Eating off the Hill: Tim Horton's Dream donuts the real #DonutGate?

While #DonutGate went viral earlier this week when Prime Minister Trudeau bought donuts at a local donut shop in Winnipeg and something something drama, I have been preparing this review of Tim Hortons' new Dream donuts for more than a week (eating these all in a day would make me sick) -- I'm not just trying to jump on the #DonutGate gravy train -- frosting train?

Because having two price ranges of donuts seemingly chosen at random wasn't enough, Tim Hortons Labs has unveiled three new slightly fancier, even more expensive donuts on an unsuspecting populace. I mean, why is the Chocolate Glazed 99 cents and the Apple Fritter $1.19? I mean, it doesn't even have any apple in it! You're charging me a 20 cent lie premium.

Anyway, back to their shareholder's dream donuts, at $1.99 each, there's the Dulce de Leche, the Strawberry Confetti, and the Chocolate Truffle. I shall now review them, from least best to best.

Strawberry Confetti

While this is the dreamiest-looking of the three donuts, it's also the least best taste-wise -- and, as we all know, it's what's inside that counts. The Strawberry Confetti is a basic plain yeast donut with a pink glaze (or fondant, if you want to be pretentious/accurate), a swirl of pink frosting in the middle, and assorted sprinkles. I think, based on the name, that the glaze and frosting are supposed to taste like strawberry. If so though, I couldn't tell. No hint of strawberry whatsoever.

Chocolate Truffle

I'm a chocolate fan, so the Chocolate Truffle was certainly in contender for best Dream donut. It's their standard frosted chocolate cake donut but, in addition to the swirl of chocolate frosting in the hole and a few mini chocolate chip sprinkles, they have sliced the donut like a sandwich and inserted more frosting before putting it back together. I applaud the initiative in finding more ways to up the chocolate frosting levels. Still, despite all that, it feels a little one note. And it's not exactly Lindt-level chocolate either. Good concept, held back by ingredient quality.

Dulce de Leche

The donut that will allow all your Latin friends to smugly lord their Spanish pronunciation skills over you, my favourite Dream donut was the Dulce de Leche. It's a cakey no-hole donut with a caramel dollop on top and the promise of a caramel filling, all dusted in cinnamon sugar. I'm even more about the caramel than the chocolate, but I really didn't get much hints of caramel from the dollop on top and they really cheated me, as they usually do, on the filling. But what made it my fav of the three, other than being the only one that's flavour-wise somewhat different from their usual donut menu, was the cinnamon. On a chilly evening, it made for a tasty post-Nando's desert.

And with that, hey now, the dream is over. And to make penance, and in solidarity with our #DonutGate leader, my next donuts will be from a locally-owned purveyor -- I hear Suzy Q's is great.

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