When life fails to hand you a cronut on National Doughnut Day, there's only one thing you can do: Eat the second-hottest doughnut on the streets, a.k.a. the Dunkin' Donuts Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich. After scouring craigslist (and being fully willing to pay up to $30 for a cronut, but not stand in the rain for 2 hours), we proceeded to the nearest Dunkin' Donuts, waited about 45 seconds, and left with their new donut-as-bread egg sandwich.
After market-testing the donut concoction in Eastern Massachusetts, Dunkin' decided to roll out the breakfast item nationwide for mass-shame enjoyment on National Doughnut Day. While decidedly much lower-brow than the cronut, the glazed breakfast sandwich was just as worthy of our scrutiny, and just as prone to social media braggadocio, especially on this sacred holiday.
It made us excited, maybe even a little terrified. Would we end up falling in love with this breakfast abomination?
Why? Well, for one, Dunkin' chose to give gluttony a bear hug, rather than making a poor imitation of haute cuisine or attempting to be quasi-healthy. What we're trying to say is, they went for it, and we respect that.
Yes, despite its resemblance to Paula Deen's infamous Lady Brunch burger, the Dunkin' iteration is, nutrition-wise, a much wiser option. Clocking in at 360 calories, the Eggnut (yes, we just made that up) is a splurge, but not as abject an assault to your health, as say, a Chipotle Burrito. Its saving grace? Slicing a donut in half, rather than sandwiching the bacon and eggs between two full donuts. Such restraint.
When we opened the brown bag that contained the three donutwiches, a divine smell escaped. It made us excited, maybe even a little terrified. Would we end up falling in love with this breakfast abomination?
Alas, Dunkin's pastry game couldn't save this almost-but-not-quite sandwich. The glazed donut was sticky rather than greasy (as we'd expected) but was so smushy our fingers sunk into the sandwich like quicksand. And the eggs only merit was that they were warm-ish. Despite claiming to be "peppered," the thin, white patty was curiously devoid of flavor. But what concerned us most was the perfectly symmetrical marigold circle that presumed to be a yolk in the middle. Was Dunkin' trying to pull a fast one on us? We're pretty sure this egg was at least 85% egg substitute—why try to front with a splat of food coloring passing as yolk? But we digress.
Let's focus on what matters—the bacon. There were two pathetically thin strips that could have saved the savory-sweet balance DD was gunning for had it been just a little more substantial. But at least it was crunchy. It had that going for itself.
The verdict: a fun idea with lackluster execution. DD failed to reach the same stratosphere as salty-saccharine gods like chicken and waffles and pancakes and eggs, because the donut was sickly sweet, and those wimpy bacon strips couldn't compete. The lesson learned here? If you're going for the gusto, pass on the scientifically-engineered egg yolks, and add MOAR BACON.
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