Tim Hortons, Canada

I grew up in New Hampshire.  Solidly in Dunkin' Donuts territory, where I ate my share of mediocre donuts (but liked the muffins), and was introduced to coffee more as a way to order your cream and sugar, not the other way around.  I drank way too many iced coffees loaded with sweetener and cream even in the winter, and adored Coolattas in the summer.  And then I moved away, didn't have it for years, and had my memories shattered when I tried the baked goods, and the coffee, as an adult more recently.  

I knew that Canada (and other countries), had a very similar looking chain: Tim Hortons.  I think it may have even existed in rest stops in upstate New York, where I went to college.  But I never tried it.  Until my recent trip to Canada.

Every morning, I saw the queues of people at every Tim Hortons, on every corner, in every food court.  I was amazed at just how popular it seemed.  Even Dunks and Starbucks don't get crowds like that.  Eventually, curiosity got the best of me, but not until I was in the Toronto airport, and a bit bored waiting for my flight.

I finally tried it.

I don't actually know much about Tim Hortons, except that it really was founded by a Canadian hockey player named Tim Horton, and is a huge franchise now with stores in a slew of countries.  The menu seems far more extensive than Dunkin' Donuts, going far beyond donuts, coffee, basic baked goods (muffins, croissants, bagels, etc), breakfast sandwiches, and wraps, which Dunks' has also tried to expand into, to hot bowls like mac and cheese or chili, specialty hoagies, and even milkshakes.

I tried the donuts.  They were ... um ... chain donuts?  I'm not sure what people love though, and didn't get a chance to try the coffee, so it is possible that I just didn't go for the right things.

Donuts

"We freshly bake our donuts in small batches throughout the day in our Restaurants. Our bakers hand-dip, glaze and sprinkle each donut with care."

Tim Hortons says they bake the donuts on site at every store still, which is clearly different from Dunks, where the donuts are now baked off in larger distribution centers, and delivery daily (or are they frozen at this point?).  I think Tim Hortons does parbake though, but at least they are finished on site.

Being a donut-lover, I decided to focus my first Tim Hortons experience here.

So exciting.

I probably looked kinda silly, so gleeful to get my bag of goodies, but ... this was a first for me!

Timbits

As my introduction to Tim Hortons, I wanted to try several kinds, and thus went for Timbits, their version of Munchkins, or, you know, donut holes.

Timbits! $0.29 each.

"You love ‘em, we love ‘em, everybody loves ‘em. Bite-sized morsels of our traditional donuts, Timbits® are available all day long in various Snack Pack sizes. Perfect for parties, meetings or any time. Selection may vary by restaurant."

I give Tim Hortons credit for the extensive lineup of Timbits.  I think the shop I was at, the airport location of all places, had at least ... 10 kinds?  I was thrilled to have such variety to pick from, cake or raised style, ranging from plain old fashioned, to glazed old fashioned, to honey dipped, maple dipped, cinnamon sugar coated, chocolate glazed, birthday sprinkle coated ... the list went on and on.

I selected three, but only really liked one.

Apple Fritter, Sour Cream Glazed, Powdered Sugar Jelly Filled.

I selected my top 3: apple fritter (!!! woah, as a mini?!), sour cream glaze (one people seem to love), and a powdered sugar one I hoped would be filled (it was, with jelly), although the birthday sprinkle one was close behind.

Apple Fritter.
I adore apple fritters, I commonly call them the "Kind of Donuts" and have deemed them nearly impossible to mess up.  I have never, ever seen them donut hole size though, rarely even *normal* donut size, as they are usually giant.  I was so excited for this one.

But ...

Not so great. Not even good, really.

The donut was denser than the raised ones, and certainly had a lot of cinnamon flavor inside, but I didn't taste any apple, nor any bits of moisture from the fruit.  Not sure if there was any apple actually in this thing ...

It also lacked the aspect that makes fritters amazing: the crispy, super fried, exterior with crags and glaze hanging off.  It did have glaze, but it was soft, and ... just glaze.

So for my first Tim Hortons donut, this was beyond a letdown.  My least favorite of the trio I tried.

Sour Cream Glazed (Cake).
Next I went for Sour Cream Glazed, a cake style donut.  Perhaps I should have gone for the plain ro glazed old fashioned but ... the sour cream glaze sounded so much more interesting.

And, it was.  I liked this donut, a cake donut of all things.  Fairly light for a cake donut, and I really did enjoy the sour cream tang to the glaze.  This one I quickly finished, no problem.  My favorite, and the only one I'd get again.

Powdered Sugar Jelly Filled (Raised).

And finally, a filled donut, covered in powdered sugar, raised style.  They make this is lemon, raspberry, and strawberry, and the donuts were not labelled at the shop, so I'm not certain which this was.  Clearly, not lemon, but I couldn't tell between strawberry or raspberry.

Another general favorite of mine, but the jelly filling in this was beyond disappointing.  It only had a tiny, tiny drop of jelly, hence why I never figured out what kind it was.  Hopefully the full size donuts are more generously stuffed!

The donut itself was just boring, standard kinda stale tasting raised donut, slight extra sweetness from the powdered sugar.  I wouldn't get this again, clearly.