Krispy Kreme Adds Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa Doughnut to Holiday Lineup

Krispy Kreme has replaced its fall menu with a Holiday Seasonal Collection of three new doughnuts, and one of them is made with Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa. The lineup also includes a Sugar Cookie Doughnut and a Caramel Toffee Cheesecake Doughnut. According to Allrecipes, which reported the launch on November 3, all three are on menus now at locations across the country and are expected to stay through the end of the year.

What is in the three new doughnuts

All three use familiar holiday baking flavors. Two of them start from the chain’s Original Glazed doughnut, and the third is a filled doughnut.

• The Sugar Cookie Doughnut is an Original Glazed dipped in vanilla-flavored icing. It is finished with a topping made from real sugar cookies and red and green sprinkles.
• The Caramel Toffee Cheesecake Doughnut has a cheesecake-flavored Kreme filling, caramel icing with a caramel drizzle on top, and a crunchy topping flavored like toffee and graham.
• The Hot Cocoa Doughnut is an Original Glazed dipped in chocolate icing. A dollop of chocolate frosting made with Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa goes on top, along with small marshmallow pieces and a dusting of Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa powder.

A second tie-up with Ghirardelli

Allrecipes describes Ghirardelli as a 174-year-old brand. Krispy Kreme has worked with the chocolate maker before: an earlier collaboration put doughnuts on the menu that were modeled on Ghirardelli’s chocolate squares. This time the partnership is built around the brand’s hot cocoa mix, and the cocoa appears twice on the doughnut, once in the frosting and once as a powder on top.

The holiday menu also brings back the Sugar Cookie Latte. The drink uses sugar cookie syrup and whipped cream and carries the same cookie topping as the new doughnut. Customers can order it hot or iced.

How to get them and for how long

The doughnuts can be bought one at a time or in a special holiday Dozen box. The collection follows close on the heels of two Halloween Dozens that Krispy Kreme sold only days earlier, and Allrecipes calls it the chain’s final seasonal collection of the year. The report suggests the chain could still add more winter doughnuts before New Year’s Eve, but that is the writer’s guess, and Krispy Kreme has not announced anything further in the source.

The source does not list prices, nutrition details or allergen information for the new items. Readers with nut, dairy or other allergies should check with their local shop before ordering, since toffee, cheesecake and chocolate toppings can carry allergen warnings.

What it means for home bakers

The flavors Krispy Kreme picked are the same ones many home bakers reach for in December: sugar cookies with colored sprinkles, caramel and toffee, cheesecake, and hot chocolate with marshmallows. Chains rolling out these flavors earlier each year is a trend the Allrecipes piece also notes, pointing to holiday items from Dairy Queen, McDonald’s and Zaxbys that arrived soon after Halloween.

For anyone planning a holiday baking list, the new doughnuts are a reminder of flavor pairings that tend to show up on cookie trays and dessert tables this time of year. A few ideas that follow from the lineup:

• Crushed sugar cookies used as a topping, the way Krispy Kreme uses them, are a simple way to reuse broken cookies from a batch.
• Hot cocoa mix shows up here as both a frosting flavor and a finishing dust, two uses that also work on cupcakes or brownies at home.
• Toffee and graham crumbs pair with cheesecake flavors, a combination familiar from cheesecake bars.

None of these are recipes from Krispy Kreme or Ghirardelli, and the source does not share how the doughnuts are made beyond the ingredient descriptions above.

What happens next

The Holiday Seasonal Collection and the Sugar Cookie Latte are available now and are listed through the end of the year. Allrecipes did not report an exact end date for individual items, so availability may vary by shop as stock runs down. Whether Krispy Kreme releases another winter doughnut before the new year is still unknown.

Source: Yahoo