Meet Bryant Bickle: future lawyer, today’s doughnut maker

• Charles Ferruzza
• Bryant Bickle brings at least 12 different doughnut flavors to the Lawrence Downtown Farmers Market

If you visited the Lawrence Downtown Farmers Market last Saturday, you probably noticed that one of the more popular vendors at the outdoor market was missing: Bryant Bickle of Hurtz’s Donuts. “It was so rainy, I didn’t even make the doughnuts the night before,” Bickle says. “I’ve tried, but I just don’t sell enough doughnuts on rainy days.”

Hot days are even worse: “When the temperature gets over 100 degrees,” Bickle says, “the doughnuts just fall apart.” But the cool days of autumn are perfect for freshly made, yeast-raised doughnuts, so Bickle will be back at his stall this Saturday, peddling his yeasty rings in a variety of flavors. The best-selling doughnuts, he says, are the maple-bacon, the lemon-thyme, anything with breakfast cereal on it … and anything pink.

“Kids love the color pink,” he says. “So I always have a pink doughnut. Maybe strawberry or cherry. Even cranberry. Pink sells out.”

One of his doughnut flavors — and it seemed like such a great idea at the time — was a giant flop.