a good matcha latte and carries most of the matcha flavour in the doughnut. The bright green of the doughnut itself, but there’s only a faint bitter matcha edge that came through in the finish. I’ve read many people describe the matcha flavour as one that hits you in the face, but I’d say it’s rather restrained and would prefer a brighter matcha flavour in the doughnut.
I’m happy to report that the lychee doughnut shaped hole in my heart has been filled. Shortstop Coffee and Donuts really do make doughnuts a step above the rest.
2019
Shortstop Coffee & Donuts was one of my most anticipated openings at Darling Square because finally, there’d be no need to rek all the way to Barangaroo for doughnuts!
Rather than go for the tried and true favourites though, I went for the newer flavours. This one here is the Pear, Lemon & Thyme Filled ($6.00). It’s described as their ‘yeast dough dipped in lemon glaze, filled with vanilla creme patissiere, topped with a pear compote, polenta crumble and chopped fresh thyme’.
The zesty and tangy lemon glaze was the highlight to this doughnut, cutting through the relative heaviness of the raised doughnut while the pear compote added sweetness while retaining some bite. The vanilla added moisture but we weren’t fans of the thyme, though, as it reminded too much of seasoning for roast potato and potato chips.
This is the Strawberry & Lime Raised ($5.00).
We were expecting something bright, zesty and tart while while it delivered on the citrus notes, it wasn’t the sharp zestiness of fresh lime as it was restrained by the prominent sweetness. On that count, the sweetness lacked the acidity of fresh strawberries and indeed was not identifiable immediately as strawberry. Overall, it was a fruity doughnut but the glaze did not deliver in flavour or generosity in a way the plum raised had led us to expect.
2021
For Lunar New Year, Shortstop Coffee & Donuts created a series of thematic doughnuts. The series consisted of Pandan Custard, Pineapple Meringue and Mango Black Sesame. Alas, the pineapple meringue that attracted me wasn’t available at the Haymarket store.
So, I went for the Mango Black Sesame ($5.50), a ‘black sesame cake doughnut, filled with mango jam, dipped in a fresh mango glaze and sprinkled with toasted black sesame seeds’.
The doughnut has a rich and deep nutty black sesame flavour that’s accentuated by the crunch of the black sesame on top. The mango glaze delivered a sweet acidity that contrasts the black sesame along with the softer cooked mango in the cake itself. That said, the mango flavour was rather lost in the boldness of the black sesame and came through only as a softer, jammy texture and sweetness rather than packing a punchy mango flavour. The doughnut would’ve been more successful if it’d focused on just the black sesame.
2022
Salted Coconut, Yuzu & Kaya ($6.50). It is filled with a housemade kaya jam, topped with a glaze of coconut cream and yuzu, and finished with salted coconut flakes.
This was in flavour a coconut-flavoured doughnut, with the kaya delivering a rich coconut flavour with an earthy fragrant hint of pandan. The kaya was moderately sweet, with the coconut cream and yuzu glaze delivering the main source of sweetness. The glaze was intensely sweet, yet the similarly bold acidity of the yuzu component brought a floral quality that cuts through the heaviness of the kaya filling. The salted coconut chips restrained the sweetness of the glaze somewhat and provided welcome textural interest by adding an element of crunch. Overall, while well-executed, this doughnut was a bit too rich for our taste.
Shortstop Coffee & Donuts is located at 3/23 Barangaroo Ave, Barangaroo NSW 2000 and 15 Little Hay St, Harymarket NSW 2000.