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Dec 6, 2023

Review: Krispy Kreme - Elf-Themed Holiday Donuts

The box for a dozen Krispy Kreme Elf-themed donuts.

Krispy Kreme's Elf-themed holiday donuts offers a selection of donut inspired by the movie Elf. The available varieties include the new Buddy Snow Globe Donut, Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut, and Christmas Lights Donut, as well as the returning Santa Belly Donut.

A dozen of the Elf donuts costs $22.99 but I received these courtesy of Krispy Kreme. It contained two of each of the new donuts, three Santa Belly Donuts, and three Original Glazed Donuts.

Top-down view of Krispy Kreme's Elf-themed dozen donuts.

For the most part, Krispy Kreme's 2023 holiday donuts don't offer anything new in terms of flavor but rather just offer a visual look for the holidays. There is one exception though and that's the Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut.

Top of Krispy Kreme's Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut.

Krispy Kreme's Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut is inspired by a scene in the film where Buddy the Elf, the titular character, sits down to a breakfast of spaghetti with M&M's, Pop-Tarts, marshmallows, chocolate syrup, and maple syrup. As such, the donut features an Original Glazed Donut topped with cake batter spaghetti buttercreme, milk chocolate colorful candies (M&M's Minis), sprinkles, and a maple drizzle. They seemed to have forgotten that sprinkles on my batch.

Bottom of Krispy Kreme's Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut.

So what makes this donut different from the others? Well, keeping in the spirit of the dessert spaghetti from the movie, it is very sweet with a copious amount buttercreme and Original Glaze on top. So much so that the weight of it would normally just fall through the donut's hole. Except it doesn't because they filled that hole with more donut.

From what I can tell, it looked like they added the extra dough or donut hole to an already fried Original Glazed Donut and then fried it again. So... it's twice fried donut, which was actually really nice. As the second go in the fryer didn't affect the soft, airy crumb inside but gave the crust the opportunity to develop a bit of crispiness.

Cross-section of Krispy Kreme's Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut.

However, I couldn't even get through half the donut it was so sweet. The filled hole formed a pit that filled with Original Glaze, which was then covered with a mound of sweet, rich, and creamy buttercreme. Because it was covered, the Original Glaze didn't set so that I got a liquid-y glob of sugar to go with a thicker icing. It was so sweet I could barely taste the chocolate of the M&M's and the maple icing drizzle.

The bottom-line here is that the Buddy Makes Breakfast Donut fits the concept well and a twice-fried donut is great but it was way too sweet for me. And maybe for you too, unless you have a great big sweet tooth or are actually an elf from the movie.

As for the other new donuts, they're worth a look for the visual aspects:

Krispy Kreme Buddy Snow Globe Donut.

The Buddy Snow Globe Donut is an Original Glazed Donut dipped in sugar cookie light blue icing and topped with white sprinkles, powdered sugar "snow," and a chocolate Elf piece.

The icing didn't really taste like sugar cookies to me but did give the donut a sky blue color. The powdered sugar looked more like wispy clouds but can pass for a few flurries of snow. The white sprinkles served as more snow of the type that you shake up in a snow globe.

The chocolate Elf piece was actually white chocolate and was good for a light crunch and creamy white chocolate flavor. It's printed with a fairly detailed image of Buddy the Elf so that it looked like he was standing in a snow globe.

Krispy Kreme Elf-Themed Christmas Lights Donut.

The Christmas Lights Donut consists of an Original Glazed Donut dipped in chocolate icing, drizzled with green icing, and topped with rainbow sprinkles and a chocolate "Elf" piece.

I think it's meant to bring to mind a Christmas tree with the green icing serving as tinsel and the rainbow sprinkles standing in for lights. The chocolate "Elf" piece here is also white chocolate and printed with an elf design and some lines from the movie: "Santa! I know him!"  The chocolate is also round like an ornament.

Krispy Kreme 2023 Santa Belly Donut.

This year's Santa Belly Donut was a bit plain. It's literally just a belt on a red donut. In previous years, it sometimes had buttons or even sparkles one year.

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