Chocolate-frosted old fashioned doughnuts have downsides

The argument for this doughnut has a hole.

While it's labeled with a couple of different names, the old fashioned or sour cream doughnut is just about the most perfect doughnut in the whole world.

It packs a dense, cake-like consistency. Its top is ridged for optimum flavor delivery. It comes with an actual donut hole, not unnecessary cloying yellow or white cream filling.

The old fashioned sour cream donut is also often prepared with a glazing so thick it borders on frosting. You can get them unglazed, too. But the best option is usually that heavy glaze that combats the donut's only weakness, a propensity to come off a little dry.

So imagine my surprise the other day when I discovered a chocolate-frosted old fashioned sour cream doughnut in a Baltimore-area Wegman's. Replacing the classic near-buttercream glaze with an actual top of frosting is decidedly not old fashioned. It's new and edgy and worth a bite.

It's worth as many bites as it takes to finish the donut, in fact. After that, though, I'll be sticking to the classic preparation.

You see, the chocolate icing is a nice attempt at changing up that classic formula of doughnut goodness. On paper it's a match made in heaven: take two good things, combine them, and come up with a better thing. In this case, though, the whole concoction is less than the sum of the confectionery parts. The chocolate icing adds a depth to the donut without being as sweet as traditional glazing, but its cocoa tones only amplify the dryness problem.

So eat these things with milk, if you're going to eat them. Four sporks out of five.