Lexington restaurant to appear on Cooking Channel's 'Donut Showdown'

LEXINGTON (WSLS 10) - A Lexington restaurant will take part in "Donut Showdown" on Tuesday night.

Pure Eats on North Main Street is one of three donut makers to compete in the reality TV show on the Cooking Channel.

Regional Manager Kasey Potter said she thought it was a joke when the shop received a Facebook message from someone claiming to be a casting director for "Sugar Showdown," but she called the phone number in the message just in case.

"It was legit," she said. "It was actually a casting director for the show. He saw our Facebook page and our amazing donuts and wanted us to compete."

The show will test the creativity of three bakers, representing Pure Eats, as well as a donut shop in North Carolina and New York, in the kitchen with a mystery ingredient as part of an elimination round.

Potter said their competition may have thought they had it in the bag because unlike Pure Eats, the two competing businesses only serve donuts. At Pure Eats, donuts are just a small part of what the shop does, as it offers burgers with locally-sourced meat, as well as craft beer.

Another challenge, "we're used to making donuts back here in our kitchen," Potter said. "We have a doughnut robot who actually cuts donuts for us and there we had to use a handheld machine and we had to make everything from scratch, so it was a challenge."

The last two standing after the elimination round will then compete for $10,000 in what's described as a wake-up-call-themed donut showdown.

Potter said they were told the mystery ingredient would be coffee, beer or maple syrup.

"When I read those three I thought, oh my gosh we have this in the bag because we do a beer doughnut all the time. We do maple bacon, that's one of our staple donuts," explained Potter. "And so the one I didn't want was coffee and unfortunately, that's the one that they chose."

Potter is sworn to secrecy on the outcome but says the experience alone was worth it.

"It was definitely a learning experience, just being there. You're in this huge kitchen with one million different things. It was great."

The episode of Donut Showdown will air January 3 at 10 p.m. on the Cooking Channel.