Krispy Kreme, a name that can evoke squeals of joy in the donut obsessed or strike fear in the hearts of the no-carb eternal dieter. Me, I like 'em--they are light and fluffy and the raspberry is a favorite, but it's not like I'm gonna say no to other flavors. Plus they try out new flavors on a regular basis keeping things fresh. Right now I think they are trying out a banana pudding and carrot cake version. You can take a gander at some others clicking here. Fortunately for me the only one here in the Bay Area is down in Daly City and not exactly in a place I find myself near on any kind of a regular basis. Still, if perchance it happens I'll pop in to see what's going on. Thing about The Krispy is that they are all over the place and they also originated in Winston Salem, North Carolina--my home state. I remember growing up there how they used to sell packaged Krispy Kreme donuts in the grocery stores, thus they weren't quite so magical, but tasty nonetheless. On a recent trip home I noticed they were expanding their supermarket offerings to include glazed fried pies and being the sweet junk food lover I am, I most definitely had to try 'em--all of them.
As a note of introduction a fried pie is basically a turnover made with pie crust, filled with filling (usually fruit) then deep fried. My grandmother used to make an apple version that was amaze-balls. No, I didn't expect these to measure up to gramma's but I was more than willing to try each one for you know, research. I confidently marched into the store, got one of each and a Diet Mountain Dew to wash it all down with--don't judge me--that's what family is for. When I got them home I broke each one in half to get a look at the insides and here they are in all their glory.
The chocolate was exactly what you would think--it tasted like that chocolate pudding you got in a can or plastic cup (depending on your decade) as a child in your lunch box. Though it wasn't quite as creamy, a little more gloopy and sweeter than it should be--and that's without having tried some with the glazed crust. Add in the crust and holy crap it was like a little pocket sized sugar bomb. As a matter of fact--they all were like that--sweet, sweet and then just a little more sweet.
The crust on these things tasted like if you took some frozen pie crust, thawed it then created a turnover out of it, that is if you could get past the sweetness of the glaze which was more than enough to hide any sins of the crust. The cherry filling had just a touch of tartness, more like a hint, but as usual with these kinds of hand held pies it could have used more. Though it was better than those things you get (used to get?) at McDonalds, but I will give props for their being hot.
The apple filling did have something akin to cinnamon and brown sugar though again, could have used more apples. And no, not exactly "like grand ma made" either. I'm sure she was looking down a little horrid I was even eating it, but she cooked with leftover bacon fat, so it's a tradeoff. I did try heating this one up to be like a warm apple pie kind of thing, but that just turns the glaze into runny sugar and not in a good way. And to answer I question I know I usually have--NO--butter did not make it any better.
And then there was this lemon thing which I'm pretty sure had no actual lemon in it. Quite sure it ws artificial flavoring as it did have a metallic tang to it that was not all that pleasant. Oddly this filling held together better than the pudding did thickness wise. Again though, SUGAR BOMB! Yikes, even for me these we sweeettt. I had hopes for this lemon thing as I like lemon meringue pies and had some small wish it would be reasonably close--oh well, hopes dashed again.
Will I ever eat one of these again? Not sure, maybe if I'm back home and desperate, like really desperate I might, no wait, I take that back, I wouldn't eat one of these again, unless you paid me. That's why I took the bullet for you folks and tried these so I could tell you not to. Trust me I saved you an extra 3 miles on the treadmill.
There's any number of down home restaurants in NC doing fried pies and you can just pop into one of those places and get fresh hot so not sure why you'd want to have one of these unless you are drunk or someone gave you one to try or your drunk or had a weird craving or wait, if you are drunk. I'd say just skip them and have one of their donuts instead. That's right I'm calling you out Krispy Kreme, please stick to donuts and experiment with flavors in that arena. You've got a good base why mess it up with something so obviously mass produced and full of preservative ingredients? The questions rhetorical because we all know why. Besides, anyone who's been in a gas station anywhere in the US has seen a version of these kinds of pies before so they haven't exactly re-invented the wheel, or in this case, even made it better. UGH...I think I need to go take a sugar crash nap now.
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