Little Debbie Donut Sticks - A Lament

Let’s discuss donut sticks, and how they’re the most disappointing snack cake on the market.

Several months have passed since the painful death of Hostess, and we no longer have the sweet comforts of Twinkies and Devil Dogs to turn to in our times of need. With the top dog now euthanized, all of the second-rate bakery brands have been thrust into the spotlight, forcing us to settle with Tastykake, Blue Bird, and Little Debbie, to name a few.  Though they’ve expanded and advertised their versions of Hostess favorites (under some truly terrible names, seriously who thinks Bingles sound appetizing?) they all still have their own relatively exclusive snack cakes. In Little Debbie’s case, she has a little something called the donut stick, something I’ve never seen imitated by another brand… and for good reason.

On paper, donut sticks sound like a perfect snack cake: a glazed donut with the perfect shape for dunking into coffee, individually wrapped for freshness. Who wouldn’t want a couple of those, and what could possibly go wrong?

Let’s start with the donut itself. For me, a glazed donut is meant to be light and airy. Krispy Kreme absolutely nails it and Dunkin Donuts is very average. But these donut sticks are dense, almost downright hard. I don’t want my donut to be that dry and concentrated unless its a Munchkin. Little Debbie is basically dressing up a slice of stale pound cake and calling it a donut. Strike one.

Then there’s the glaze. Glaze is supposed to be soft and supple, but the glaze on donut sticks is dry, crunchy mess. It looks, feels and tastes like they glazed these pound cakes about 10 years ago and flash froze them, only to thaw them last month and ‘pack them fresh’. Also, whatever sugar (substitute) they’re using is just a little too fake for my tastes. I completely understand that it’s no small effort to mass-produce a glazed donut with a long shelf life, and probably impossible to do with fresh, true ingredients. But when you attempt it regardless and this is the final product you’re presenting me, I’m not impressed. Strike two.

If the look and feel of these donut sticks didn’t already turn you off, try eating one. These pastries fall victim to the same demon Drake’s Coffee Cakes did, in that they instinctively fall apart once you take a bite. How could a dense, dry cake with a papery glaze completely collapse like that? And they want you to dunk them in coffee?! Yeah that’ll help keep these things structurally sound! Strike three, Little Debbie.

The current, 'modern' packaging. But could you really tell?

It’d be one thing if they just invented these and were piloting them in test markets, because then they’d immediately be deemed a fail and sent back to the drawing board. However, donut sticks have been around for decades. As you could also tell from the virtually unchanged box artwork, these guys have probably been around since the Nixon Administration. I’m sure there’s some perverse cult following around these odd things, but that alone couldn’t have possibly kept the donut stick conveyors in motion. Something else must be fueling their popularity, and I think I know what it is:

Even though my description of them makes them seem repulsive, you cannot deny there is an allure around the concept of an on-demand glazed donut that pairs perfectly with a cup of coffee. And since no other snack cake bakery even makes a donut stick (at least not like this), when we come across these Little Debbie boxes in the supermarket we think we’ve struck gold. Cue the mental debate: “I mean, that cup of coffee does look delicious, and these donut sticks can’t be that bad… these pastries have been around forever, there’s gotta be a reason… And they’re what? Only $1.90 for a whole box? Wow, I gotta give these a try!” And we get all excited, thinking we’ve come across the holy grail of snack cakes… even though this same exact event happened about a year or two ago… and we didn’t like them back then… so why would we like them now… “Oh well maybe they changed the recipe,” you reason, “maybe they weren’t as bad as I remember. I mean, how could they mess up a glazed donut? Not to mention it’ll fit perfectly in my coffee cup!”

Behold, in all their, uh, glory...

So you get home and eagerly await that 9 o’clock hour. You make a small pot of coffee and break out your donut sticks so you can wash down and redeem the horribleness of the day. You pop open the box and slide out a stick, noticing it doesn’t look quite as good as it looks on the box (and let’s be honest, they don’t even look that good in the picture in the first place). You take a deep breath, gear yourself up to believe the hype and take your first bite… <crunch>… “Crunch? wtf?!” you think…  chew for a bit… … swallow… and the look of sheer disappointment on your face becomes enough to make a grown man cry. Every synapse of your brain is trying to rationalize why this supposed taste sensation instead became a giant dud, and suddenly it all makes sense. It makes sense why no other bakery has tried something like this, why you can regularly find a whole box for under 2 bucks, and why the world can be a cruel, cruel place sometimes.

Now you’re stuck with a half-eaten donut stick and several others still in the box. Then they’re sent to the back corner of the kitchen cabinet to remain and taunt you while you pray that one day they just disappear. But they stay, and especially since they’re individually wrapped they stay much longer than you anticipate. With every passing glance you might try another one, hoping to high heaven that this time they’ll taste better. They don’t, and another tear gets choked back until the day you can’t take anymore and unceremoniously throw them out.

Time passes, and life slowly returns to normal.

About a year and a half later you’ll go grocery shopping and once again the siren we call Little Debbie calls you to the perfect theory of the donut stick. All of your past experiences are rendered invalid and another box of donut sticks is added to your cart. The cycle repeats.

This is how donut sticks have remained in production all these years, and why no one’s ever called for a recipe revision. It’s because we’re constantly giving them ‘last chances’ and getting disappointed every time. Stop being fooled and get off the ride. The truth needs to be told about these things, and it looks like I've been nominated to do the honors. Please don't fall for donut sticks again, and keep your heads held high. One day we’ll have the perfect pre-made glazed donut that fits in a coffee cup... but that day is not today.