Rating the Weird Flavours At My Local Artisanal Donut Shop In Ascending Order of How Much I Hate Them
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It has light brown icing and artfully crumbled hazelnuts on top of it. A small tag labels it ‘vegan’. It is priced at $2.50. End ID.]
When you think of a fancy donut this is the kind of thing you’d hope for. More interesting than your bog standard chocolate glaze or boston cream, but still very much within the bounds of ordinary for pastry. You look at this donut and you think, ‘yeah, that’s a dessert and/or snack a reasonable person who can treat themselves to a slightly more expensive donut would nosh on. I can see myself saying the name of this donut in front of a real human person without it being like, a whole conversation’.
1/10. I bear this donut no grudge, though it gains one point because I’m a lot% positive those little hazelnuts are gonna roll right off the second you look at it funny.
2. Cherry Cheesecake Bullseye
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. IT has white icing, a dusting of graham crumbles, and a dollop of cherry filling on top. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
When you think of a fancy donut, this is what you would imagine to be the height of fancy donut decadency. All the luxury of cheesecake in the laid-back form of a donut, like french fry at a Michelin restaurant; tempting in its incongruent humility but damning in its pretension. You just know the minute you try to stuff this overwrought mockery in your face the whole thing is going to degrade into a goopy, tooth-rotting, tongue-coating torment, exposing the lie behind the novelty of it all. It will, however, taste within a close enough approximation of cheesecake.
3/10. No one needs this but at least if you spend the three bucks you’ll have enough calories to last you the day.
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It is a chocolate donut with chocolate glaze, nanaimo pieces, a dollop of some kind of cream coloured custard or ganache in the center, and a chocolate drizzle. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
In many ways, this is just the Cherry Cheesecake Bullseye again with a slightly different flavour profile. It is a redux of the conceptual elements, made simply to add variety to satiate the more decadent patrons demanding their bread be both sustenance and circus. But on another level, it is so much more. A bastardization of a classic Canadian treat that only knows how to thrive on the desecration of others, this surpasses the Cherry Cheesecake Bullseye on my shit list by its complete lack of remorse.
3/10. I would admittedly still try a bite of it.
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It has white icing dotted with lavender petals. A small tag labels it ‘vegan’. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
It seems innocuous, doesn’t it? Almost sensible. They’ve already done a coffee flavoured donut- why should a tea flavoured one be any different? What about the gently lemony innocence of this pastry could inspire my rage?
I will tell you; it is because of that very innocence that it has earned my ire. Its humility seeks to redeem its heretic brethren in the eyes of the masses, but not out of any genuine desire to challenge their wickedness. No, the sweet young Earl is no class traitor, merely a friendly face meant to lure in the skeptical, a little white lie that distracts from the monstrosities committed by its capitalist kin.
Basically, this is one of the few donuts this shop makes that I actually like and for that crime, I can forgive neither it nor myself.
5/10. Begone, vile temptress! into my belly
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It has a clear glaze absolutely covered in almond slices. A small tag labels it ‘vegan’. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
I’m going to be completely honest with you, there is nothing intrinsically more wrong with this donut than the previous ones. I just hate how many almonds there are. I know it specifically says it’s a double almond donut but I don’t care. It’s too many.
6/10. Just eat some god damn almonds.
[ID: A picture of donut on a blank white background. It has a white glaze, a white icing drizzle, and bacon crumbles. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
What bougie Canadian foodie harborage would be complete without an unnecessarily maple-bacon-ified victual? The bourbon is just the icing on the Cherry Cheesecake Bullseye. It doesn’t even anger me at this point; I look upon this donut and all I feel is the cloying, fatty chokehold of the cholesterol on my left subclavian.
6/10. You don’t need to drink to forget this gentrification cliche
[ID: A picture of a tray of donuts as seen in the store. The picture is focused on a rack labeled ‘Sarsparilla’, which have a light brown glaze with white icing drizzled in a circular pattern. They are priced at $3. End ID.]
This is not currently available on the site so I had to get this from the instagram.
I will say, I am a fan of sarsaparilla as a flavour. Rootbeer is my sugar water of choice, and I will rarely say no to a flavoured candy or confectionery of the sarsparilla variety. But pastry? Pastry is where I draw the line. Sarsaparilla is a sweet flavour meant to be enjoyed as a cool drink on a hot day- any vehicle of the flavour that would be theoretically best hot out of an oven is an insult, nay, a crime.
7/10. I’m going to set the Mug dog loose on this heresy.
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It has a white glaze with some sort of bread like crumble and a white drizzle over top of it. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
God, I’m so tired. I’m white too and I’m just so damn tired.
9/10. [Insert clever Marie Antoinette and/or Les Mis joke here]
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It has a pink icing with small black flecks and two stripes of yellow icing on its left side. A small tag labels it ‘vegan’. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
In many ways, this is the apex of this list, even if it is not the vilest. Vegan Raspberry Habanero Donut sounds like something spit out by an algorithm. Vegan Raspberry Habanero Donut sounds like the punchline to every mildly homophobic joke about millennial snowflakes made by an overly sensitive rat-licker. Vegan Raspberry Habanero Donut sounds like an idea the devil whispered to life in the dead of night to curse the morning dew. Vegan Raspberry Habanero Donut is one of the few flavours that always come back in this shop, while other ridiculous fads fades to obscurity. However long you wait, however far you run, you will not escape the Vegan Raspberry Habanero Donut.
9/10. If this donut could speak it would name itself Adam because it’s a Frankensteinian monstrosity and it murdered my wife.
[ID: A picture of a donut on a blank white background. It has white glaze with dark flecks and what looks like two deep-fried dill pickles are tucked gently in the center of the donut. A small tag labels it ‘vegan’. It is priced at $3. End ID.]
If I had a billion dollars I would spend every last cent purchasing every last dill pickle donut that has or ever will be made; not to eat, but to pile high atop one another in an increasingly stale and moldering parody of the Tower of Babel, and right when God pears down from their divine sanctuary to smite me for my hubris, I will take a fresh $40.68 twelve-pack of Dill Pickle artisanal donuts and hurl them right in their face so God knows that the spirit of man has gone far beyond their capacity for forgiveness.
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