What Were They F---ing Thinking?: The Slurpee Donut

Really, 7-11? Really?
This is the most bizarre thing to spring from the minds of the geniuses at 7-11 since the Echinacea Slurpee from about 20 years back, during the herbal supplement craze.  Perhaps the idea is to juice Slurpee sales during the winter months when people don't usually crave a cold frosty drink.  "See, America, Slurpees don't have to be cold and frosty!  They can be warm fluffy baked goods too!"  Or something.  But I can't have been the only person to do a triple take when passing by this display ad on the bakery case.

Mutant Alien Incubation Pods? Organs Awaiting Transplantation? No, Silly, Wild Cherry Slurpee Donuts!

Double Your Wintertime Fake-Fruit Pleasure, Washing Your Wild Cherry Donut Down With a Wild Cherry Slurpee.

 A Horrendous Idea, Thoughtfully Executed
Although I'll wager the Slurpee Donut is something nobody asked for and nobody wants, credit is due to 7-11 for nonetheless incorporating interesting design touches into this pastry that allow it to evoke an actual Slurpee despite being a hunk of fried dough topped with thick, gummy icing.  Note the sugar crystal coating that reminds us visually and texturally of the ice crystals that run through a Slurpee.  And a quick sniff gives us little doubt that they're using the same pungent artificial cherry flavor in the donut as in the frozen original.  Pure synergy.  Yes, it makes about us much sense as a chocolate pudding wine cooler, but if you're going to commit a heinous folly, you'd might as well go all the way.

Under the Bright Lights of the Food Kingdom Studio, the Slurpee Donut Goes Radioactive.  Note the Sugar Crystals,
Reminding us of the Slurpee's Iciness.  Enlarged to Show Texture, as They Say.

But it Tastes Revolting
How to describe how nasty this thing tastes? The donut itself is inoffensive; it just tastes like someone stirred a few packets of Kool-Aid into the donut batter.  But that icing!  Imagine that horrible dentist fluoride they put on your teeth, mixed with soft bubble gum, mixed with raw cake batter and you get an idea.  Or here's another way of putting it: If you spilled a Slurpee onto the hot asphalt of a 7-11 parking lot, let it reduce down to a syrup in the summer sun, and then basted it in layers onto a plain donut until it built up into a 2 milimeter-thick sticky skin of artificial cherry sludge, then flipped the thing over to collect bits of fragmented glass and other particulates, you’d wind up with something tasting not at all unlike the actual Slurpee Donut.  But, in the final analysis, a picture says a thousand words.  Here's Food Kingdom taster M.T., reacting to her first bite:

Don't Say You Weren't Warned!

15 minutes later, M.T. was still reeling from this scrumptious creation, sending the following email:

Conclusions:
We at the Food Kingdom can't honestly say that you shouldn't run out and try one of these, for it IS a unique taste experience that you will never forget.  But you won't be back for seconds.