This is a little bit late, but I present to you the follow-up to my earlier Starbucks Valentine's Day snack review. But this time, we're focusing on Dunkin Donuts.
Now, some people say that you can't be a fan of both Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. To these people I say, why the discrimination? I have enough love for all the coffee and coffee-enhancing treats in the world. I feel that both places fill crucial roles in my psyche. The 'Bucks is for those times when I want to feel like a classy and rich lady, delicately sipping on a drink that I can't pronounce and noshing on an artisanal baked treat. The DD is for those times when you just want to get down on some serious snacking.
I have to admit that I haven't been paying too much attention to Dunkin's promos as of late, but I remembered that every year, they offer heart-shaped donuts on Valentine's Day. So what better way to celebrate than gratuitously sugary pastries?
I rolled up to the drive-through window and asked if they still had the heart donuts. After being told yes, I asked for one. The cashier paused and asked, "Which flavor? There are three kinds." I stopped. I considered. And I asked for one of each, because that's how I roll. Also there was a line of cars behind me, so asking for a description of what exactly they had was going to take forever.
Here are the little darlings, in all their blobby, misshapen glory:
The one on the left was topped with chocolate cookies crumbs, and the one on the right was drizzled with pink (raspberry? strawberry?) icing.
My "Vanilla Cupcake Swirl" coffee and a pink-iced donut covered with heart-shaped sprinkles. In case you didn't get the message.
One interesting thing of note is that these have about the same amount of filling that a regular filled donut does, but they angle it when injecting the filling. So it stretches from the center into one of the bumps on the heart. It's weird, and I recommend holding the bump without the filling so it doesn't drip all over your fingers.
The chocolate cookie-topped one is filled with a chocolate "brownie batter" filling that I remember them using last time, although I think it used to be topped with chocolate chips. The cookies go way better with it, honestly. The balance between soft filling and crunchy cookies is perfect, and the filling is a very rich, gooey chocolate.
The icing-drizzled donut is filled with raspberry jam(?), and the icing drizzle has a berry taste, although I couldn't accurately decipher if it was supposed to be raspberry or not. I was pretty stoked, since most fruit-filled donuts tend to have strawberry filling. Why the berry exclusion? Never understood that. The raspberry filling had a pretty good taste, pretty true to flavor, although I'm not crazy about the consistency, which I would like to be more jam-like.
Last but not least, our pink-iced contender! The icing wasn't fruit-flavored, but I can understand why, since the filling was Bavarian Cream Creme Kreme, which wouldn't really mesh well with fruit. The appeal of this donut is strictly visual, since it doesn't add anything new like the others. I freely admit that I was the least impressed by this.
The new coffee flavor was not exactly thrilling, either; "vanilla cupcake" seems to be a slightly sweeter version of their normal vanilla. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting here, but my thoughts upon the first few sips were "What exactly makes this cupcake flavored?" I haven't been able to think of a decent answer to that. Perhaps none exists.
In any case, we're looking at a 50% success rate here, with two of the donuts bringing something new and fun to the table, while the third donut is the same old thing but with a shinier coat of paint. Not thrilling, but not awful. I'd label it a pretty solid venture. Well, I hope your Valentine's Day went well, and that you can find all the half-price chocolate your heart desire! Miss Scarlett, signing out!
