Dunkin Donuts Toffee for Your Coffee

If you’re holding your breath as you wait for Dunkin Donuts to start serving their new “Toffee for Your Coffee” donut, you may want to let it out – for a bit at least. Dunkin Donuts announced on August 26 that the new donut, the winner of its “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contest held last Spring, would make it onto the bakery racks on October 6. It’s been a long time coming already – the winner of the contest was announced on June 5 – National Donut Day.

Dunkin Donuts, the Canton-based coffee-and-donut shop that is the working man’s answer to Starbucks, floated their “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contest this past Spring on their website. Contestants got to mix and match donut shapes, types of dough, filling, frosting and topping to come up with the gooiest, stickiest, tastiest treats they could imagine. The contest drew over 130,000 entries from all over the country. Those 130,000 donut prototypes were narrowed to a dozen finalists which were put up for vote at the Dunkin Donuts website.

The online vote wasn’t the only qualifier, though. Each of the 12 finalists received $1,200 and a trip to Dunkin’s Canton headquarters. There, they participated in a bake-off judged by a specially selected donut tasting panel. In the end, the prize went to Jeff Hager of Hoover, Alabama. Jeff’s prize-winning concoction was “Toffee for Your Coffee”, a glazed sour cream donut topped with crumbled Heath Bar, the chocolate toffee bar.

Hager is a chief financial account who does a lot of travel for his company. He enjoys coffee and donuts on his travels because, he says, there are no nearby Dunkin shops where he can indulge his love of donuts and coffee. Hager said that his inspiration was easy. Sour cream glazed donuts are the best donuts made, and Heath Bars are the very best kind of candy. Put them together with the fact that Dunkin Donuts makes the best coffee in the world, he finished, and you get “Toffee with Your Coffee” donuts.

As Grand Prize winner, Hager received $12,000 and his donut will join the Dunkin Donuts seasonal donut lineup starting October 6, 2009.

The contest may be over, but you can still play with the donut maker at www.dunkindonuts.com/donut. See if you can come up with a donut that’s better than the Toffee for Your Coffee – like, say, Cherry Sour Cream Sticks.