Pimento Cheese Old Bay Filled Doughnuts

50% Northern, 50% Southern: Old Bay dusted pimento cheese filled doughnuts. A brunch dream.

How is this not a thing? I know the doughnut trend was at peak last year but we could do with more doughnuts in our lives. Fortunately (and unfortunately...easy access to fresh doughnuts is hard to resist) we have a really, really good doughnut shop in downtown Leesburg. When we were working on our April meal planning seasonal menu, we wanted to play with Southern spring methodologies and flavors. Pimento cheese made the list but it took us a few days to figure out how we were going to make it our own.

Or for people with a strong pimento cheese background: how were we going to completely bastardize a Southern favorite? 

Add a Northern seasoning and put it in a doughnut instead of on white bread.

And I hate to say it, but you're going to love it. Also, I added vinegar and chives. It makes it so much better. Don't kill me. I'm from Northern Virginia and have been raised Mason Dixon ambiguous! (No Southern accent, a love of tomato sandwiches and grits, a northern sense of time and schedule but awareness of humidity and need to hand write thank you notes...I don't know which side I fall on). 

While you can make your own doughnuts, we knew we could never do doughnuts justice like the shop down the street could. It's literally their job to make doughnuts. How am I going to compete with that? So we popped over and picked up  glazed, unfilled doughnuts to fill and season. Originally I tried to request an order of unseasoned unfilled doughnuts but instead we settled for glazed. Here's why it works: Pimento cheese sandwiches are traditionally served on white bread (super sweet, a bit squishy). Because I did mess around a bit with the filling to make it have some flavors that would cut through the creamy, high fat interior (cheese on cheese on cheese and mayo cut with vinegar, onion and Old Bay), the extra sugar on the outside totally works to compensate.

I'm also going to go so far as to say: Hey B Doughnut....can we make Old Bay glaze doughnuts a special flavor for summer?  

The bottom line here is: go to your favorite doughnut place, and buy the professional doughnuts to fill and season. Hypothetically, you could probably pull this off with those little doughnut holes too.

Pimento Cheese Old Bay Filled Doughnuts

makes enough filling for 6-8 doughnuts (depending on size)

/// Ingredients /// 

• 6-8 plain or glazed unfilled doughnuts (without holes...obviously)
• 2 cups shredded white cheddar cheese
• 2 cups shredded yellow sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded gouda cheese
• 1, 4 oz jar od chopped pimentos, drained 
• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/4 cup cream cheese
• 1 Tablespoon grated white onion
• 2 Tablespoons dijon mustard
• 1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon old bay + more for sprinkling on outside of doughnut
• fresh chives

/// Directions ///

Combine cream cheese and mayo in a bowl. Use the back of your spoon or rubber spatula to blend together. Stir in cheeses, pimentos and cider vinegar. Stir to combine. Add salt and pepper and Old Bay. Store in fridge covered for an hour. 

To fill doughnuts, use a star tip piping tip to create a hole on one side of the doughnut. Fill piping bag fitted with a large round opening tip with pimento cheese filling. Pipe doughnuts and dust sides with Old Bay. Top with fresh chives. Store in fridge.