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‘The Priestley’ doughnut is shown in a photo from Tim Hortons. A sitcom gag about the ubiquitous presence of Tim Hortons has inspired the company to create a suitably outlandish treat.HANDOUT/The Canadian Press

There are likely plenty of How I Met Your Mother fans out there wishing they could order a "Priestley" with their coffee this morning.

In case you missed the news, Tim Hortons revealed it had created a new doughnut on Tuesday, in honour of Canadian actor Jason Priestley's appearance on the popular television sitcom.

On Monday night's episode, Priestley had boasted about creating his own sweet mash-up by stuffing a Tim Hortons Timbit into a strawberry-vanilla doughnut, which he named "The Priestley," The Canadian Press reports.

In a case of life parodying art-parodying, Tims recreated the invention and posted a photo on Twitter, with the message: "@Jason_Priestley, we loved the idea of 'The Priestley' so much, we made a batch. A Timbit IN a donut? Genius."

Unfortunately, according to Canada.com, Tims does not appear to have plans to roll out the doughnut on a mass scale.

Nevertheless, the move has proved to be a brilliant marketing ploy, as it has generated enormous buzz for the coffee company.

Responding to Tims, Priestley tweeted: "Thank you Tim Hotron's [sic]!!! This is the proudest day of my life!!! A doughnut maned [sic] after me at Timmie's? #bestdayever"

Fans of the actor, the show and the coffee chain alike have weighed in on the news.

"This is Canada's Turducken," one Twitter user wrote.

"How about a Patriotic Priestley – Maple Timbit inside Apple Fritter?" wrote another. "Now we're talking!!" Priestly agreed.

Still others were itching to get their hands on the doughnut.

"aw i really want to try one! think if we bug @TimHortons enough they'll make it available everywhere??" one individual tweeted.

While some are giving Tims kudos for acting so quickly in response to the show, none of this was serendipitous.

As Tims' Alexandra Cygal explained to Jonathan Dekel of Canada.com, the coffee company's presence on How I Met Your Mother was the result of its product-placement efforts. The company observed "a lot of excitement" from fans on social media right away, Cygal said.

"Creating The Priestley doughnut was a fun way for us to respond to Jason Priestley's tweet and to further celebrate our product placement opportunity with How I Met Your Mother," Cygal explained. "Wayne Blythe, who works in our research and development department and is a certified culinary scientist, is a fan of the show and brought The Priestley to life in our lab."

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