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Corey Miller
Doughnuts from Chesapeake Doughnut Company.
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Corey Miller
Gabe del Rio and Jeff Ewing
Customers have spoken and they want to be able to come inside Chesapeake Doughnut Company. While curbside service continues, they’re also moving toward opening the interior on a socially distanced basis since colder weather doesn’t suit the outside service cart. Because the shop was designed during the pandemic, their protocols reflect the new level of service required for health safety. Online ordering is simple and a call or text upon arrival brings doughnuts to your car. A second location in Warsaw is due to open by November.
OUR STORY
When Lancaster High School graduate Gabe del Rio moved back to Irvington after 20 years spent getting degrees from JMU and Harvard and working in California for non-profits, he was returning to the village he’d moved to full time at age 12 after his Mom died to live with his grandparents. Once he began doing non-profit consulting and could work remotely, he and husband Jeff Ewing, a local CPA, moved back to Irvington. Both were surprised at the lack of doughnut shops on the east coast. “There’s enough people in the county to support a doughnut shop,” del Rio says. “It’s an attainable, affordable treat, and who doesn’t like fried dough?” The cake and yeast doughnuts are made fresh daily with organic ingredients using no chemicals, additives or preservatives.
The location was a no-brainer. “I grew up with that building being the Buoy, our local convenience store,” he recalls. “When I worked at White Stone Pharmacy in high school, that’s where we’d go for fried chicken and potato wedges.” When he moved back and saw the closed building, he began considering what kind of business might work well there. “It’s the gateway to the area.”
The pandemic delayed things but on June 12, Chesapeake Doughnut Company officially opened. It didn’t take long for locals to make glazed yeast doughnuts the best seller, with cinnamon and confectioner’s sugar-coated cake doughnuts a close second. Recently added to the menu are breakfast sandwiches on unglazed doughnuts.
Del Rio is happy with how much better the old building looks and for providing permanent living wage jobs. “We came at the right time, just as White Stone is being transformed.”
Bread pudding must always be made with stale bread, the drier, the better. This combination of white chocolate with raspberries is ideal for the season. Recipe is easily doubled with a larger pan and flexible enough to add raisins, nuts or chocolate chips to taste.
Original Recipe
Doughnut Bread Pudding
Ingredients:
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups half & half (or 1 cup milk + 1 cup of cream)
- 3 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 Tbsp. vanilla
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 6 stale yeast doughnuts (glazed or sugar coated)
- ½ cup white chocolate chips/chunks
- ½ cups raspberries (frozen or fresh)
Directions:
Step 1: Preheat oven 325 degrees.
Step 2: Prepare a loaf pan by coating inside with butter. Break doughnuts into 1" chunks.
Step 3: Combine eggs, half & half, sugar, vanilla and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk until well blended. Add doughnut chunks and fold until doughnuts and liquid are evenly combined.
Step 4: After letting mixture sit and soak up the liquid, fold in chips and raspberries.
Step 5: Place mix in prepared pan.
Step 6: Bake 50-60 minutes, until top is golden brown and edges are bubbling.
Download Printable Recipe Here
500 Rappahannock Drive | White Stone, Virginia 22578
804-499-3111 | cdoughnut.com
