Dixie Cream Donut Flour

It was 6:40ish on Sunday morning June 2, 2013.  I was taking the MetroLink light rail from Belleville, IL where we played a gig on Saturday evening to the Lambert Field to attend my nephew Kyle’s high school graduation in Milford, MI.  I only slept a few hours and was looking out at the passing landscape.  There were the numerous, actually there way too many, boarded up and abandoned buildings on the Illinois side of the Mississippi.  It was expected as that used to be a steel producing and heavy industry part of Greater St. Louis. 

I tried to take photos of interesting buildings and, of course, the arch.  None of the photos were any good.  Between being tired, the lighting, the reflection of the train window, and poor timing, the photos were nothing special.

There was more life and an interesting mix of new and old architecture as we trundled through St. Louis.  I did see a most interesting, at least to me, abandoned building on the western edge of downtown.  It was a modest four story brick building with windows that made it look more like it might have been an apartment building than a business.  I would have loved a photo of it, but by the time I noticed the name on the building and decided I would like a photo, it was too late to take even a bad photo of it.  We were past it.

What was the name of the building?  It is none other than the The Dixie Cream Donut Flour Company.  I would have never guessed a company could be dedicated to such a niche market.  I could see the people that make Gold Medal or King Arthur flour offering a variety of different kinds of flours.  I would not be surprised if I learned that they produced and marketed donut flour.  The Dixie Cream Donut Factory was created just for this niche.  Actually, per their name, they didn't just make regular old donut flour but the more exotic and special Cream Donut Flour whatever that may be. 

I wonder if they might have supplied the flour to the Krispy Kreme folks.  Maybe there is a difference between Cream Donut Flour and Kreme Donut Flour.  There must be a professor at some Ag School who is an expert on donut flour I could consult on this fascinating subject.

Or I could just google it. 

Googling is always a good idea.  There is, in fact, a Dixie Cream Donut company that is still in business.  www.dixiecreamdonuts.com They have the whole nine yards:  stores, menus, and, if I so desired, I could have a franchise.  I learned that a franchise would cost between $146 and $413 thousand.  I clicked on Locations to see if I could find a Dixie Cream shop anywhere near where I frequent.  Oddly, quite oddly the more I think about it, the only four locations listed are two in Saudi Arabia and two in Egypt.  OK then not really all that helpful.

On the About page of the website, I read the following:

Bite-for-bite, more delight

With more than 80 years of donut-making to our name, Dixie Cream knows how to make donuts that defy comparison. Notice that our donuts are a little taller than others. Notice, too, the golden band around the middle of a Dixie Cream. That’s our promise of light and creamy melt-in-your-mouth goodness that just gets better by the bite.

It must be that Dixie Cream Donut Flour that makes all the difference.  I wonder if there was a Dixie Cream Sugar or a Dixie Cream Filling and Frosting factory nearby.  As the factory is no longer in operation, I wondered where they get their donut flour these days.  I wondered if they still made it themselves or if they outsourced it.

I also found out that there used to be a Dixie Cream store in Chicago about fifty years ago.  This made sense especially considering the current state of their donut flour factory.  More googling revealed a youtube video Let's Face It:  Dixie Cream Donuts about a location in West Frankfurt, IL.    So, there are domestic locations despite the shortcoming of the website.

• Still curious, I googled “Dixie Cream Donut Flour” since in the course of using google I have learned to be more specific.  Here is what that search yielded:
• There is a blog, dixiecreamdonutflour.blogspot, with only one posting dated January 25, 2009 that has nothing to with Dixie Cream Donut Flour.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasa/8553497012/ by Paul Sableman 3-9-13

• There seems to a Dixie Cream Donut Flour Company based in Bowling Green, KY.  The listing was unclear if it was just offices or if the factory had relocated there.  If there is a factory there, I just know it has none of the charm of the one they abandoned in St. Louis.
• Lastly, there are pictures of the factory that I passed by.  Each of them are better than any photo I might have taken in a moving train.  I picked my favorite to use in this posting.

 

The other good thing about riding trains and being in airports are the conversations you overhear.  I was having a cup of coffee, no donut mind you, in the food court trying to get rid of the cobwebs.  There was a young girl, maybe seven years old, at the airports who was traveling with what I guessed was here aunt.  The young lady was quite chatty.  I overheard a lovely snippet of conversation.  

The girl asked, "Have you ever been in a power outage?"

The aunt plied, "Yes I have."

The girl continued, "Well, we had one the other day.   It was the worst day of my life.  There was no TV.  There was no internet.  I had to just play with my dolls."

Ah the modern era, how I long for an earlier, simpler time, like when the Dixie Cream Donut Flour factory was in operation.