Maple Bacon Donuts- Enough Said.

Isn't it ironic that during my health and fitness craze, I am writing a post on Maple Bacon Donuts?  Heh. The only reason why something this unhealthy is on my blog is because 1) it tastes just absolutely too delicious to care about calories and 2) I happened to incorporate this interesting food item into my "New Product Development and Design" class in which this was my "product".  Pretty awesome excuse to make food as my project eh? :D

I first heard of Maple Bacon Donuts from "Voodoo Doughnuts" and then again on Vancouver Slop when he posted about making his own Maple Bacon Donut using Tim Hortons' donut. Since then, I've always wanted to try and make my own and this product class opportunity was too good to pass up :P

photo courtesy of Rae

As you can see, I had to make this Maple Bacon Donut from scratch and trust me, it was a battle. I followed this recipe for my donut, and this recipe for my maple icing. All that was left was to sprinkle some crispy bacon on top. 

First Attempt:

I have never deep fried anything in my life so this was an entirely new experience for me. As you can see, the donuts aren't in perfect ringlets, but oh well, the first batch is always just a test run!

So.. the first batch was sad, the oil was too hot so it burned the outside of the donut while the dough was still raw inside.

My first batch looked like this. Not too appetizing right? LOL. The donut was burnt while raw, the maple icing was too watery, and my bacon pieces were not crispy enough so it didn't look too good.

Second Attempt:

For my second attempt, I lowered the temperature of the donut, crisped up the bacon pieces a bit more, and tried to thicken the maple icing.

It turned out like this!! Not too shabby if I say so myself :) 

I also made "timbits" out of the donut holes! By the way, if you are wondering if it tastes good, I will let you know now that it is a definite YES. The salty crunchy bacon is such a wonderful contrast to the sweet maple icing and the soft pillowy donut. But a forewarning: don't take this donut lightly. Eat more than one and you will be in a food coma the entire day. Especially because I have been eating healthier these couple of months, I only ate half of the donut and my stomach started to revolt. :(

Third Attempt:

SUCCESS!! Because I used this concept as my "product" for my class, my group and I made a batch of about 60 to sell at our semester end market. This is what the final product looks like. This even looks sellable! We sold these Maple Bacon Donuts for $1.50 each at SFU Surrey on our last day of class... and it was a HIT! (The profits went to the Surrey Food Bank)

Everyone loved them and we sold out of these in around two to three hours! News of this unique donut travelled fast because SFU Surrey staff were talking about them, and soon, a lot of the staff came searching for us to buy these Maple Bacon Donuts!

By the way, if this was sold in a gourmet donut shop in downtown Vancouver for about $3.00, would you guys buy it? :P 

By the way, here is a Maple Bacon Donut ad I made for my class :P This is just purely for fun.

Mmm...Bacon... Happy Eating!

courtesy of http://www.knittingandpurling.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/introducing-dennys-new-maple-bacon-sundae-for-baconalia.png