12 Tim Hortons Donuts, Ranked Worst To Best

While Americans have the luxury of enjoying a Dunkin' or a Krispy Kreme in most towns across the country, as a Canadian, I am less familiar with the world of Munchkins and Coolattas –– not to mention any of the secret menu items. A donut chain I am familiar with, however, is Tim Hortons, which now has locations across the United States as well as Canada, in addition to stores in 11 other countries.

The Tim Hortons chain was originally the creation of the eponymous hockey player back in the 1960s, giving it solid Canadian ties. However, it was sold in 2014 to Burger King, which makes the current Canadian-ness of the brand a bit murkier –– if you ask a Canadian, that is. However, Tim Hortons is a fast-food restaurant I grew up visiting (and even worked at once upon a time for a brief six-month stint), so I feel well-equipped to rank its premier offerings: donuts. (I also ran my own donut business once upon a time, so I know what makes a good one.) A dozen of the classic flavors that are sold in both Canada and the United States seemed like a fair playing field for the Canadian staple, and I was happy to find some underdogs rose to the occasion, while some nostalgic faves flopped. If you happen to hit up your nearest Tims, keep this ranking in your back pocket to know what –– and what not –– to grab.

Despite all its cheeriness, this Vanilla Dip donut was a huge letdown. This was one of the last donuts I tasted, so I thought my ranking might be related to donut fatigue, but after taking a break and going back for more, I realized that last place is absolutely where this yeast donut belongs.

Once upon a time, this sprinkled donut was a childhood favorite of mine. But times have changed, and so have I –– and so, it seems, has this donut. Although it's marketed as a Vanilla Dip donut, there was no vanilla flavor to speak of. The thick layer of "vanilla" fondant felt more like wet sugar than anything else, with the yeast ring just a vehicle for it and the sprinkles. The entire composition was way, way too sweet. Ultimately, those colorful nonpareil sprinkles dragged this donut down. There were simply too many of them. With the fondant icing, they became a strange, crunchy coat for the donut and offered a weird texture to each bite. Then, after I swallowed, they left an odd chalkiness I didn't want on my taste buds. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, but it wasn't enough to pull this donut up from last place.

Confession: Apple fritters are one of my favorite donuts. If I'm trying a new donut spot and they have apple fritters on the menu, I'm buying one. I enjoy that combination of hearty, tender apples with warmly spiced cinnamon scattered throughout a fried dough and drenched in a crackly glaze –– my mouth is watering just thinking about it. (If yours is too, you can make the best apple fritters right at home.)

Alas, Tim Hortons' rendition of this sensational sweet didn't measure up to my memories in the slightest. First, this donut was smaller than I recall, although it's been a while since I tried a fritter from the brand. Second, it was unevenly glazed, with the backside almost naked (and not because it had stuck to the box). When I picked it up, it smelled nicely cinnamon-y, and I spied a small chunk of apple, but when I took a bite, the fruit was nowhere to be found. This was a case of too much fritter and not enough apple. Where were my crispy edges? Where were my apple chunks? Further dissection of this donut revealed a thin channel of microscopic apple pieces on one side of the donut, with the rest being just a glazed hunk of dough. For failure to live up to the apple fritter name, this donut earns second-last place.

As far as simple donuts go, you can't get much more basic than an old fashioned plain. This iteration from Tim Hortons is no different: It's your standard cake donut, sans glaze. It smelled appetizing, but I worried that the lack of glaze would leave me with a mouthful of dry crumbs to choke down. In that respect, I was kind of right.

This donut was decidedly not sweet, especially when compared to the glazed and dipped varieties. Instead, it had more of a bready flavor that accompanied the admittedly nice cakey texture. I wondered if warming it up in the microwave for a few seconds might bring out a little more oomph in this unassuming ring. After a 15-second nuke in my microwave, I'm pleased to say that this donut improved, although only moderately. Warming it up brought to mind apple cider donuts, and I couldn't help but think that this flavor could do with some cinnamon and sugar sprinkled over it. As it is, however, this donut was lackluster. It wasn't gross and wasn't falsely advertised, however, which is why the ninth spot is where it belongs.

When I think of a cartoon donut, I think of a frosted chocolate donut like this one. (Either that or the iconic Simpsons pink sprinkle donut.) In fact, the chocolate glazed (or dipped, depending on the chain) is one of the donut styles that has stood the test of time. The Chocolate Dip donut from Tim Hortons is a raised ring with a layer of chocolatey fondant icing on top. I actually had to make a separate trip to my local Tim Hortons to grab this one, since they mixed up my order the first time and gave me two Old Fashioned Glazed donuts – not that I complained, as you'll see later.

This donut, despite its good looks, was a letdown. The yeast ring was fine and soft, if a bit bland, with nothing to lift it out of blah territory. Unfortunately, the chocolate icing really held things back. Despite its rich coloring, there was no smell of cocoa and no taste, either. This donut was just sweet, and cloyingly so. The texture of the fondant was syrupy and sticky, and echoed the artificiality of the whole experience. This donut nudged past the Old Fashioned Plain because it didn't require any extra steps to make it edible, but it also wasn't one I'd order again.

For a donut that's called Double Chocolate, I expected to get walloped over the head with a cocoa or bittersweet chocolate taste. Alas, when you're crafting donuts for the masses, sometimes you have to dial back the intensity of flavor to appeal to the majority (and maintain that bottom line).

This Double Chocolate donut had a light cocoa scent, which seemed promising at first. However, it didn't carry over into the flavor of this ring. This cake donut was severely lacking in chocolate flavor. It was the LaCroix of chocolate, if you will, in both the icing and the cake. The icing was sweet and thicker than a glaze, and, while it looked like chocolate, it didn't taste like anything more than sugar. The cake part of the donut was soft and cakey with no greasiness, but, despite clearly being made with cocoa, I couldn't taste it. This donut was pretty boring, but the texture was nice. That being said, for failure to live up to its name, it can't rise very high in this ranking.

Sometimes, simpler is better, and that was the case with the Chocolate Glazed versus Double Chocolate. The standout part of the previous donut was the cake portion, whereas the chocolate fondant icing was too cloying to enjoy. This flavor eschewed the icing in favor of a thin glaze, which hardened slightly for a variation in texture –– something I enjoyed.

For full disclosure, the chocolate flavor was my favorite Timbit variety as a child. (For those who don't know, Timbits are similar to the Munchkins offered at Dunkin' –– small donut holes sold in multipacks.) It had been a long time since I'd had a full-size version of the flavor, but I was ready to go all in.

The glaze here did what the fondant icing could not: It lifted up the chocolate cake and actually made it taste more chocolatey. Since I had found the flavor quite muted in the Double Chocolate donut, this seemed like baking wizardry. The texture, like the previous donut, was nice and moist, and all of that was locked in with the help of the sweet glaze. Compared to its predecessor, this was better, but it still doesn't quite measure up to the rest of the donuts.

When I first picked this donut up, I was surprised by its weight. When you're choosing filled donuts, there's nothing worse than taking a bite and seeing a cavern of nothingness on the inside. Fortunately for me, the weight belied the amount of cream: The Boston Cream was stuffed. However, when it came to the cream itself, I was a little less than enthused.

Rather than custard, Chantilly cream, or even whipped cream, this donut was filled with something akin to vanilla pudding, but without much in the way of vanilla. It had a gloopiness that wasn't entirely unpleasant, but also not something I look for in my donut fillings. The flavor had a generic sweetness, much like the chocolate glaze, without any of those aromatic floral notes that good vanilla is known for. Of course, being a donut chain that doesn't traffic in the highest quality of ingredients, this was to be expected, but it was still disappointing. For those who like a sweet flavor without much else, this pastry would suffice. As it is, it sits in the middle for me.

They may take away my Canadian citizenship for this, but I'll be honest: I'm not the biggest fan of maple. (Please, hold your fire.) Owing to that, I had pretty low expectations for this Canadian Maple donut. This is the third and final filled donut of the dozen I selected, and it's filled with the same type of cream/pudding as the Boston Cream. The only difference between the two is that, instead of the chocolate icing, the Canadian Maple gets a generous slathering of maple-flavored icing.

When I picked up this donut, I noticed the weight, which was hefty like the Boston Cream. When I sniffed it, I picked up on some maple notes, but nothing too strong, which meant it was likely not made with the real stuff. (A look at the website description of the donut mentions "maple-flavored" fondant, which further points to the lack of real Canadian maple syrup.) However, despite the middling maple flavor, I actually kind of liked this donut, at least more so than the Boston Cream. The filling was still bland, but the maple icing seemed to match it better than the not-chocolatey-enough one of its predecessor. Could this donut have more maple? Absolutely, but as it stands now, it's comfortably in the middle.

If the sprinkle-covered Vanilla Dip donut was one of my childhood favorites, this was the absolute ultimate when it came time to pick my donut at the counter. I have made countless donuts in my lifetime –– filled, glazed, sugared, and sprinkled –– but I have never attempted a cruller. Since I'd been around donuts for years, I hadn't gotten my hands on a Tim Hortons Honey Cruller in just as long, so I was looking forward to experiencing that nostalgic taste again.

You know the saying, "Never meet your heroes?" The same principle applies to donuts that exist in the golden light of memory. Don't get me wrong –– this donut was good, with an airy interior and crispier edges coated in a thin, sweet glaze. However, it wasn't as I remembered. There used to be large pockets of eggy dough, a labyrinthine maze of delicious nooks and crannies. Now, the donut wasn't quite as complex. Instead, I noted a slight graininess to my bite rather than the luscious richness I remembered. This was still a decent donut, but I think it's safer for me to keep it in my memory than to try to recreate that magic.

Larger in size than the cake donuts was the first raised donut I tried, the Honey Dip. This yeast donut looks pretty plain, with a yellow-gold color and a thin glaze coating. I would have preferred a harder, crackly glaze that contrasts with the pillowy interior of the donut, but this Honey Dip glaze was wet and sticky –– half of it came off in the box. Whether that's due to the donut's freshness or the glaze recipe Tim Hortons uses, I'm not sure.

The smell of this donut was sweet, and I even detected notes of actual honey, although the donut doesn't contain any, so it may just be the power of suggestion. When I took a bite, I enjoyed how light and soft it was. There was zero greasiness or density to this donut. Instead, it was wonderfully fluffy. I can see how someone might mindlessly put away a few of these in one sitting. It doesn't melt in your mouth the way a Krispy Kreme glazed donut might, but it also doesn't have that fatty, fried feeling that can accompany some chain donuts. I could see myself enjoying this with a cup of coffee if I had a strong sweet tooth one morning.

I opted for the Blueberry Sour Cream Glazed over the standard Sour Cream Glazed simply because my location was out of the latter. I figured this one would be a step up from the OG, since it would just be adding blueberries to what I remember being a pretty good donut.

This donut was the classic sour cream style, with those crinkly, crispier edges around the ring and a thin glaze shell. It was a darker golden color until I split it open, which revealed a vibrant purplish hue inside. I figured this boded well for a major dose of blueberry flavor. Real blueberries tend to bleed into the dough or batter (although there is a trick to avoiding this), which seemed to indicate that I would, in fact, be encountering actual fruit in this donut as opposed to just artificial flavor. Plus, it smelled heavenly.

This donut was nice and tender with a good moisture level. Clearly, the sour cream was doing its job on the texture front. Unfortunately, that didn't translate into taste. Despite smelling like blueberries and looking like it contained blueberries, the actual blueberry flavor was quite faint. I didn't get much tang from the sour cream, either, except near the end of the bite. This donut was pretty good, because even a bad sour cream donut tends to be pretty good, but it didn't quite make it to the top.

There are usually two categories of donut eaters: Those who like cake donuts and those who prefer yeast donuts. I like to share the love and pick no favorites (except for purposes like this ranking, of course). I am not partial to either one and actually like both equally, which is why I'll now admit my fondness for this Old Fashioned Glazed donut.

Unlike the Honey Dip, the glaze on this one was harder, which gave it a nice crackle that flaked off on my fingers. The smell of this cake donut was sweet and warm, a sort of homey scent that belied what was to come. This donut was nice and simple. Sometimes, a no-frills treat is the best kind, and I really enjoyed this one. The crumb was light and tender, and the donut itself wasn't hard or dense. The glaze was sweet but not saccharine, and the overall effect was one of a moist cake donut. Its small size but overall heft make this Old Fashioned Glazed a good choice to pair with coffee or tea, and it's not so sweet that you can't add a little sweetener to your beverage, too. This is a nice donut, and one I'll definitely grab again.

When it came time to rank these donuts, I had a few criteria in mind. First, did they taste good? Second to taste was texture. I wanted the cake donuts to have a nice cakey texture that didn't verge into dry territory or staleness. For the yeast donuts, I wanted something light and fluffy. If the donut had any filling, was it good, and was there an adequate amount of it? Finally, I wanted these donuts to accurately represent the flavors they were labeled as. The apple fritter did poorly because there were hardly any pieces of apple, while the chocolate ones failed across the board for barely tasting chocolatey. The ones that succeeded had the best taste, texture, and truth in advertising.