It started on the way to a Superbowl party.

We were driving along, talking about donuts, which is not unusual for us.

Specifically, we were talking about the burger that the Gateway Grizzlies were selling at their games, and how magical it all seemed. Bacon, cheese and charbroiled beef, lovingly piled on a Krispy Kreme donut.

I don’t know how long we talked about it before it finally sunk in. If donuts can be used as hamburger buns, then they’re basically bread. And if donuts are bread . . . shouldn’t someone be making French toast with them?

That’s what I thought.

So on Valentine’s Day, I announced that we would be making Donut French Toast, simultaneously expanding our horizons and constricting our arteries.

Of course, we had no idea if this would work. We tried to imagine which varieties would behave the most like bread under French Toast conditions, but the whole thing was a crap shoot. So to insure breakfast success, John came home from the supermarket with an assortment, and we would try them all.

Well, we’d try the ones we didn’t eat first.

As you can see, there are already some missing from the package, even before I got the eggs out. But in my defense, you really have to keep your energy up when you’re working this hard, and donuts and coffee are nature’s crank.

With my blood pressure pleasantly elevated , I moved on to crafting the egg mixture. We were already making pancakes (well, you have to have a back up), so I thought it might be a good idea to add a little batter to the eggs, just to make sure we had a good, thick coating.

John wasn’t sold on the wisdom of this idea, but I feel very strongly that pancake batter is the grout of good cooking. Almost everything benefits from being doused in Bisquick, and I think you know I’m right.

Cutting the donuts in half was harder than it would seem. The glazed ones held up all right, by the smaller, cake donuts crumbled pretty easily, resulting in several that had to be eaten immediately.

A shame, really.

Now it was time to soak the donut halves in eggs. This took longer than I imagined, since the sugar glaze had a sort of Scotchguard effect, making the donuts moisture resistant. In fact, I heard somewhere that Rachael Ray rubs glazed donuts on face to keep her make-up from running under the hot lights.

True story.

I fired up my beloved little grill, and waited for it to get as hot as possible. Then I dumped a teaspoon of fresh, European style butter onto the griddle for each donut half, and watched in awe as it bubbled up through the holes. The smell was incredible.

Now came the moment of truth. Would they brown? Would they cook at all? Or would it all just be a gummy mess on the other side?

Damn.

Or more accurately, “Day-um”, as the kids say on their MySpace.

Yes, they cooked all right. They got brown and crispy and I got very aroused.

I took them off the griddle and put them on a wire rack to stay warm in the oven. We stood and looked at them lovingly, much like a young couple gazes at their first child. Except these offspring will never disappoint you, and you don’t have to put them through college.

When the bacon and eggs and sausage were ready, we stacked the French Toast Donuts like pancakes and poured maple syrup on them. We even put a little whipped cream on top, just to keep it healthy.

We tried to come up with names for our new creation. I liked “Heart Attackies” or “Plaquers”, or even, “Acute Anginers”, but John thought that was focusing on the negative, and you know, that is just not my way.

In the end, they were too sweet, too buttery, too greasy, too fattening, and too much of everything to make it a rational exercise. We didn’t feel well afterward, and it took days for our bodies to process it all.

So we’ll be making them again.  But with fritters.