Glazed and Confused brings doughnuts downtown

The sign is up at 107 S. Washington Square: Glazed and Confused (An Urban Bakery).

An urban bakery?

"The whole idea of bakeries in the old days, they were places you could sit at a counter and talk to the person working there," said owner Pete Counseller. "There was a stool. There was communication. There was activity."

That's his vision for Glazed and Confused, which is set to open next month: a full service bakery, a gathering place.

"It used to be years ago, communities were really built around a butcher, baker and kind of the bank for the most part," he said.

He says the donuts, made from scratch like everything else, will be the first thing people notice.

The original glazed and confused doughnut is a doughnut, with a doughnut hole put back on top. He makes his sticky buns with locally sourced pecans, roasted in-house. The Maple Bacon Bar has real maple syrup and good bacon, bringing sweet and salty together.

He'll make scones and brioche cinnamon rolls. Occasionally, they'll do a Danish pastry which he says is very labor intensive.

Counseller, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Army right out of high school. He went to culinary school and also got a degree in physiology from Michigan State University.

Then, he says, he was "bitten by the firefighter/paramedic thing." Counseller has worked as a firefighter and paramedic for East Lansing for almost 21 years and was with Lansing Township before that.

Then, he suffered an injury to his rotator cuff, along with a ruptured Achilles tendon. He's on light duty and is in the process of being disabled from the fire department.

Which gives him a chance to do something he's always loved to do. Bake. Full-time.

Counseller has two formally trained chefs - one who trained with celebrity chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck.

"We are not your run of the mill mom and pop doughnut shop," he said. "We are specifically putting flavors together for a very specific reason."

And they spent a lot of time coming up with a menu.

There will be brioche pizza and a soufflé sandwich for breakfast, among other offerings.

"I didn't want to make things super intimidating but to make something people would say 'oh my gosh I just paid $4.50 for that but there is no comparison between this and an egg McMuffin'."

Lunch will include unique salads, like a green salad with beets and candied pecans, for a salty and sweet taste, with homemade dressing. There will be veggie options, like the Gouda, avocado and tomato sandwich. The Happy Elvis sandwich will have peanut butter, bacon and banana.

The new counter tops in the Washington Avenue space last occupied by P Squared wine bar are Calcutta granite and recycled tin. There are reclaimed wood tables made out of barn wood and a building that burned.

There are leather chairs, a coffee table made out of cross sections of trees that was custom made and an old barn door that slides across the kitchen.

"Most people will think it doesn't look like a bakery," he said. "Everyone expects to see glass cases, with few places to sit, and old dusty display cakes in the window."

"I want to blow all those old misconceptions out of the water."

Counseller is looking forward to meeting his customers.

"The satisfaction for me is going to be watching people taste something they've never had the opportunity to taste, and seeing the look on their face," Counseller said.

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.