My hope with my Protein Snack Reviews is to be a source you can actually trust, because there are so many terrible reviews out there.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t trust other reviewers, but if you look up any protein snack, the vast majority of reviews are glowingly positive. In this case, when I looked up reviews, I was met with a wave of people saying these are basically just regular donuts with 20 grams of protein.
Look, I don’t want to spoil anything here, but that’s not the case.
With protein snacks, you do need to adjust your expectations. It’s very, very rare for a snack to come along and compete with the non-protein variety in the taste department.
Ironically, Legendary Foods actually accomplished that with their Protein Pop Chips, but that’s a very rare occurrence.
If you were to buy these expecting regular, fluffy donuts, you’re setting yourself up for massive disappointment. What you need to do (and how I approach my reviews) is view these through the lens of an occasional “healthier” variety.
You have to expect a flavor and texture dropoff, but the hope should still be that these are similar to donuts, enough to at least scratch that donut itch.
On the nutrition front, these donuts are basically the same product as Legendary Food’s Protein Pastries & Sweet Rolls. You’ve got a decent amount of fiber, a lot of eyrthritol, and 20 grams of protein. For a snack that’s under 200 calories, seeing 20 grams of protein is great.
But as always, if they don’t taste good, then no amount of protein will make up for it.
These donuts are tiny, but you’re already made aware of that by the small package containing two donuts.
You can tell right away that they are dense and not exactly a donut-like texture. Honestly, the only thing “donut” about these is the shape.
When you bite into these “donuts,” they are very dense, but still soft. I actually find the texture to be very similar to Quest’s frosted cookies, and these would make so much more sense if they fell into the soft cookie category, too.
The main ingredients in these donuts are protein powder and erythritol, and that is immediately evident in the taste. If you’re looking for donut flavor notes, you’re not going to find them.
While there’s a nice glaze surrounding these donuts, it tastes like straight erythritol, not adding anything positive to the overall flavor experience.
If you’ve eaten any other Legendary Foods products (besides the chips) then you already know exactly what these are going to taste like. Legendary Foods uses the same exact base across all of their products (these, the sweet rolls, the pastries, etc) and reshapes them into various products.
These donuts taste just like the “crust” of the Tasty Pastries, but those are massively helped by the pastry filling, which these obviously do not contain. Without that filling to compliment the texture and improve the flavor, these fall really flat.
With the flavor being predominantly protein powder and erythritol, and there being a distinct chewiness that many protein snacks have, these simply are not donuts.
Like I prefaced at the top- you do need to shift your expectations for protein snacks, because obviously these could never compete with real donuts.
But the hope is that these would still resemble donuts in some way, and these only resemble donuts in their shape.
Protein donuts are actually one of the few protein baked goods that are easy to make at home (with a considerably better texture) so I would absolutely go that route over these.
