Nutie Donuts, Balmain’s vegan-doughnut specialist, has opened its second outpost in the CBD in the Hunter Arcade. All of the sweets on the menu are vegetarian and gluten-free, and everything is baked in-house daily.
With a pastel-pink floor and charcoal walls, Nutie’s hallmark pink-neon doughnut logo takes pride of place. Faces are pressed to glass cabinets lined with doughnuts, cakes, brownie-crusted tarts, wagon wheels, lemon-meringue pies, black-bean-fudge brownies, and s’more cookie sandwiches, which are all available to take away.
Self-taught baker Sina Klug and her business partner Jacques Dumont can be seen in-store baking doughnuts and running the business daily – a promising sign of quality. Together they’ve developed allergy-friendly and vegan treats, which originally found success at the Bondi Farmers Market.
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SHOP NOW“We used to stay up all night trying to create our doughnut recipe. So many batches ended up in the bin,” says Klug, laughing.
Many of Klug’s creations came about by accident. The popularity of Nutie’s cookie-monster doughnut was a result of an afternoon messing about in the kitchen. “I was bored … I was playing around, and I posted this photo of (what I thought was) a boring blue doughnut. That afternoon I was flooded with overwhelming orders.”
“Gluten-free baking can be incredibly complicated until you find out which nuts, flours and starches react which way,” says Klug. Substitute ingredients include almond meal and almond milk (which is made in-house), while cookies are made with chickpea flour, and brownies with black beans.
Vegan and dairy-free highlights include vegan marshmallows and the “couch potato” vanilla choc-chip doughnut with a salted-potato-chip cluster, covered in very dark Belgian chocolate.
“One of our biggest challenges is tasting as good as the original,” says Klug. “We don’t settle for second best.” Success is measured by its demand, with 12 cafes in Sydney currently stocking fresh goods from the Balmain store.
Savoury lunch options include cauliflower pizza, vegan salads, buddha bowls, soups and sandwiches.
“Even though we are growing bigger, quality always comes first for us.”
Nutie CBD
109 Pitt Street, Sydney
Hours:
Mon to Fri 7am–5pm
This article first appeared on Broadsheet on June 1, 2018. Menu items may have changed since publication.
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