The new pecan and cinnamon rolls. Photo: Krispy Kreme.

A decade after quietly tiptoeing away from its first bagel experiment, Krispy Kreme is rolling out an expanded line of "baked creations," including muffins, cinnamon rolls and decidedly not-sugary bagels.

While the new menu items are currently available only at a single location in Greensboro, N.C., company officials predict folks from Tampa to Tacoma will soon be able to supplement their orders for cream-filled doughnuts and chocolate crullers with a flax-seed-and-barley-flake bagel schmeared with reduced-fat vegetable cream cheese.

"It gives the regular customer some variety," publicist Steve Baumgarner explains.

Krispy Kreme first introduced bagels in 1996, offering them in just three stores nationwide. "We were unsuccessful in finding a product the consumer could identify with," Krispy Kreme VP Jack McAleer told the Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area when the pilot project was shelved three years later. (Perhaps inadvertently reflecting the trouble the Southern chain had connecting with bagel culture, the Business Journal's story was headlined "Krispy Kreme puts the cabosh on bagels.")

So how are your New Year's Resolutions going? Still making it to the gym, cutting down on the carbs, repurposing your Starbucks addiciton to a fix of regular joe from the deli? Good luck with all that. You can never let it be said that one of the world's leading suppliers of premium carbohydrates isn't in your corner.

Saturday was the fifth running of what has become a tradition in Raleigh, North Carolina: the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Challenge, in which the power of a mountain of doughnuts is harvested as motivation and fuel for a four mile race whose midpoint is not a shot of some namby-pamby sports drink but the scarfing of a dozen glazed. Finally, a sport everyone can support, and athletes everyone can identify with: carbo track and field.

Here's how the doughnut triathalon works: registrants gather at the belltower on the North Carolina State campus as early as 6:30 a.m., pre-doughnut-run doughnuts optional but not exactly wise. These finely-tuned thoroughbreds warm up in anticipation of the 9:30 a.m. start time for a run to the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop on Peace Street, where will be awaiting one dozen warm glazed doughnuts. These have to be scarfed (coffee optional but allowed), and then the journey repeated to the belltower (barfing optional but presumably allowed). The runner does not have to eat all of their doughnuts but has to weather the resulting humiliation if they don't. They have to complete the entire triathalon in one hour or less.

In honor of Inauguration Day, participating Krispy Kreme stores will be giving out one free doughnut (of your choice) to every customer in order to celebrate the "sweetness" of the new presidential administration. According to Ron Rupocinski, executive chef for Krispy Kreme, they're "taking the inaugural festivities nationwide. We're inviting our fans in cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., to commemorate this historic day with a favorite American treat."

Make sure to call your local Krispy Kreme to make sure they're participating in the special before heading over to claim your treat, as not every location will have free doughnuts.

My mother has a term for any food product that she deems unhealthy. She calls it an "instant coronary." It can refer to anything from a mound of onion rings to a big, juicy steak. When I first saw this picture, I immediately heard her voice in my head, labeling these Krispy Kreme cheddar bacon cheeseburgers as such.

I've seen other instances in which a Krispy Kreme is used as a bun for a burger. However, never before have I seen one that is also piled high with bacon and cheese. It seems so wrong that in its deviance, it becomes right once again.

These particular Krispy Kreme burgers were made at the Google NYC cafeteria, so they weren't wildly available. However, did any Slashfood readers get to try one? How were they?



[via Hopeless Geek]

Well, maybe once in a great while, but don't make it a daily thing, OK?

HungryGirl.com has the list of the five summer drinks that will destroy your diet. Sometimes we don't think of the massive amount of calories and/or sugar and/or fat that are in those seductive cold drinks. For example, Krispy Kreme's Mocha Dream Chiller has 670 calories, 28 grams of fat, and 58 grams of sugar (that's for the 12 oz). Dunkin Donuts' Vanilla Bean Coolatta has 440 calories, 17 grams of fat, and 69 grams of sugar.

The other drinks on the list are from Starbucks, Fatburger, and Dairy Queen.

The term "It's what's inside that counts" definitely applies to Krispy Kreme's latest offering, but I'm not referring to a fruit filling or a 'kreme' center. Instead, this particular doughnut is made with 100% whole wheat flour. Weighing in at only 180 calories each, the Whole Wheat Doughnut has a distinct caramel flavor and is similar in style to their "original glazed".

With an enormous number of consumers turning to low-carb dieting over the past few years, it isn't surprising that sales in the doughnut industry have taken a hit. Hoping to recapture some of the lost market by offering an alternative to the original, the Senior VP of Marketing for Krispy Kreme promises that this doughnut delivers the taste we expect, while offering the benefits of whole wheat to the health conscious consumer.

If this is a success, I imagine they may offer the choice of whole wheat in some of their other flavors as well, but no official word has been given on that yet. The doughnut is now available in participating Krispy Kreme stores throughout North America.

I love Krispy Kremes, bacon and burgers, too, but I've never tasted the abomination, er, delicacy, pictured here. But only because until today, I didn't know any place nearby to sample this artery-clogging, waist-broadening wonder. After all, I ate a hot, unglazed Krispy Kreme for an article I wrote about the company years ago. I wouldn't recommend it. Talk about heart-stopping.

If I lived anywhere near a certain minor league baseball park or was friends with a certain R&B vocalist, I'd surely have tried one of these things by now. This miracle of modern griddle work is now being served at Google's New York City cafeteria. Now all I need to do is find a good cardiologist and get a job with Google.

Krispy Kreme is getting into the pink for Valentine's Day. The ever-popular doughnut shop is planning on having a few special offers to celebrate the season of romance. For customers who purchase a dozen doughnuts of any kind between now and Valentine's day, every store will give out a dozen Valentine's Day cards, each of which will contain a coupon for one free doughnut. It will be tough to part with the prospect of free doughnuts if you're a fan of the classic hot glazed, but just think of how appreciative your Valentine's will be!

Stores will also be frying up their light, yeast-raised doughnuts in heart shapes, coating them with white icing and red, white, and pink sprinkles. They're not quite up to the same level of cuteness as the Halloween doughnuts that Krispy Kreme featured back in October, but it's hard to say no to a doughnut with sprinkles

And on February 14th, stores will be making their regular glazed doughnuts in heart shapes, as well.

With only a week left until Halloween, there is still time to stop off at your local Krispy Kreme and pick up one of their pumpkin-shaped Halloween doughnuts. The seasonal treats are made from the same light yeast-raised dough as their classic glazed doughnuts, but unlike the classic, the doughnuts are stamped into shape and have no center holes. The finished doughnuts are coated in a thick orange icing and decorated with a jack o' lantern face. If you pre-order, you can get them filled with any of the shop's delicious filling flavors. A jam filling would look suitable creepy, oozing out of the smiling pumpkin face.

If the pumpkin-shaped doughnut isn't appealing, or if the icing seems to make it too sweet, Krispy Kreme is also offering a pumpkin-spice doughnut through the end of the month. And, as a final option, you could always try your hand at making your own.

Krispy Kreme, the beleaguered purveyor of what may possibly be the world's most fattening doughnuts, has established outposts outside America despite its financial troubles. Most notable among these are Tokyo and the Philippines.

Now the company plans to bring its glazed, sugar-coma inducing treats to Indonesia of all places. Apparently doughnuts are already a big business there. Krispy Kreme's development partner is PT Premier Doughnut Indonesia. The two plan to some 20 locations over the next five years. The first will open in the early fall. I'm curious to know whether the new shops will sell those cool Indonesian shaved iced and tapioca drinks.

I just happened to find myself in Selfridges yesterday, and would you believe it? If you use the side door to get into the food court, you just happen to walk in on a Krispy Kreme franchise - about the only one in the UK. Well what would you do? Faced with their demise, the fact they are supposed to be the best doughnuts since the last lot and that today is D day on Slashfood I just had to buy some. Had to, I tell ye!