Crosstown Donuts & Coffee

Sourdough doughnuts rolled in Battersea

The programme starts before the shop counter, at Crosstown Donuts & Coffee’s central London bakery in Battersea, where the doughnuts are made fresh each day. The house style is not the soft, airy American ring. It uses a hybrid sourdough base with more chew, a closer crumb, and enough bread-like structure to carry jam, compote, glaze, frosting and heavier fillings without collapsing into sugar. The dough is rolled and pinned by hand, and the fillings and toppings are made in-house, from jams and compotes to glazes and chocolate finishes. That matters because the flavours are built in layers: fruit against cream, peanut against jam, matcha against a sweet glaze, chocolate against a darker dough. Vegan doughnuts are part of the regular language here rather than a side note, and the range changes often enough that the case is the point of the visit.

A quick counter with a proper case

The room works as a counter-service bakery first, with coffee and tea doing the steady work beside the doughnuts. It is useful when there is a box to build, an order to collect, or one doughnut to eat before moving on. Staff are used to talking through the case, which helps when a particular filled doughnut has already gone. The pace is quick, but the choice takes a minute, because the names are not decoration: Raspberry Jam, Peanut Butter, Matcha & Strawberry and Dark Chocolate Truffle all point to different weights of dough and filling. Coffee is treated as a companion rather than a separate ceremony, and it makes most sense with the richer bakes, particularly the matcha, chocolate and lemon-led flavours.

Start with Matcha & Strawberry, then go darker

The first order should be Matcha & Strawberry if it is in the case. It gives the sourdough base something useful to do, since the chew holds fruit and green-tea bitterness better than a lighter doughnut would. Vegan Dark Chocolate Truffle is the one for a slower bite, darker and more dessert-like, and a good test of how seriously the vegan side is taken. Cinnamon Scroll is the plainer choice but not the lesser one; it puts the dough itself nearer the front, with spice rather than filling doing the work. Raspberry Jam is the old reliable when it appears, the kind of filled doughnut that disappears early because everyone understands it. For a box, mix one fruit, one chocolate, one nut or spice and one vegan doughnut, and read the case before deciding, because the rotation is part of the habit here.