Kellogg’s Limited Edition Pop-Tarts: Soft and Chewy Gingerbread

Acquired by: retail purchase at local supermarket

Price: $2.50 on sale for a box of 12 Pop-Tarts

Rating: 1 out of 5

Nowadays, every major brand on the market feels a need to make limited editions of their products. We get short-lived, special editions of candy bars, cereals, soft drinks, and even winter-themed snack crackers.

Now, the folks at Kellogg’s have decided that their plain old Pop-Tarts aren’t good enough to get us through winter. No, we need special, winter-themed Pop-Tarts. And so they’ve introduced these Limited Edition Pop-Tarts in the Soft and Chewy Gingerbread flavor.

Winter-themed, I said. Seems no one is bold enough to attempt a Christmas-themed, or even a generic “holiday” themed, product. Kellogg’s, in their infinite wisdom, has chosen to take a flavor inextricably associated with Christmas - gingerbread - and use it, and the image of gingerbread men and women, in an attempt to create a Pop-Tart theme that offends no one.

As always, please click on any image to see a larger version.

On opening the interior packages (each housing two Pop-Tarts), I found pasty-looking rectangles. If these are gingerbread, they used a very light recipe - I normally expect more color. For the festive element on these limited edition pastries, images of gingerbread men or women engaging in some winter activity have been applied with a printing process that uses FD & C approved food colorings.

The images are inoffensive enough, but so crudely printed that it’s hard to tell what they are. The bumpy pastry surface, and the dusting of sugar over all, don’t help. I stared at the picture of a gingerbread woman on the right for the longest time and still can’t figure out what she is supposed to be carrying, or what those curvy green lines behind her are supposed to be.

Kellogg’s claims on the box that there are “50 possible images!” to be found within. Maybe it’s just me - maybe I just coincidentally got the lamest ones in the bunch. But the first Pop-Tart I ate? A picture of a gingerbread man operating a snowblower. How festive!

A key component of any Pop-Tart is the filling. A key element for any gingerbread man is the icing defining his clothing and facial features. Kellogg’s, then, naturally put the icing inside the Pop-Tarts as the filling.

Ultimately, the proof in any food, whether a limited edition or not, is in the eating. Pop-Tarts have always been meant to be edible either unheated, or toasted.

I tried a “raw” Pop-Tart first. And immediately regretted it. Granted, on the box itself they’d told me to expect “Soft and Chewy Gingerbread”. What I didn’t expect was something that felt like half-baked cookie dough in my mouth. Where the icing filling came into play, it only enhanced the gummy nature of the raw Pop-Tart.

Following the instructions on the box (”Warm pastry in toasting appliance at lowest or lightest heat setting for one heating cycle only.”), I prepared a pair of toasted Pop-Tarts. The result? They now tasted like warm, half-baked cookie dough.

Once upon a time, in a less litigious world, Pop-Tarts was okay with people actually getting their product truly toasted in their “toasting appliances”. That’s how I’ve always preferred my Pop-Tarts - with a little crispiness added by using toasters for the purpose for which they were intended - to toast.

Since crispiness was distinctly lacking here, I decided to take a chance that Kellogg’s hadn’t included any surveillance equipment in the Pop-Tarts box, or that they weren’t going to send their Toasting Appliance Police to arrest me for defying the official instructions. I put a pair of Gingerbread Pop-Tarts into my toaster oven, turned the dial to Medium, and pushed the button.

A minute or so later, I had two nicely crisped Pop-Tarts. One, though, had cracked across one end, and the smaller piece was starting to fall through the rack in my oven. I pulled everything out with my toaster tongs, allowed the tarts to cool briefly, and took a bite.

Here, finally, we’d gotten past the half-baked cookie dough texture. What I had in my mouth instead felt like a lightly crispy cookie, properly baked, and with the interesting addition of a layer of icing sandwiched inside.

The recipe that Kellogg’s used for their gingerbread pastry has enough spices in it to have a tiny, almost unnoticeable but definitely there, bite. Unfortunately, it didn’t have enough spices to truly taste like gingerbread. I also couldn’t detect the flavor of molasses anywhere in the mix, which is an essential ingredient in most gingerbread recipes I’ve seen.

The entire assembly of flavors and textures failed to come together to make a pastry that I would ever buy again. To make these Gingerbread Pop-Tarts work, they should have had the texture of a crisp gingerbread cookie. Instead, they came up with a recipe that tasted half-baked, with an unpleasant chewy texture - and then tried to sell it as “Soft and Chewy Gingerbread”. Sorry, Kellogg’s - this is one time you can’t turn a bug into a feature.

Even when I defied the instructions and toasted the tarts until crispy, the flavors didn’t come up to reasonable standards for gingerbread cookies - rich, spicy flavors, with the cool sweetness of icing on top.

In the final analysis, I wouldn’t buy these again - and I wouldn’t recommend them to my readers. Unless you actually like under-spiced, half-baked gingerbread dough.

Related Links:

• Kellogg’s - www2.kelloggs.com
  

Posted: October 29th, 2007 under Snacks.
Comments: 2

Everybody’s Nuts! Pistachios
Roasted & Salted Flavor
European Roast Flavor

Acquired by: Retail purchase at local supermarket

Price: $2.99 per 7 oz. box
- $1.00 coupon attached to package
Final Price: $1.99 per box

Rating: 4 out of 5

Pistachios have long been a favorite of mine, but I seldom indulge. There are a few reasons for this - the overall cost of nuts as a snack, and the fussiness of eating pistachios in the shell.

Eating pistachios in the shell depends on the little crack between the halves. In most cases, you find that a number of the shells in a bag of pistachios aren’t very open, or have never opened at all. You’re left with a tiny little rock of a nut, that you don’t want to throw away because there is, after all, a pistachio in there. But it’s nearly impossible to crack - too small for a nutcracker, and a hammer would destroy the contents. In the end, I usually wind up with a little pile of hopeful, closed pistachios that sits around, being tried now and then, before finally tossing them as a lost cause.

Yes, it’s possible to buy jars of shelled pistachios, but they seldom taste quite as good. There’s just something about sitting there, a bowl of pistachios in front of you, picking the shells open and popping the tasty nugget into your mouth as you set aside the empties.

Enter the folks at Everybody’s Nuts! (note - links plays animations and sound), purveyors of fine, jumbo, California pistachios. These folks have, with great style, attitude, and humor, made it their mission to eliminate the closed pistachio. Their guarantee, pictured at left, declares the presence of closed nuts in their package an event as unlikely as discovering Bigfoot exists.

I found Everybody’s Nuts! in a cardboard merchandiser at a local supermarket. There was apparently a marketing push to get the product out into people’s hands - there were coupons for $1 off the product stuck to every box.

The attitude presented on the box - especially as exemplified by the Guarantee printed on the back of the Roasted & Salted flavor - was the first attraction.

But attitude can only take a snack product so far - ultimately, if it doesn’t taste good, or deliver on the promises of a wacky guarantee, it will fail. I decided to see if the pistachios in the Everybody’s Nuts! packages lived up to the claims.

I surveyed the three flavors presented - Roasted & Salted, European Roast, and Salt & Pepper. (Missing was the company’s fourth flavor, Roasted No Salt.) Not being a fan of pepper, I decided to bring home the Roasted & Salted, and the European Roast.

Starting with the basics, I opened the interior bag of nuts in the Roasted & Salted flavor, and dumped them out into a bowl. These were absolutely the most open pistachios I can ever remember seeing in my life - in fact, many shells were so open they sat empty, having already lost their nut into the bag.

I took my first taste, prying open a gaping shell. The meat of the pistachio was large. Popping it into my mouth, I tasted a fresh, chewy, lovely pistachio, with just enough salt to count. I was hooked.

The European Roast flavor was next. I’d never had pistachios in any flavor other than plain salted before - how would these be different? The website describes European Roast as “A darker roast, with the taste combination of salt and malt vinegar.” Sort of like English fish ‘n chips, with the malt vinegar to sprinkle over the thick cut pieces of fried potato, then.

The ingredients for European Roast list, after the pistachios and salt, “Fructose, Modified Food Starch, Natural Flavor, Malt Vinegar, Spice, Apple Cider Vinegar.” As those ingredients would suggest, the flavor of the European Roasted nuts was slightly sweet, slightly salty, and a bit darker than the Roasted & Salted. I’d be happier without the Fructose and the vague “Natural Flavor” listings. But overall, I rather liked the flavor. The difference from the plain Roasted & Salted was subtle, but distinct.

In the end, I was very satisfied with both flavors of Everybody’s Nuts! Pistachios. Fresh and tasty, and true to their Guarantee, not a single closed nut in either package. If these stay available, I may find that pistachios are back on my regular rotation of snacks, giving these a 4 out of 5 rating. I may even find myself trying the Salt & Pepper flavor - I have to admit, the experience with the European Roast flavor has emboldened me in regards to flavored pistachios.

I should note that this product was also tested by the four-footed members of our family, the Rattie Sisters, Lola and Sable. They give a hearty “two paws greedily reaching to grab the nut as quick as they can” as their rating! Pistachios were a big hit with both girls, and the nicely opened shells made it easy for them to get their treats.

Related Links:

• Company Website: Everybody’s Nuts! (Note - site plays animations and sound)
• Wikipedia: Pistachio

Posted: October 9th, 2007 under Snacks.
Comments: none

Caribou Coffee Vanilla Latte Snack Bars
Caribou Coffee Caramel High Rise Snack Bars

Acquired by: Retail purchase at local Target store.

Price:
Shelf price $2.33 per 6-pc. box.
On sale at 2 boxes for $4.00.
Additional $1.00 discount by using a newspaper coupon.
Final price, $1.50 per 6-pc. box.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Caribou Coffee is a nearly unknown entity here in New Hampshire. It was founded in 1992 in Minnesota by a pair of newlyweds who, climbing a mountain two years earlier in Denali National Park in Alaska, are supposed to have looked at the view and been inspired to open a coffee shop.

Okay, there are stranger reasons to start a business. The important point here is that the company, though it had a rocky beginning and eventually was bought by larger corporations, has become the “second-largest operator of non-franchised coffeehouses in the United States.” As with most companies, that means lots of auxiliary products to supplement your original product line.

This leads us to today’s topic: Caribou Coffee Snack Bars. I found these one day while shopping in Target. Since They were on sale, and I’d recently clipped a coupon from the newspaper as well, into my cart they went.

The snack bars are made by the General Mills company, making this a co-branded or licensed product. General Mills doesn’t list them on their website, and Caribou Coffee does. I suppose that means they’re more a Caribou Coffee product that happens to be made by General Mills, than a General Mills product licensing the Caribou Coffee name.

The flavor names are derived from coffee beverages actually served at Caribou Coffee stores. The website lists two other flavors that I didn’t find available in boxes at Target - Mint Condition and Chocolate Mocha.

These other two flavors can be purchased at the Caribou Coffee site, at $1.25 each for individual bars. The site also lists the Vanilla Latte and Caramel High Rise, but shows them as “no longer available.” I wonder if they pulled those flavors to test the market for boxed supermarket sales?

On opening the individually wrapped bars, there are no real surprises here. They look like classic granola bars. The texture is soft and chewy, the grains and nuts crispy. They impressed me as good quality bars, with a pleasing texture.

The coffee flavors themselves seemed to come more from the coatings they were dipped and drizzled with than the main body of the bar. The Caramel High Rise bar has a milky brown color; the Vanilla Latte is white. The coatings also seem to have tiny grains of brown mixed in them. Since the boxes claim the bars are “Made with REAL Caribou Coffee,” I’m guessing that’s where the coffee is found.

The aroma of good coffee rises up as soon as you open the wrappers. Vanilla was immediately obvious in the Vanilla Latte flavor. I’m not sure that I noticed a distinct caramel aroma or taste in the Caramel High Rise, though that may just be my inexperience with caramel-flavored coffee drinks.

I don’t eat granola bars often, because the flavors aren’t usually very interesting to me. Raisins, for instance, are an immediate no, as are many dried fruits. (Except apples. I like dried apples. And bananas.) Caribou Coffee Granola Bars, however, had no pretense about being anything but a coffee-flavored bar.

Bottom line? I liked these, a lot. On the few occasions where I do buy granola bars, I’m likely to prefer Caribou Coffee Snack Bars if they’re available. They were sweet without tasting artificially so; chewy without threatening to tear out teeth; crispy to just the right degree. The coffee flavor was distinct and tasty, without being overwhelming.

I rate both flavors of Caribou Coffee Snack Bars a solid 4 out of 5. These will probably find their way into my cart again!

Related Links:

• Company - Caribou Coffee
• Buy Online - Caribou Coffee Snack Bars at Caribou Coffee
• Wikipedia - Caribou Coffee

Posted: September 18th, 2007 under Snacks.
Comments: 2

Archer Farms Chocolate Drizzle Indulgent Snack Mix

Acquired by: Retail purchase at Target store

Price: 99 cents for 2 oz. package

Overall Rating: 1 out of 5

Archer Farms is a premium brand of groceries found only at Target stores. They pride themselves on quality ingredients and products.

I’ve long been a fan of Archer Farms various caramel corn flavors, so I felt encouraged to try some of their other snack items. When I spotted a single-serving size of their Chocolate Drizzle Indulgent Snack Mix in the checkout aisle for only 99 cents, I grabbed a bag.

The image on the package suggests that you’re about to eat a rich, varied, sweet Chex mix-like confection, drizzled with white chocolate. What I actually found inside wasn’t nearly as appealing.

There was a high percentage of crumbs in the bag I purchased. As for the “Chocolate Drizzle” itself - I found a few, chalky looking globs of white, and several of semi-sweet chocolate, on maybe a half dozen pieces of the mix.

The “chocolate” drizzles had a very artificial taste, and a soft, waxy texture. The various cereal pieces were seasoned, some with a sweet glaze, some with mixed spices.

Cayenne pepper is listed among the ingredients, and its overwhelming presence in a few bites of this snack was proof that the seasoning was very unevenly distributed.

The glazed and spiced cereals otherwise didn’t taste like much to me. There were only a couple of very broken pieces of pretzel in the entire bag. More obvious were the sugar roasted peanuts, which tasted okay, but didn’t wow me.

I really wanted to like this mix, but found myself sorely disappointed. Only moments before I found this single serving package, I had considered buying a full-sized bag or jar in the regular snack aisle. I’m very glad I didn’t make that mistake!

Final rating, 1 out of 5. This is one snack experience that won’t be happening again.

Related Links:

• Archer Farms (Warning - plays video and sound.) This is a minimally informative promotional site at Target Online, but it appears to be the only one they offer. Archer Farms foods are not available for purchase at Target Online - only in brick-and-mortar Target stores.

Posted: September 14th, 2007 under Snacks.
Comments: 3