Not Quite the Taste of the Holidays

Back when I lived in Indianapolis there was, for a time, a Krispy Kreme bakery. These places are great because not only can you see the doughnuts get cooked on the line, with a very long conveyor belt process that’s fun to watch, but you also can get doughnuts that are super hot and fresh right out of the fryer. And, seriously, if you haven’t had doughnuts right out of the fryer, you’re missing out. They’re hot and super soft and are probably the best doughnuts you’ll ever possibly get. I loved going there early in the morning (obviously because I’d stayed up all night), grabbing a hot and fresh doughnut and a coffee, and just sitting there, vibing with the sweet goodness in my hand.

That location closed down about ten years ago, and I honestly don’t know where you could get a hot and fresh Krispy Kreme at this point. All I ever see of the brand now are their pre-packaged doughnuts that you can buy at the grocery store. I’d avoided them before now because once you’ve had the good stuff how could you ever go for second tier? Their doughnuts are amazing when they’re super fresh, but the shelf life on them is short, and grocery store doughnuts sit for days (even when the package says “made fresh daily”). It just wouldn’t be right.

Still, I took a chance on a package of the brand’s doughnuts I saw at the store because I was finally curious enough. Plus, this was a pack labelled specifically for Thanksgiving, and I do so enjoy eating random holiday crap so I can write about it.

Glazed Doughnuts

Before we get to the specialty flavors we first need to address that half the box (of six doughnuts total) was filled with glazed doughnuts. Looking on the Krispy Kreme website, there are four official flavors for these Thanksgiving Pies Doughnuts: Chocolate Silk Pie Doughnut, Blueberry Crisp Doughnut, Apple Crumble Doughnut, and Lemon Creme Pie Doughnut. I point this out because only three of those flavors came in the six pack box. Lemon Creme, for some reason, was excluded while three glazed were thrown in. If this is supposed to be a sampler box of the flavors, where’s my fourth flavor? That’s not really a great start, Krispy Kreme.

Still, I treated the glazed doughnuts as our baseline for this eating experiment. The glazed are what the company is known for, so if they’re including them in the box they clearly know that we’re going to want to eat them and, also, that they expect these other doughnut flavors to match that high bar. It’s a bold statement from the company, including their kings in the carton, but since they were there, we had to eat them.

I will say, despite sitting around on the shelf for however many days, and not being as good as the true hot and fresh, these glazed doughnuts are pretty good. They were a little firm right out of the box (as were all the doughnuts we sampled) but microwaving them for five seconds or so perked them right up. They were soft and tasty and pretty scrumptious on their own. They were also really great when dipped in coffee, which is absolutely what you should do with any glazed doughnut that needs a little life added back into them. A taste baseline indeed.

Apple Crumble Doughnut

The first of the flavors I sampled was this apple doughnut. Although, in fairness, I thought I was grabbing the blueberry flavor and only realized my mistake after warming the doughnut up. Still, this doughnut didn’t disappoint. The apple flavor was strong, with the goop very much tasting like pie filling. Maybe it was just bulk-bought pie filling, but it works in context. The frosting and crumble on top add to that pie “look”, but it’s the filling that really sells this doughnut. This was a solid apple jelly doughnut and I really rather liked it, to the point I would get this flavor again if I found these available on their own.

With that said, if I had one critique it’s that while the crumble topping on the doughnut sold the look of the “pie”, it was a little too crunchy, adding a weird texture to the whole experience. The crumble could be removed, or made much softer, and that would enhance the mouth feel of this jelly-filled treat.

Chocolate Silk Pie Doughnut

By comparison, the chocolate doughnut was pretty darn basic. This was just a chocolate frosted glazed doughnut with some extra chocolate icing in the hole. It didn’t really scream “pie”, let alone chocolate silk pie, to me. It just looked like a chocolate glazed that was putting on airs. And even biting into it that sense wasn’t dispelled. It tasted like a chocolate glazed doughnut, and that’s fine for Krispy Kreme because their glazed doughnuts are great. But this doesn’t feel at all special, nor particularly holiday themed.

And, honestly, I would have rather had a basic chocolate frosted glazed doughnut than this. The icing in the middle was super sweet and was too much for the rest of the experience. This failed because Krispy Kreme added too much to something that already worked without actually nailing what it was going for. I would not get this again.

Blueberry Crisp Doughnut

Finally, from the box, we tried the one I was most excited for, the blueberry flavor. I love blueberries and, in fact, go ham on blueberry jelly doughnuts. A good blueberry jelly is an absolute favorite of mine. Sadly, this is not a good blueberry jelly doughnut. Hell, I’d barely call it a blueberry jelly doughnut at all. While it has jelly inside of it, and it has the nice crumble topping on it to sell the look of a “pie”, this doughnut fails in one massive way: it doesn’t taste like blueberry.

The jelly filling barely has any flavor. It’s mostly just sugary gel with, maybe, a hint of blueberry to it. Combined with all the doughnut around it and mostly what you taste is dough and sugar. This tasted far more like a chess pie (which is, apparently, a very popular Thanksgiving pie in the U.S. South) but it doesn’t scream “blueberry”. This either needed more blueberry flavor or it needed to be called something else entirely. Whatever the case, in basic flavor and composition, it totally sucked.

In Conclusion

Not being able to taste the lemon doughnut does mean I can’t say how good everything in the full collection might be. But considering two of the three flavors I could sample weren’t great, I’m confident this should be considered a miss regardless. When the best things in the box are an apple doughnut (which you can usually get at any doughnut place all year) and the standard glazed (which are a true staple) then this doesn’t feel all that special for the holiday at all. You’d be better off getting a box of glazed instead and eating them with coffee. That sounds like a much better experience overall.