The Scoop: Frangelli's Bakery
South Philly bakery stuffs homemade doughnuts with ice cream for the ultimate ice cream sandwich.
The deal: The South Philly corner spot's been there since 1947 and still feels like a best-kept neighborhood secret. When owner, pastry chef and neighborhood kid John Conlosi bought the biz in 2010, he kept the recipes - and resurrected a summertime tradition: the plain doughnut, sliced in half and filled to order with vanilla or chocolate Jack & Jill ice cream, and dusted with powdered sugar. Conlosi said that he remembered the treat "as a child, growing up right across the street, at 9th and Jackson."
Where: 847 W. Ritner St. (9th and Ritner), 215-271-7878, frangellis.com.
Summer hours: 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. They'll reopen Sundays and Mondays in the fall.
Most popular: Evenly divided between vanilla and chocolate, although, lately, said the woman behind the counter, "People come in, they just want the 'Franolli.' "
Franolli? Same homemade, hand-cut doughnut but stuffed with cannoli cream, the kind made with ricotta and tiny chocolate chips. Conlosi created his first in April, gave away a couple of hundred samples one Saturday and wound up featured on "The Chew."
We tried: Chocolate ice-cream stuffed. Breakfast (sandwich) of champions. Disappeared all too quickly.
Then we: Ordered a paper box filled with glazed, cinnamon-sugared and chocolate-iced, plain and buttercream-stuffed cronuts and a coupla those famous Franolli, for good measure. (Wouldn't you?)
Next time we'll: Come in by 7:30 a.m., when the doughnuts are still warm, and eat our ice cream-stuffed even faster. And take home a dozen cinnamon buns. And maybe a few more Franolli.
Prices: Ice-cream stuffed: $3. Franolli: $3, other doughnuts: 90 cents.