My family settled in for some Friday night television, and the kids chimed in with dessert requests. I popped off the couch with a potential solution: Great Value Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups Stuffed Donut Bites.
The frozen product did not require thawing, but my 12 year old still had to remain patient throughout the half-hour process of preheating the oven, the 15-minute cooking time, the recommended cooling time, and the glazing process. By that point she seemed eager to dig in, but was rather nonplussed by what she had been waiting for.
She adeptly recognized one of the key problems — the holes were nearly all stuffing, with just a thin donut shell on the outside — and she wished for more donut, less interior. Anyone expecting a jelly Munchkin analogue will be thrown off.
There are two methods when consuming these:
1) Bite into the middle and have the innards spill every which way.
2) Stuff the whole confection in one bite, overfilling your mouth with a 70/30 peanut butter/chocolate sludge.
Method two is comparable to putting a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in a blender, but considerably less appealing. I did appreciate the presence of a few pieces of peanut chunk within the mess, but they mostly seemed to be calling out for refuge as if they had never passed their Guppy swimming class at the local YPCA.
Neither of us enjoyed the flavor of the barely-there donut or the wannabe filling. Donuts are normally pretty good by default, but this version did not taste good at all.
A lot of things here just don’t make sense. The labor involved is no more difficult than making a frozen pizza or slice n’ bake cookies, but these are not a quick snack. The expectation would be that enjoying these straight out of the oven held some advantage over a fresh version being produced, but the heat was at fault here.
I bagged the fully-cooked leftovers and put them in the fridge. I tried them the next day and preferred them cold as the filling had more time to settle, but they were still no better than adequate.
There’s also the issue of the glaze packet, one-third still unused. What could I have done differently to use up the excess glaze? Elect one donut hole queen for a day and pour it a bath in a finger bowl?
The cost of these stuffed donut bites is equally distressing. I suppose there’s some cache to having a frozen dessert (especially with microwave directions for post-bar hunger pangs), but when a cup of 10 Munchkins at Dunkin’ Donuts is $1.99, 14 of these for $4.94 is not great value.
The 12 year old was still hungry, and she did return to the kitchen – to grab herself an apple instead. She made the right choice.
(Nutrition Facts – 2 pieces with 2.5 tsp of icing – 210 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 0 grams of monounsaturated fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 220 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of potassium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.)
Purchased Price: $4.94
Size: 16.79 oz. box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: Real peanut appearances. Glaze tastes fine. Best served cold. Kids that eat fruit by choice.
Cons: Some assembly not usually required for donut holes. Excessive glaze provided. Goopy filling when warm. Not enough donut in each bite. High price tag. Kids that pester you to make dessert, then instead choose to eat the fruit that was there the whole time.
