Korean snacks, Vol. 1: Vegetable Donuts?

Stereotypical Canadian moment: in bouts of homesickness, I daydream about Tim Horton's maple glazed donuts. 


It's become my homecoming snack of choice, the first thing I buy at the airport arrival gate when coming home from abroad. 


Korean donuts, while tasty, don't quite compare.


They have more rustic donuts, chewy rice flour balls fried up and sold hot in market stalls.


Then they have Dunkin Donuts. Like, everywhere.


I've never been wild about the DD, but I'll pop in for bagels sometimes. A month ago, I saw a new promotional donut line that made my eyes bug, Wile E. Coyote style: vegetable donuts!

For weeks, I'd stare at the sign in the window and scratch my head. How? Why? How? 

Finally, I bit the bullet and held and afternoon snackventure for one. 

I chose the olive, broccoli, and tomato carrot donuts. Bring it on, say my skeptical tastebuds.

 Carrot and Tomato

I had the highest hopes for this one, as these veggies are naturally a bit sweeter than others. I was praying for a carrot cake flavour.

The Look:  Orange, glazed, flecks of green herbs

The Smell:  Low quality pizza sauce

The Taste:  Like store-bought croutons. Despite the sugary-looking glaze, this donut was quite savory. The weirdest part was the disconnect between the salty flavor and the airy yeast donut texture. 

Surprise!:  The couple ahead of me in line bought THREE of them.

The Verdict:  Pass.

Olive

An olive donut: the impossible marriage of two favourite foods. Surprisingly, the olive donut isn't part of the new vegetable promotion, but a regular in Korean Dunkin Donuts. Here goes nothing. 

The Look:  Glazed, sandy-coloured, could definitely pass as a non-veg snack.

The Smell:  Sweet.

The Taste: To my relief, it seemed this guy was made from mild olive oil, not olives themselves. It tasted like a plain yeast donut, though the dough was a bit more slippery and chewy than one would expect. It reminded me of foccacia bread, but a bit sweet.

Surprise!: I ate the whole thing.

The Verdict: Success!

Broccoli

I saved it for last, as I was most skeptical. Even after the olive donut success, I couldn't imagine any good partnership between donut dough and broccoli. 

The Look:  The freakiest looking of the three. This donut was pretty dry-looking, with a mint green icing, eerily flawless all around. It reminded me of prop food that they use in theatre. 

The Smell:  Organic face wash.

The Taste:  Not like broccoli, which was a relief. It didn't taste like anything at all really, but had a solid cakey texture. The icing had little flavour too, but left that bad shortening aftertaste. If you could chisel the stuff off, this donut could multitask nicely as a dinner roll. I would totally sop up pasta sauce with that thing.

Surprise!:  Not at all sweet. Dinner donut?

The Verdict:  Take off the icing and you've got a good snack.