Shaka Donuts: Big, Fluffy and Worth Setting an Alarm For
Malasadas, a maple bacon doughnut, banana pudding and Boston cream — Shaka Donuts at 2641 Curry Ford Road ranks No. 9 among Orlando bakeries, and its breakfast sandwich is built on a doughnut.
3 minute read
There is a particular kind of Orlando morning that starts on Curry Ford Road with a pink-box decision. Shaka Donuts, at 2641 Curry Ford Road in the Hourglass District, is the shop behind it: a doughnut specialist whose case mixes Hawaiian-leaning malasadas with American bakery classics and a rotating cast of specials that regulars learn to watch for. It is a small shop with an outsized reputation, and the reputation survives contact with the product.
The ranking, stated plainly
In Orlando Citizen’s rankings, Shaka Donuts stands No. 9 among Orlando bakeries with a Net Score of 88.0 — the full table is in Best Bakeries in Orlando. The category winner feature profiles Bakery 1908, linked here only as the category winner. Shaka’s own story is a move: the shop previously traded on East Michigan Street in the SoDo area, and its relocation to Curry Ford Road — supported, city records show, through an Orlando business assistance agreement for the 2641 Curry Ford Road premises — put it in the middle of the Hourglass corridor, a few doors from F&D Woodfired Italian Kitchen and a short walk from Hourglass Brewing.
What is in the case
Start with the malasadas, the Portuguese-Hawaiian fried dough that gives the shop its name and its point of difference: pillowy, sugar-dusted and best eaten while they still hold the fryer’s warmth. Around them, the regular case runs to a maple bacon doughnut that balances sweet glaze against smoky bacon, a Boston cream, a chocolate brownie doughnut, a banana pudding doughnut and cookies-and-cream styles, plus a cronut-style layered pastry that reviewers single out for its flake. Visit Orlando’s doughnut roundup, in an earlier edition, praised Shaka’s themed specials — names like S’more Than a Feeling and the Aloha! Fritter — and that playfulness is still the house style: flavours rotate, limited runs appear, and the correct strategy is to order the special when you see it rather than assume it will be there next week. The doughnuts themselves are notably generous — big, fluffy and, at their best, not overly sweet, which is what makes a second one a plausible decision.
The sandwich that settles breakfast
Shaka’s savoury move deserves its own paragraph: breakfast sandwiches built on doughnuts, with egg and cheese inside a glazed ring, alongside jalapeño cheddar doughnut holes with chipotle aioli that the same Visit Orlando roundup flagged. It sounds like a stunt and eats like a plan — sweet, salty, rich, and exactly the thing a Curry Ford morning crawl needs between coffee stops. Pair it with coffee in-house or carry the box a few blocks west to Foxtail Coffee in the Hourglass Social House; our full route is in Hourglass District mornings.
How to do a visit well
Go early, especially at weekends: popular flavours sell through, and a doughnut shop’s best hour is its first one. Buy a mixed box rather than a single flavour — the case rewards range — and treat the malasadas as the non-negotiable. Shaka is the morning anchor of the district in the same way Pizza Bruno is its dinner anchor, and the two bookend the corridor neatly on the Orlando Top Spots Map. A district this small should not contain a top-ten bakery and a top-ten pizzeria. This one does, and the bakery is the one that opens first.
One more thing the case teaches: range is the house language. Alongside the malasadas and the filled classics, Shaka rotates limited-time specials with the kind of names — S’more Than a Feeling, Why Is the Rum Always Gone?, the Aloha! Fritter — that tell you the bakers are amusing themselves, and the regulars have learned to treat a new name in the case as a limited engagement rather than a permanent listing. Themed runs tied to the calendar have been part of the shop’s reputation since its Michigan Street days. The practical translation is simple: if a special catches your eye, it goes in the box now, and the staples will still be there next visit to carry the order.
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