My Sister's Lil' Donut Shoppe - Oswego, IL

My Sister's Lil' Donut Shoppe 

My Little Sister's Donut shoppe is located in downtown Oswego, which is about an hour west of Chicago. Oswego is about as cute a town (or village. They seem pretty caught up on being a VILLAGE as its on every sign) as you will ever see outside of an illustrated children's book. As we pulled up to this place, I remarked to the kids that I had a feeling this was definitely going to be the cutest donut store we went to all summer.  My 6 year old was obsessed with the door especially and said it looked like it was from Disney. I thought the entire place looked like it could be a part of the Snow White ride at the Magic Kingdom and then all I wanted was a dole whip which is just torturous but I digress...

Each kid picked a donut (two of them picked the SAME donut which makes me question if they really get the whole point of what we are doing here, but...) and then I picked the special of the month: An oreo topped long john with a cream filling that was made of whipped cream and crushed oreos. Obviously it was totally disgusting and I hated every bite....Every. Wonderful. Bite. (plus the left overs I licked off my fingers). We also got a cinnamon twist to split because it just looked really good and I, er, I mean WE, wanted it. 

Here are the kid's reviews of their Oswego donut experience: 

M, Age 11: I got the powdered cake doughnut, and I thought it was really good. I also had part of the cinnamon twist doughnut and that was really good as well. Also, the store was so cute!!! I walked in, and it smelled good, and the whole place was adorable. I would definitely go back. 

L, Age 8: I had a glazed Doughnut.   I thought it was delicious. I liked the cinnamon twist. 

K, Age 6: i liked it a little bit but i did liked the  cinnamon twist.

(oh gosh its killing me not to correct that last sentence. He's six, he's learning, but oy. Serenity now.)

Bottom Line: While there is no indoor or immediate outdoor seating available, My Sister's Lil Donut Shoppe happens to be just a short walk from what is arguably the prettiest park in all of Chicagoland - Hudson's Crossing Park. So that is where we went with our donuts and perhaps the most telling review is that one child sat and picked sulkily at her donut on a bench (in her defense, we stopped here on our way home from her being diagnosed with Strep and she was miserable), one child took off running for the swings - donuts be damned, and one child took off running for the swings WHILE fiercely clutching her donut. So I'm pretty sure we have another mixed bag. 

Mariano's Fresh Glazed Donuts

Mariano's Hot Glazed Donuts

Every day at 4pm, Mariano's grocery store has fresh, warm, glazed donuts available (at least at the location near us. I have no idea if this is chain-wide or not). While their regular donuts are pretty good anyways - and they even get fancy with crazy donuts covered in bacon or fruit loops - these warm glazed donuts came highly recommended to us by some local friends.

omg y'all. They really are fresh from the oven and they steam up the plastic viewing window on the box. yummmmmmmmmmmm. 

I, for one, loved these donuts and was not really aware of them before this. I can't tell you how annoying it is to know that these suckers are about a mile from my house every day at 4pm now. I want to eat them every day, forever. 

 

Here are what the kids thought of these donuts:

M, age 11: I thought that these donuts were pretty good. When we received the donuts, they were  lukewarm. That was sort of disappointing because I was promised warm donuts, but the donuts were still pretty good. I would give the donuts a 4/5. My mom made fun of me for the fork and knife, but I HATE sticky fingers. So yeah, I looked dumb, but I don't really care.

 Mom Edit: What in the ever loving heck is going on here? This is weird right? Its not just me? Aren't gooey fingers the best part of fresh-from-the-oven donuts!?

L, age 8: This morning when I heard that they were going to be hot, I was a little worried. But now, I want to eat it every day because they tasted so good.

K, age 6:  The boy-child has a play date over right now and can not be bothered to come and write his review. I will let the following picture do the talking for him. He was not a fan of the warm and doughy texture which led to just another moment in my life where I questioned how in the world I gave birth to this strange creature:

Bottom Line: Mixed bag. Two of us loved them, one was just okay, one of us did not like them (but ate the whole thing none the less ;) ) 

Welcome!

It is officially summer here in Chicagoland and my kids and I need something to do! To keep their brains from going to mush, we have decided to take on a summer blog project! And by "we" I mean "I" have informed them that they will continue to exercise their brain's ability to generate written ideas by keeping a blog. You can imagine how thrilled they were. So to make it as easy as possible on them, I picked a topic they LOVE to talk about (and beg for. daily.) - DONUTS!!

So here is the deal, we have decided that we WILL find the best donut in all of Chicagoland. So a couple times a week we will be trying out various donut shops in the city and suburbs that we have heard good things about and the kids will be taking turns posting their reviews here. We have decided we will go as far west as DeKalb, as far north as the Wisconsin border, and as far south as the Indiana border. Obviously the lake is our Eastern border - unless anyone knows of a good little place to get a cup o' joe and a donut in the middle of Lake Michigan ;)

The kids will love to get comments on their posts so please feel free to comment. I will be monitoring and removing any inappropriate ones so please be kind. These are 11, 8, and 6 year old children here. Don't expect a mind blowing culinary review okie dokie?

If you know of any good donut shops we should add to our list, feel free to comment and let us know!

Thanks!

PS: This blog was primarily designed as a way to trick my 8 year old to continue generating ideas and writing during the summer, as she has some pretty frustrating learning disabilities in this area. So I really can not stress enough how much she could use some supportive and kind comments. In other words, while this is the internet, don't be a jerk. thanks.