Dunkin' Days, Part 3 - Oreo and Raspberry Cheesecake Squares

Who Wants Cheesecake Pudding?
Your opinion on Dunkin's two new square donuts, the Raspberry Cheesecake Square and the Oreo Cheesecake Square, will flow from your feelings about cheesecake pudding because that's what they're filled with.  As covered in an earlier episode, donut makers don't lovingly slice open the raw dough, spoon in a filling and then reclose the pocket through careful folding and crimping.  Instead the filling is injected into the fully baked donut with a pastry bag, and so any filling has to be thin and loose enough to be handled this way.  So you don't get cookie dough, you get cookie dough ooze, and you don't get firm, grainy-smooth cheesecake inside your donut, but instead a semi-fluffy, semi gelatinous goop that carries the slightly sweet and slightly sour tang of cream cheese. The cheesecakey dough squares are then customized with the toppings that bear their names.

Beneath the Oreo Crumble, a Hearty Dollup of Cheesecakey Glop

Oreos, Oreos, But Not Everywhere
The main criticism of the Oreo donut is an insufficiency of strong, bold, and dark Oreo flavor.  If the Oreo crumble topping had been paired with a chocolate cake donut and the same smooth, rich filling, Dunkin might have really been onto something, but the Oreo element here is sparsely tame, more like an accent to the bready square.  In the donut I purchased (and we know that quantities vary from batch to batch) there was so much of the cheesecake pudding localized in some regions, that the taste varied from dry and bland in some parts to gag-inducingly gloppy in others.  This weak pastiche of disparate elements hasn't a strong enough identity to really please anyone.

Note the Ratio of Oreo Dust to Hamburger-Bun-Like Dough Pocket: A Recipe for Blandness

Raspberry Candy to the Rescue
The Raspberry Cheesecake Square gets its raspberry flavor from an extremely creative source: not jam, not some flavored creme, in fact not from anything within the actual donut.  This is actually a plain, iced, cheesecake-plumped dough square that gets transformed into a raspberry donut by little raspberry candies on top.  Containing milk, palm oil, and real raspberries, they're essentially molded crowns of raspberry-infused synthetic (in that they don't contain cocoa butter) white chocolate.  Their cute shape charms the eye, as the white plain of snowy frosting is punctuated by an array of what look like My Little Pony Peanut Butter Cups strewn across the confectionary landscape.

Aren't they Adorable? All the Raspberry Flavor Comes from these Tiny Berry Candies.
It Doesn't Look Like Enough, But it Is.

These smooth and tangy candies don't look like enough to power an entire donut with raspberry flavor, but they actually pack a real punch. Unable to resist, I tried one all by itself and they really are addictive.  If Dunkin wants to make some extra dough (ouch!) they should package these and sell them separately.  Though they look utterly artificial, the real raspberries lend a smooth, not-too-harsh fruit tang that balances out the sweetness of the icing and the cheesecake filling, which was judiciously portioned in this example.

It's Probably Too Much to Ask that Dunkin Distribute the Filling Evenly, but at Least in this Case, there was Just the Right Amount.

Conclusions
Skip the unimaginative Oreo spin-off product.  When your sweet tooth needs feeding, strongly consider the surprisingly light, supple, and subtly, creatively sophisticated Raspberry Cheesecake Square