Tag Archives: Christmas

Junk Food

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Limited Edition Cereal

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Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Cereal Limited Edition BoxCinnamon Toast Crunch has always been one of my favorite cereals. It’s one of those cereals that blows past guys like Lucky Charms on the unhealthy scale and lands straight on “I’m basically eating dessert for breakfast”. Cinnamon and sugar cereal that leaves you with cinnamon-sugar cereal milk – what’s not to like?

For the holidays, we now have a limited edition version, which is Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch! Wait, what the hell is sugar cookie toast? I guess just Sugar Cookie Crunch wouldn’t get the entire brand name across.

Besides the appeal of eating sugar cookies for breakfast, there was another obvious selling point for me on this cereal, and I’m pretty sure you can guess what it was. Sure, the Christmas lights and stocking are a nice touch, but the obvious draw here is googly-eyed cereal squares.

Well, more specifically, googly-eyed sugar cookie cereal squares wearing green Santa hats and looking absolutely overjoyed as they grin at each other over their drowned brethren. If there were actual googly eyes glued to each box of Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, it would be my favorite cereal of all time.

Unbeknownst to me, these squares have a name, and that name is Crazy Squares. I always associated Cinnamon Toast Crunch with a fat chef wearing glasses, but the times have a-changed. While I will always have a place in my heart for Fat Toast Chef, Crazy Squares are pretty awesome, and you will see why when I show you the activity panel on the back of the box.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Cereal Limited Edition Box Crazy Squares

There’s a whole bunch of stuff to do on this wonderfully festive panel. Crazy Squares are super into the Christmas spirit, with gifts and a tree festooned with glowing lights and ornaments.

The best part of this whole picture, however, is the Squares themselves. They are so happy. Well, I’m not quite sure what the guy on the far right is. He’s…he’s Special Square.

Can you tell which Crazy Square is my favorite? If you immediately guessed “the guy that Square #2 is really hoping is about to eat Square #4”, then you are absolutely correct.

My favorite activity is called “Frosted Fun”, and is described thusly: “The Crazy Squares have licked some picture puzzles of their favorite holiday things on the frost on the window. Can you guess the word each picture is creating?”

I’m sorry, what? They’ve licked some pictures onto the window? I have to assume this is the work of Special Square.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Cereal Limited Edition Frosted Fun

But what glorious work it is. Hold on, I got this:

a. “ninja bro”

b. “dapper old man”

c. “shitty birthday with vegan parents”

d. “squirrel rocking a snowboard…with bells”

No need to look at the answer key. Nailed it.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Cereal Limited Edition

Here is the cereal itself. Look at it! You did a good thing, Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch. Each piece, to varying degrees, looks like it has been dusted with a heavy coating of snow. Of course, we all know that snow is actually sugar, which is almost as good as snow.

The underlying structure and texture of this Crunch is almost identical to Cinnamon Toast, although perhaps a tad thinner. But does it actually taste like a sugar cookie? I wouldn’t say so offhand. The sugar is definitely there – from the look and the taste, it seems more like confectioner’s sugar, which is very sweet but also has a nice, melty quality to it. There’s also a lovely hint of vanilla in there.

I could definitely see eating Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch on a cold Christmas morning and digging the snowy vibe as I ingest unhealthy amounts of sugar and solve holiday puzzles. And that sugar and vanilla combo makes for some excellent cereal milk. While the flavor itself isn’t exactly unique and could easily transfer over to a regular cereal, all the bells and whistles make Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch a fine limited edition Christmas offering.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Limited Edition Cereal

  • Score: 4 out of 5 carnivorous Crazy Squares
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 12.2 oz.
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: At a surprisingly low 9 grams of sugar per serving, this cereal is way less teeth-rotting (and contains a lot more vitamins and minerals) than a can of soda.
Junk Food

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch

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Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch BagI’m not sure why these Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch Pretzel Crisps are special for Christmas, but they’re new and their packaging is obviously Christmas-themed. Shiny red-and-green packaging, and you can’t tell me it’s a happy accident that that pile of sea salt just so happens to look like a mound of snow.

And, of course, there’s good ol’ Saint Nick, who appears to be tiptoeing across the front of the bag for fear of waking the sleeping snacks. Santa is begging you to “Rethink your pretzel!”, which I assume is a reference to the “crisp” part of these Pretzel Crisps.

In case you aren’t aware, Pretzel Crisps are like pretzels that have had the middle sliced out of them and then the outsides stuck back together. Sort of like if a pretzel and a cracker had a baby – they’re thinner and lighter than regular pretzels, but they keep all the good parts, like the crunch and the distinctive flavor.

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch

These Pretzel Crisps have been dipped in dark chocolate and covered in sea salt, supposedly of the Mediterranean variety, although I cannot verify that claim.

The Crisps themselves maintain their crunchy texture, even having been subjected to a heavy chocolate. I would say that this goes well with the texture of the chocolate, but the chocolate is of the very cheap variety, which is one of the biggest problems with these Pretzel Crisps.

In addition to lacking the smooth texture of good dark chocolate, it also lacks the depth of flavor. Instead of being dark and rich, it is instead just plain ol’ bitter, overshadowing the chocolate notes.

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch Close-Up

The other problem with these Pretzel Crisps is the salt. Salt and chocolate can go very well together, but the salt here was just overwhelming, even more so than the bitterness of the chocolate.

I don’t know if this was some sort of superpower Mediterranean sea salt, but after just a few pretzels I had to drink a full glass of water, and I’m general a salt vampire, so that’s saying a lot.

Pretzel Crisps can be quite tasty for the reasons given above, but Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch fails to deliver on both of the flavors in its name. The chocolate is too cheap and bitter, and the salt is too…salty, which is a weird thing to say about a pretzel. Maybe the Santa on the package is trying to sneak past so he can deliver his presents without having to eat them.

Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps Dark Chocolate and Mediterranean Sea Salt Crunch

  • Score: 1 out of 5 hastily gulped glasses of water
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 4 oz.
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: If you can get through an entire 4-ounce bag, you’ll have consumed almost 80% of your recommended daily amount of sodium. Sounds about right.
Junk Food

Twizzlers PULL ‘n’ PEEL cherry green apple lemonade

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Twizzlers PULL 'n' PEEL cherry green apple lemonade PackageHey Twizzlers, what’s…what’s going on, here? You obviously have a Christmas candy out. I can see it. We can all see it. It’s right above these words, in all its red, green and white glory. There are even snowflakes on the package.

And yet, what are you calling it? Twizzlers PULL ‘n’ PEEL cherry green apple lemonade. There are many things wrong with this name, starting with going from all caps to no caps and ending with the fact that Twizzlers is patently refusing to acknowledge that this is Christmasy or even holiday-y in any way. You’ve already got stripes going – make candy cane shapes! Make wreaths! Cherry rhymes with merry, for fuck’s sake!

Now that I’ve gotten this glaring oversight out of the way, I just realized I haven’t had Twizzlers in ages. I’m pretty sure the last time I ate a Twizzler, it was after I’d used it as a straw to drink some Dr. Pepper. This was before the time when Twizzlers could be pulled and peeled, or filled with sour goop. A simpler time, when a Twizzler was just a Twizzler.

Twizzlers PULL 'n' PEEL cherry green apple lemonade

Not that I object to the pulling and peeling of Twizzlers. I think the constant presence of string cheese in a household of no children is a testament to that. There’s something satisfying about pulling apart long strings of….whatever, and bonus points if it’s candy.

Twizzlers PULL 'n' PEEL cherry green apple lemonade Strands

Each rope of Twizzler PULL ‘n’ PEEL boasts nine separate strands of Twizz. On this one, cherry won the game of tic-tac-toe.

The flavors themselves are unspectacular. Together, it’s mostly a gummy, waxy candy. Separately, the strands go as follows. Cherry: a nice, artificial cherry taste, without any of that medicine flavor. Green apple: strangely flavorless, tasting mostly of plastic. Lemonade: a little sour with a hint of lemon.

But the flavors aren’t the real appeal here. The real fun is pulling apart the strands. This can prove somewhat difficult to do, as Twizzlers are sticky by nature and the strands are very compact. Green apple and lemonade pull apart with little effort, but cherry is strangely thinner than the rest, resulting in a lot of tearing.

Twizzlers PULL 'n' PEEL cherry green apple lemonade Candy Cane

Since Twizzlers seemed unwilling to admit their Christmas affiliation through both packaging and candy design, I took it upon myself to do so. Look at how gosh-darn festive that candy cane is. It would never fly as a tree decoration, as the only way I could get the shape to stay was to affix it firmly to the plate, but it made me happy nonetheless.

After pulling and peeling the candy, I was left with a bunch of Christmasy strands, which is how I wound up spending a night playing arts & crafts with Twizzlers.

Twizzlers PULL 'n' PEEL cherry green apple lemonade Wreath

I can’t say I’m not proud. Not only was it fun, but it also really put me in the Christmas spirit, which usually takes an act of Charlie Brown or Garfield to accomplish. And that’s when I read the back of the package:

Twizzlers PULL 'n' PEEL cherry green apple lemonade Package Back

I was wrong about you all along, Twizzlers. It’s not that you didn’t have Christmas in your heart. It’s that you wanted me to find the Christmas spirit in my heart. In a world of gizmos and gadgets, Twizzlers proudly proclaims “assembly not included” and encourages you to get creative and play with your food.

Well played, Twizzlers. Well played. I’d craft a Twizzlers heart for you, but that wreath already took more time than I’d care to admit.

Twizzlers PULL ‘n’ PEEL cherry green apple lemonade

  • Score: 4 out of 5 Grinch hearts growing
  • Price: $1.00
  • Size: 4.2 oz.
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: Tastes like plastic, but feels like fun.
Junk Food

Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers

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Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers BoxOh, Triscuit.  You’ve made some wonderful flavor combinations in the past, like Rosemary and Olive Oil and Fire Roasted Tomato and Olive Oil.  In retrospect, you sure are using a lot of olive oil.

But this combination of cranberry and sage does not seem like a match made in heaven.  Oh, don’t worry, I get it – THANKSGIVING.  You know what else goes together at Thanksgiving?  Alcohol and bitter family gatherings.  Maybe you could combine those with some olive oil.

Okay, okay, I’m pre-judging Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers a lot, here.  That’s bad food journalism.  And if I were a food journalist, I’d feel bad about it.  But this is my website so I can say what I want.  We’ll see if I have to eat my words later on.  Eat them on a Triscuit.

What I can say is that at least the box is adorable.  It’s like the classic ugly Christmas sweater, which is just perfect if you ask me.  I also like the cranberries smushed onto some white stuff bookended by Triscuits covered in green bean casserole.  The white stuff is herbed goat cheese, by the way, and I wasn’t joking about the casserole.  The box even says it.  Triscuit is owning these ideas.

Here’s another amazing idea they’re owning, speaking of eating it on a Triscuit:

Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers Recipe

I always laugh at the serving suggestions on cracker boxes, but I have to say that this one takes the cake.  A Triscuit is 2 x 1.75 inches.  Yes, I measured a cracker.  So what Nabisco expects you to do the day after Thanksgiving, when you are hungover from either booze, food, or the unrelenting presence of family members, is try to manipulate the following items onto a cracker smaller than the spoon you used to shovel dressing onto your plate:

Two pieces of turkey, folded.  If you can accomplish this on a Triscuit, you are either amazing, or your Thanksgiving turkey came out of a Hillshire Farms container, which is sadder than putting leftovers on a Triscuit.

Gravy.  Known for staying put, and there’s no way it wouldn’t immediately leak out.

Stuffing.  If the above statement about the turkey is true, no birds were stuffed in the making of this Thanksgiving dinner.  Just call it “Stove Top” instead.

Brie cheese.  Yeah, because whoever is attempting to assemble this monstrosity has that on hand.

Cranberry sauce.  The cherry topping to this impossible Thanksgiving sundae.

Triscuit also recommends substituting green bean casserole for stuffing.  Boy, they are really pushing that shit.  Maybe they’re in bed with Del Monte.

Now that I’ve had my fun with Triscuit, it’s time to get down to the actual cracker.

Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers

The crackers themselves had inviting little flecks of what are, presumably sage, on them, and when I opened the box, I was met with the unmistakable smell of cranberry.  Fully committed, I shoved a whole 2 x 1.75” cracker in my mouth.

What I tasted was some sort of Thanksgiving miracle.  The flavor of cranberry – real cranberry – flooded my mouth.  It’s hard to type this with a straight face, but the flavor actually had the sensation of being juicy, which makes no sense when you’re discussing a wheat cracker.  There was a little sweet, but not too much, and that signature tart of cranberry.

Worried that I might have been struck with sudden-onset synesthesia, I went to the box and checked out the ingredients.  Sure enough, right up there on the list was cranberry juice concentrate.  Triscuit didn’t just pump some artificial flavor into their crackers; they went whole-hog and put in the real thing.  Well, as real as you can get when you’re manufacturing a wheat cracker, I suppose.

After the initial cranberry burst came a nice, slow onset of sage, which is also listed as an actual ingredient.  It was earthy and savory, but not at all overpowering.

Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers never should have worked, but somehow, they did.  The burst of real cranberry combined with the subtle but earthy flavor of sage is both unique and refreshing, and really did have that Thanksgiving flavor.

Do I want to eat these every day?  I do not.  While the sensation of eating a juicy wheat cracker was something to experience, I can’t say that fruit wheat crackers are a thing I want to add to my permanent snack lineup.

On the other hand, that sage would go great with a few other authentic spice flavors to make a nice stuffing-flavored cracker.  While juicy, fruity crackers aren’t my thing, I think the record will show that I’m down with some savory Thanksgiving-flavored snacks.

Limited Edition Triscuit Cranberry & Sage Crackers

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 heavily pressed olives
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 9 oz. box
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirk: Contains the actual ingredients in the name!
Junk Food

Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars

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Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars BagTwix bars are one of my favorite chocolate treats. It’s the perfect combination of crunchy cookie, creamy caramel, and chocolate.

It is because of my love for this balance of flavors that I hesitate to try any variations. On the other hand, I generally give points any time an established snack food gets on the holiday train. And, given the Christmas-related flavors they had to choose from, I find gingerbread to be more encouraging than, say, peppermint. Peppermint and caramel does not seem like a good idea.

I gotta say, I’m finding this intro pretty weak. I have no special stories about Twix; Twix didn’t murder my parents or cause some sort of dramatic, humiliating grade school incident, like the time I got my arm caught in the back of my desk chair in second grade and the maintenance guy had to come get me free in front of the whole class.

That is a true story. Just like when I went to Target to buy these Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars and there was only one bag left. Just as I was reaching for it, Batman swooped in and tried to steal it from my hands.

An epic battle ensued; I knocked over a display of ornaments while I dodged Batman’s barrage of Batarangs and fought back using a Nerf gun I’d modified to shoot fruitcakes. He then stopped to tell me some sad tale about how Twix killed his parents, and while he was distracted, I strangled him from behind with a strand of Christmas lights and made off with the precious bag of candy.

Victory was mine! Stupid whiny Batman.

Okay! I feel better now. Let’s get going.

Simple packaging, but effective and also darling. Those androgynous gingerpeople look so cheery with their smiley faces and pink scarves. They’re probably happy because they know that they are there just as Twix spokescookies and will not be the victims of a mastication beheading.

Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars Wrapper

Hard to see in this picture because metallic wrappers are my mortal enemy, but the individual Twix wrappers have teensy little gingerdudes (or gingerladies; I’m being so politically correct today!) on them, which is a cute touch.

Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bar

Each bar is “fun size”, good for about two bites each, or one bite if you’re one of those weird, annoying people who shoves entirely too much food into your maw at once. Don’t be that guy.

If I’d taken two seconds to read the bag, I wouldn’t have felt the need to bite the top off one of the bars to figure out that the gingerbread flavor is in the caramel, not the cookie. This may seem like a strange choice, since gingerbread men are cookies, but I think it was wise. Keeping the original texture of the Twix cookie kept that cookie/caramel/chocolate combination that I so enjoy.

As for the gingerbread flavor itself, I can say with happiness that Twix nailed it. It was all there – the brown sugar and molasses taste with ginger and cinnamon in the mix. Somehow, Twix fit all that in there and still managed to keep the integrity of the caramel flavor, not just its texture.

Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars fill my mouth with Christmas and joy. All the things I love about Twix remained intact, and they managed to get that perfect gingerbread flavor in there.

I have no complaints about Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars, but I will say that, at least to me, gingerbread is a sometimes flavor. For some reason, it just seems weird to eat gingerbread at any other time of year than Christmas. I’m happy to enjoy Gingerbread Twix in December but go back to good ol’ original come New Year’s.

Twix Gingerbread Cookie Bars

  • Score: 4.5 out of 5 Batarangs
  • Price: $3.19
  • Size: 10 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Not one damn ingredient listed that actually indicates gingerbread. Hooray for artificial flavors!
Junk Food

M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint

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It’s Christmas Eve, and I have a couple of holiday-themed items left to review and no time to review them! I’m like a frantic last-minute gift-shopper. Unfortunately, I can’t just go to JC Penney and pay them to wrap these reviews up for me. Although the idea of attempting that is amusing.

This is my way of apologizing for what will be a short review. Short but sweet. Like candy!

What a terrible segue.

M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint are a new edition to the melts-in-your-mouth family this holiday season. They follow another white chocolate holiday M&M – White Chocolate Candy Corn.

I’m not quite sure why they decided to go with white chocolate for this flavor. Regular chocolate goes quite well with peppermint – why not work with that? Oh, wait – Mint Dark Chocolate M&Ms already exist. Maybe they figured making a Milk Chocolate Peppermint would be too similar?

Enough speculation. My brain doesn’t have time for this. It’s already thinking about ham. Christmas ham, of course; I don’t just sit around thinking about ham all the time. That I’ll admit to on the Internet.

M&Ms usually puts some effort in the packaging department, and White Chocolate Peppermints are no exception. Red and white stripes adorn the sides, obviously meant to represent the stripes on a candy cane.

Red M&M was an obvious choice to represent this flavor, and he’s wearing what I would call a Santa hat, except it has stripes and hangs down to his feet, which honestly looks more like some sort of Dr. Seuss accessory than what Mr. Claus would wear, but hey.

I’m really into Red M&M’s facial expression and gesturing. His outstretched arms say, “Hey, check out these White Chocolate Peppermint M&Ms, hm? Nice, right?” His half-lidded eyes and bizarre mouth configuration give off a distinct “Ladies, maybe you want some minty chocolates?”

His eyebrows seem to have migrated onto the fur trim of his hat. I have no interpretation for that one.

White Chocolate Peppermint M&Ms are about the same diameter as regular M&Ms, but seem a bit fatter. As I expected, one whiff from the bag filled my nostrils with the scent of candy cane. Not just peppermint – candy cane. An important distinction, and one that makes me wonder why M&Ms didn’t call these White Chocolate Candy Cane. It is both more accurate and more festive!

It would have been fun to see some red candy bits inside the M&Ms themselves, but these innards look like your typical white chocolate. Upon shoving a handful into my mouth, however, I was greeted with minty candy cane goodness. It was like sucking on a candy cane itself, minus the part where the end of the cane turns into a point sharp enough to kill someone and/or jab your gums painfully.

The crunch of the outer shell helped to add even more candy cane…ness to the M&Ms, and my mouth was transformed into a minty Christmas wonderland. The accuracy of the flavor was spot-on. However, candy cane is a strong flavor, which means that it completely overwhelmed the flavor of the white chocolate.

Going back to my original query as to why these M&Ms are white and not milk chocolate, I think they actually made a smart choice here. The white chocolate is naught but a delivery system for the peppermint flavor. It lends the texture of chocolate, but knows not to interfere with this decidedly Christmas taste.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m still baffled in regards to why M&Ms didn’t call these White Chocolate Candy Cane. Everything from the packaging to the color of the candies to the taste itself screams it, and yet they went with peppermint. While I find this to be a sadly missed opportunity, rest assured that if you need to get your candy cane fix, you can stop sneaking around stealing decorations off the Christmas tree and just grab a handful of M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint instead. Unless you like stabbing yourself in the gums.

M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint

  • Score: 4 out of 5 HEY DID I MENTION THESE SHOULD BE CALLED CANDY CANE AND NOT PEPPERMINT ENOUGH TIMES
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 9.90 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Not much unexpected here – sugar, sugar, and more sugar. No mint or artificial flavors listed, so I’m guessing “natural flavor” means “minty elf blood”.

Candy Blog and The Impulsive Buy also reviewed M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint.

Junk Food

Limited Edition Gingerbread Oreo

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Nabisco’s been spitting out new Oreo flavors like hotcakes recently. I’d like to think that this is the reason their Limited Edition Gingerbread Oreo package is so goddamn boring.

I mean, look at that thing. Yellow – one of the classic Christmas colors, of course. An Oreo. And a gingerbread man that looks like he was decorated by the most unimaginative person on earth. Nary a Santa hat, tree ornament, or even a snowflake in sight.

Ah well, at least the gingerbread man looks happy. I’m assuming because he’s got the spotlight all to himself.

Can I stress all to himself? Because there’s not even a gingerbread man imprint on the cookie. In fact, if not for the scent that wafted out after I opened the package, just looking at the cookie itself, it just looks like a Golden Oreo. My heart just shrunk a size.

If the gingerbread man knew that his friends had been ground up and turned into a creamy paste, he might not be smiling so happily on the package.

Fortunately for Oreos, however, the boring packaging and cookie itself are masking a hidden treasure of gingerbread goodness. The creme does a great job of mixing the tastes of brown sugar, cinnamon, a bit of molasses, and whatever the hell else goes into making gingerbread cookies. I’m assuming one of those is ginger, but you wouldn’t know it from the ingredients list, which reads something like “sugar, sugar, flour, oil, sugar, oil, and natural and artificial flavors”.

Those last two really seem to be carrying the weight of making this cookie taste so much like actual gingerbread, and I have to admit, using the Golden Oreo as a vehicle for the creme was a good choice. The cookies add their own sweetness, but don’t interfere with the gingerbread flavor.

Well, that’s it. Shortest review ever.

Do you feel a little disappointed? I know I do. So much so, in fact, that I decided to try and eek some real Christmas spirit out of these cookies and make a Gingerbread Oreo house.

I have never made a gingerbread house. In fact, I’ve never really made anything out of food, unless you count the times I’d scrape the disgusting peanut butter out of the cheese cracker sandwiches they fed us in elementary school day care and made sculptures of noses out of it. Noses? I don’t know why, either, but it’s the only thing I remember sculpting. Maybe it had to do with the chronic sinusitis I had as a child.

Come to think of it, I have little to no knowledge or experience in architecture, structural integrity, infrastructure support, or pretty much any other subject that would help me build a house out of cookies.

This may not go well.

Many things went wrong during this experiment, as you may imagine. At first, I tried cutting the Gingerbread Oreos in half and using the flat base as a foundation, anchored by Gingerbread Oreo creme. I summoned my inner “everything I’ve learned from watching reality baking shows” and tried to roll the creme I’d carefully scraped off the cookies between my palms to act as an edible glue.

As it turns out, Oreo creme is neither fondant nor modeling chocolate, and rolling it between your palms results in…well, a bunch of delicious-smelling Oreo filling stuck to your hands. Thank god the odor of Gingerbread Oreos is quite pleasant. My hands smelled like Christmas.

Worried that this project would never even get off the ground floor, literally, I took some whole Gingerbread Oreos and just started smashing them together, because that’s the obvious next step. Surprisingly, this actually worked. I took my Oreo halves and smushed them onto the first ones, making a second layer.

I was pretty proud that I’d managed to make a second layer that didn’t immediately collapse, but soon realized I could go no further. That’s okay though, because I’d already thought of a roofing plan – White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles.

The main problem with this step is that I had no roof. I was determined to use the Pringles, however; they’ve been sitting around irritating me, and I figured this would be a safer use than chucking the canister at a random stranger, which is an urge I’d been fighting pretty much since I reviewed them.

Looking around the kitchen for something to save my gingerbread “house”, I found the perfect roofing material: Hot Chocolate Pop-Tarts!

I probably could have stuck the Pringles onto the Pop-Tarts with some of that Oreo creme, but I already knew there was no saving this disaster, so this is the finished product. The worst gingerbread house ever.

I love it.

Nabisco made the most boring packaging ever for Gingerbread Oreos, which is a shame, but I had fun spending half an hour making a horrible abomination out of them, so there is that. Plus, they taste and smell quite like gingerbread, which is, I suppose, the salient point. Much like my gingerbread “house”, I have a feeling the remaining Limited Edition Gingerbread Oreos won’t last long, because while they may not look like Christmas, they definitely taste like it.

Limited Edition Gingerbread Oreo

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 realizations that I will never win a Food Network Challenge
  • Price: $2.68
  • Size: 15.25 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirks: Zero ingredients of actual gingerbread cookies listed, and yet, tastes like gingerbread. Christmas magic.
Junk Food

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar and White Chocolate Peppermint

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In my last post about Pumpkin Pie Spice Pringles, I mentioned that Pringles went insane three times this holiday season, and that I would get to the other two at another time. Well it turns out that time is now!

Reviewing Pringles twice in a row is a bit of a challenge, since I blew my preamble wad on the last review, what with the discussion about feeling like a cheap whore after eating Pringles since they are not actually chips and what have you. A friend of mine suggested some freestyle rapping, at which point I grabbed his face, got Batman Close, and asked him if I looked like the kind of person who would freestyle rap.

After he ran away crying, I looked at the blinking cursor mocking me on my monitor and actually gave it some consideration.

Realizing that it was sad that it had come to rapping about poppin’ and not stoppin’, I decided maybe it would be best to just jump into things. Then I realized Kris Kringle rhymes with Pringle, and hit ctrl+b before I lost my shit completely. Oh my god, I can’t stop rhyming. Please help me.

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar

Sometimes I feel like the title of my posts ruins the fun. It’s a necessary evil, but it’s a total spoiler. I just want to get the elephant in the room out of the way and say that Cinnamon & Sugar Pringles are not the most exciting part of this review. Sorry guys, but it’s true.

However, in my family we had a rule on Christmas morning that you had to open your stocking before you could open your presents. So let’s wade through this metaphorical menagerie of oranges, toothbrushes, Hot Wheels and dollar bills before we get to the big-ticket item. It’s only proper.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong – cinnamon sugar flavored potato crisps are still sound weird and unnatural, even if they may seem tame in comparison to the other Pringles in this review. But then I remembered last year’s experience with Mission Sugar Cinnamon Tortilla Chips and realized that maybe I shouldn’t judge a can by its cover.

That said, let’s judge a can by its cover.

Like Pumpkin Pie Spice Pringles, Cinnamon & Sugar gets all meta with their can-on-a-can design. C&S doesn’t get anything as cool as a can-shaped pumpkin, though; instead, they get some little swirlies that don’t have much to do with cinnamon, sugar, or Christmas in general. Pft.

As if to make up for this, the metacan is stuffed to the gills with cinnamon sticks. I’ll admit that it’s probably difficult to represent sugar in any way that wouldn’t make it look like a pile of snow and/or blow (the rhyming, it haunts me), so I guess those little twinkles on top of the sticks are supposed to be sugar. That, or magic.

Trust me, it’s not magic. As I popped the top, I was met with the odor of cinnamon almost as strong as those damn pine cones they put in the front of grocery stores every Christmas that make me sneeze. I was okay with that, though; I took it as a good sign.

And indeed it was. There was a heavy dusting of both cinnamon and sugar on each potato crisp, and both flavors were pleasant and worked well with each other. Because the flavors were so strong, they blocked out most of the flavor of the actual potato crisp, which was a good thing.

Note the word “most”, though. You can’t keep a mediocre potato crisp down, so inevitably I got some Pringles flavor creeping in at the end, ruining the fun cinnamon and sugar party.

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar aren’t completely awful, they just aren’t in any way impressive. Furthermore, there’s no real reason for them to exist. Do you want Pringles? Buy some Pringles. Do you want cinnamon and sugar? Buy a coffee cake or some shit. But really, who wants Pringles and cinnamon/sugar? The answer is no one. Well, there’s probably someone out there. But not the type of person I’d want to associate with.

Limited Time Only Pringles White Chocolate Peppermint

We’ve arrived. White Chocolate fucking Peppermint fucking Pringles. Again, there is no reason for these to exist. This is a road that can only lead to bad things.

To add insult to injury, this was my White Whale. Call me Ahab. I went to two different Walmarts and two different Targets just to find these goddamn things. Like I didn’t hate the idea of eating them already, they made me go to two Walmarts. In the spirit of the Christmas season, I mangled a public domain song in their honor:
Pringle bells, oh Pringle bells
Pringle hate in my heart
Oh, how sad it is to walk
With an empty goddamn cart

Yeah, it’s no good. I should have stuck with Kris Pringle.

When I finally found these Pringles, it was a bittersweet victory, for obvious reasons. As I was checking out, the cashier rang up the can, and then looked at it, seemingly puzzled. “Huh, I’ve never seen these before,” he said, which is telling, since he worked there. I take this as proof that I was the first and only person to buy these, because they are stupid.

I should know better than to engage people in conversations when I’m buying review food. Case in point: the Double Down incident.

But I never learn my lesson, and for some reason I felt the need to explain my purchase, so I casually mentioned that I review weird foods on the internet.

Whoops.

The cashier then launched into this thing about how when he likes to try weird foods, a statement that I for some reason found unsettling from the start, he goes to the nearby Vietnamese market, where you can “try things like durian”. He was super into telling me about this place, which really had nothing to do with what I’d said, and which I already knew existed. For some reason he left the can of Pringles on the counter as he bagged the rest of my purchases.

This left me wondering if he’d just become distracted, or if he left them out like some half-drank water bottle somebody picked up while they were shopping. Did he think I would be needing them immediately? That I would have the urge to rip off the top and start munching on them in the parking lot? I have no idea. I just wanted him to stop talking. So I bagged them myself, which for some reason felt even more embarrassing than just buying them.

Also, you can’t fool me, Target cashier. I know what durian is.

The White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles can is deceivingly cute. Awww, it’s a candy cane can, with white chocolate melting out over the top, and a bunch of candy canes inside! The white chocolate also resembles the top of a Christmas stocking, or maybe snow. Or maybe it’s trying to escape, because it knows it doesn’t belong in a can of Pringles.

Even the Pringles man seems to be looking up at the candy canes with an expression that says, “Really? We’re going to do this?”

So yeah, here are these fucking White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles. They look fairly innocent. I am not fooled.

When you pop open the can, there’s a smell akin to ripping open a box with a Barbie doll inside on Christmas morning. Just vague plasticness. There’s really no peppermint or white chocolate smell at all. Is this a good sign or a bad sign?

Oddly, there were little black flecks sprinkled on most of the otherwise white dust-covered Pringles. If Pringles were chips, I’d chock that up to a little bit of burning during the frying process. But Pringles are like plyboard, and I’d never seen these flecks on any other Pringle. Why are they there? Then again, we’re talking about White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles. None of these things should be there.

I had no idea what to expect when I tasted these Pringles. There are times when I hope something will actually taste like what it says it tastes like, and then there are times when I pray that things taste nothing like what they’re supposed to taste like. In the case of White Chocolate Peppermint Pringles, I was hoping for the latter.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed.

These Pringles tasted exactly like how they’re supposed to, and my taste buds wanted to go to their special place and pretend this wasn’t happening. They tried desperately to pretend they were experiencing the best spinach artichoke dip in the world, or the most juicy, flavorful steak.

But try as they might, my taste buds could not deny what was happening. There was no happy place. Immediately upon hitting my tongue, there was the unmistakeable and rather strong flavor of white chocolate.

This was soon engulfed by a strong peppermint. But not just any peppermint – it really did taste like candy cane peppermint. In fact, it tasted like someone had shoved a candy cane right in my mouth. Unwillingly. The flavor powder got on my lips, so that even after I’d choked down the chip, it felt like I’d just applied a coating of holiday-themed lip gloss, complete with mild mint burning sensation. My poor lips, even they were not safe.

Should I give points to Pringles for nailing a flavor so unlikely for a potato crisp? No, because they’re gross. They’re gross and disturbing. Do you pop a mint right before you dive into a plate of nachos? Of course not. White chocolate and peppermint have their place in the Christmas flavor spectrum. They even go well together. But Limited Time Only Pringles White Chocolate Peppermint are so very wrong, and I’m sure they were created purely for the Internet hype machine that loves bizarre foods. If you don’t trust me, make a batch of instant potatoes and stir in a white chocolate candy bar and some crushed candy canes. Enjoy, you freak.

Limited Time Only Pringles Cinnamon & Sugar

  • Score: 2 out of 5 piles of blow. I mean snow. I mean sugar.
  • Price: $1.50
  • Size: 6.38 oz. can
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirks: Both cinnamon and sugar are listed as ingredients, which makes the flavor powder on these Pringles more “real” than the crisps themselves.

Limited Time Only Pringles White Chocolate Peppermint

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 Kris Pringles looking disgusted
  • Price: $1.52
  • Size: 6.38 oz. can
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Is it the anhydrous milk fat or the sweet cream solids that make these so magical? I can’t decide!

Dinosaur Dracula, So Good and The Impulsive Buy also braved these holiday Pringles.

Junk Food

Hershey’s Kisses Holiday: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies, Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

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Merry Christmas! Can you believe the last review I posted was Halloween? Life gets in the way sometimes. I’d started up a “Does this smell funny to you?” taster-for-hire business, but it went tits up, so I promise I won’t just be posting on holidays anymore. This doesn’t mean I’ll be posting a review on Boxing Day, but I promise you’ll see me again before Valentine’s Day.

When I think of Christmas Hershey’s Kisses, I think of your run-of-the-mill Kisses wrapped in green, red and silver foil. Apparently, I am ignorant and wrong. There are actually several special flavors of Christmas Kisses available. Well, Hershey’s calls them “Holiday” Kisses, but c’mon. They’re Christmas. Don’t fall in with the PC hype.

There are four different Holiday Kiss flavors: Milk Chocolate filled with Caramel, Milk Chocolate filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies and Dark Chocolate filled with Mint Truffle. I only bought the latter three, and I’m not sure why, because I love chocolates filled with caramel. Perhaps it’s because I’m already pretty familiar with what caramel inside of chocolate tastes like. Perhaps it’s because buying three bags of Kisses is my limit. Whatever the reason, I found the three that I bought to be the most intriguing, so this is what you get. Well, sort of. One of my bags of Kisses went a little…AWOL, you might say. More on that later.

How long have these Holiday Kisses been in circulation? I have no idea. This is the first time I had ever seen them, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been around since 1963. Well, they’re new to me, and maybe they’ll be new to you, too. Listen, just read the words and look at the pictures. Hell, you’re not even going to read the words. It’s Christmas. If you’re here at all, you’ve already eaten five pounds of ham, seven sugar cookies poorly decorated by your young relatives, and bitten the head off of at least one gingerbread man, having a not-so-secret feeling of satisfaction as you watch Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust.

I really hope you’re not actually watching that movie, unless you’re doing it in an effort to repulse your relatives and get a moment of private time for yourself. Desperate times, desperate measures. I understand. I don’t judge.

Hershey’s Kisses Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème

Growing up, cherry cordials were a staple in my house. Not just during the holidays; there always seemed to be a box in the kitchen cupboard, right next to the Entenmann’s donuts variety pack . I did not partake in the cherry cordials. As a youth, I was not a fan of chocolate, and I hated cherries and all things cherry-flavored. I blame that on having to take a horrible “cherry-flavored” medication twice a day for god knows how many years. You can see how the association would taint my opinion.

These days, I am older, and questionably wiser. At the very least, I am more open-minded about trying new things, especially things that I would throw a tantrum over as a kid. I recently learned that green beans ain’t half bad. Hey, it only took two decades to figure that out!

The foil wrapping on the Cherry Cordial Kisses doesn’t exactly scream Christmas. Bright fuchsia with curvy brown stripes that would make Yipes the Zebra jealous? It’s the candy wrapper equivalent of buying a pink plastic Christmas tree.

Encased in classic Hershey’s Kisses chocolate, a pink ooze flooded my mouth as I bit into the candy. It was very viscous, and had a strong cherry flavor. Unfortunately, the taste was rather artificial. The gooey inside was a little cloyingly sweet, but the chocolate actually worked well in taming it a bit.

I could see how some people would be turned off by the texture of the filling, but I grew up with Freshen Up gum, so I wasn’t put off by it at all. Man, I am really showing my age with these references. First Yipes, then Freshen Up. If you were born after 1986, Google them.

At first, I rather enjoyed the Cherry Cordial Kisses, but the flavor got a little overwhelming after about three pieces. I haven’t had a chance to try a real cherry cordial since I’ve broadened my food horizons, so I figured I’d let my mom try one, since she was always the big cherry cordial fanatic. She immediately spit it in the trash and said it was awful.

Well. There’s one opinion.

Hershey’s Kisses Candy Cane Flavored Candies

Come Christmastime, there’s no shortage of peppermint-flavored sweets out there. It’s kind of hard to get excited about yet another candy cane-flavored candy, when I’ve already had at least a dozen of them. Given this, I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to try out these Holiday Kisses.

I am not, however, immune to the charms of Christmasy packaging, and Candy Cane Kisses obviously have the most Navidad-oriented foil wrapping, with the little red candy canes standing out against the shiny silver background. Anybody reaching into a bowl of candy is instantly going to know what these Kisses are all about, even if they are illiterate and can’t read the classic Kiss tissue paper…unwrapper…thingie.

Does that thing have a name? Is it called a flag? I’m going to call it a flag. I’m writing this on Christmas Eve. I can’t be delving deep into the depths of Hershey’s Kisses history to find out what their iconic little piece of paper is called and probably trademarked.

Getting back to the candy itself, I found myself enjoying Candy Cane Kisses more than I thought I would. I like that Hershey’s put the effort into making these Kisses white with red stripes, thus mimicking the look of an actual candy cane as much as they could, given the shape of a Kiss compared to a candy cane.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that, when you bite into a Candy Cane Kiss, there’s little pieces of crunchy candy that add to the already strong peppermint flavor. I’d like to say those little crunchy bits are actual pieces of candy cane, but after reading the ingredients list, I couldn’t find any indication that this was the case. The main flavors of Candy Cane Kisses come from white chocolate and oil of peppermint. That said, the chocolate and the peppermint work great together, and I did love the little candy crunches, even if they weren’t authentic cane. I found myself reaching for a handful after I’d eaten my first one. Afterward, my breath was minty fresh and ready for some hot mistletoe action.

Hershey’s Kisses Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

Speaking of mint, here we have another minty Holiday Kiss. Hershey’s wants to make sure you’re 100% free of ham breath this holiday season.

The Mint Truffle Kiss foil wrapping is appropriately green, with adorable silver snowflakes all over. You may notice that there is no picture of an individually wrapped Mint Truffle Kiss here. There is a reason for this.

There are times when living with a food blogger can be trying. For instance, you get to stand around in the store while I try to find the best package that looks like it will photograph well and have the best chances of the product inside not being crushed or otherwise damaged. And then, once the product has been brought home, it’s hands-off until the photographs have been taken.

I was hanging out with my mom, who was visiting during the holiday season, during this particular purchase. She does not know the rules of food blogging. Before I had a chance to take my coat off once we’d come home, she had already ripped open the bag of Mint Truffle Kisses and was sampling the wares.

I was distressed. I informed her that the package was not to be opened until a picture had been taken. She was mortified, as if she had accidentally thrown away my sure to be award-winning piece of moldy bread that I was going to present at the Science Fair. Before I could get a word in, she already had the Scotch tape out, and was working fervently to repair the opened package with Scotch tape, positioning and re-positioning the plastic until she had repaired the bag to the point that you could barely see it had been opened. Can you spot the repairs? I have to admit, she did an admirable job.

The entire time she was doing this, I was trying to tell her that it was no big deal, and that the more she fussed with it, the more I was just going to make fun of her in this article. I don’t think she heard me. She was too busy trimming off millimeters of tape so it wouldn’t show in the picture.

For as much effort as she put into attempting to restore the bag back to mint (har) condition, she did not seem to take into consideration the fact that I had not taken a picture of the actual candy. So enamored was she with the Mint Truffle Kisses, in fact, that she either ate the whole bag or took the rest of them back to California with her while I wasn’t looking. This means I have no pictures of the foil wrapper or of the inside of the candy itself. Luckily, I did get the picture of the bag, and managed to score a few of the candies to eat for myself, so I can at least tell you how they looked and tasted.

I know you want pictures. I am sorry that I have none. Luckily, there is a candy out there that is remarkably similar to Mint Truffle Kisses: Andes Crème Menthes! You may have found these candies on your pillow upon arriving at a hotel room. You may have gotten one with your check at a restaurant once or twice. Mint Truffle Kisses taste almost exactly like these candies.

These Kisses have a dark chocolate outside, unlike the other Holiday selections. I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate, but the kind they used for these Kisses is a less cocoa-heavy dark chocolate, and I found it paired fantastically with the minty inside. If you bite a Mint Truffle Kiss in half, you’ll see a green filling, but unlike the gooey, oozing center of the Cherry Cordials, this filling is about the same consistency as the dark chocolate outside, making for a smooth chocolate mint experience.

I enjoyed each of Hershey’s Holiday Kiss offerings, to varying degrees. I liked the pairing of chocolate and cherry in the Cherry Cordial Kisses, but found the artificial cherry flavor a little too strong, and the texture of the gooey center might be off-putting to some.

I thought I would find the Candy Cane Kisses a big yawn, but the creaminess of the white chocolate paired with the crunch of the tiny (although faux) candy cane pieces resulted in a pleasant peppermint candy with a texture that sets them apart from other Kiss varieties.

Pairing a mild dark chocolate with a creamy mint filling in the Mint Truffle Kisses was a no-brainer. If you like mint chocolate chip ice cream, well, you’ve pretty much found that flavor in the form of a Hershey’s Kiss. You could serve your Christmas guests Andes Crème Menthes and get pretty much the same flavor, but you’d be missing out on the iconic Kiss shape and the adorable snowflake wrapping. There’s a reason why my mom ran off with these before I had a chance to take a picture of the candies.

Today is Christmas, so unless you’re an extreme procrastinator, you’ve probably already got all your Christmas candies set out in your Santa-shaped bowls for all to snack on as they wait for their ham or duck or tofurkey or whatever it is you slave over to serve before the wrapping paper starts flying. However, I hope you’ll keep these in mind for next year, if they’re still around, as a fun alternative to the regular ol’ gussied up Hershey’s Kisses. And try the green beans this year; you may find that you like them, after all.

Hershey’s Kisses Holiday: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies and Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

  • Score: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème: 2.5 out of 5 late 1980’s gum references
  • Score: Candy Cane Flavored Candies: 4 out of 5 candy cane Vaudeville Hooks
  • Score: Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle: 4.5 out of 5 carefully Scotch-taped bags of candy
  • Price: $2.50 each
  • Size: 10 oz. bags
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Candy Cane Kisses appear to not contain actual candy canes. The “truffle” in Mint Truffle is unexplained.
Junk Food

Limited Edition Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares Holiday Chocolate Assortment

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Aaaand we’re back. Just in time, too, since I have a holiday-sensitive item to review today.

I found this package of Limited Edition Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares Holiday Chocolate Assortment at a Borders book store while waiting for a cashier to appear so that I could pay for a birthday present. I guess they’ve got a solid business model going – make someone wait ten minutes to pay for a dying form of media, and eventually they’ll grab an impulse buy. Good job, Borders – literature may be dead, but chocolate and coffee bars will live on forever.

It helped that the package was shiny and full of holiday cheer, with red and gold and snowflakes and ornaments and promises of chocolates that taste like eggnog. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate, but Ghirardelli makes some tasty sweets.

They make some heavy promises on the back of the package: “This season, take time to slow down and feel yourself melt with each bite. Savor the complex symphony of intense velvety chocolate combined with delicious seasonal favorites – festive peppermint, creamy eggnog, and rich chocolate pecan pie. Let the rich flavors surround your senses. Enjoy as the chocolate pleasure lingers.”

I feel like I just had sex with the back of a pack of chocolates. Goddamn, son. Money well spent on whatever marketing team Ghirardelli paid to come up with that description of their chocolate. I’m sure millions have been spent on the study of how people react to words that are bolded. Apparently I need to slow down and melt while experiencing intense chocolate that surrounds my senses. That all seems kind of contradictory. Nothing left to do but see if these chocolates will make me…quietly orgasm, or something.

Eggnog

I had a minor autistic freakout when I pulled these out of the bag, because the front just said “Limited Edition Chocolate”. I thought I had been ripped off. Fortunately, it did indicate on the back that these were, indeed, Eggnog. I don’t know why this one said it on the back while the other two proclaim their flavors on the front, but whatever. Eggnog was the flavor I was most looking forward to, so I was glad that they were there.

Unfortunately, my renewed excitement quickly faded away when I actually tried the chocolate. I couldn’t find any eggnog flavor anywhere. No nutmeg, no cinnamon, no distinctive eggnog taste. The chocolate was creamy, but that’s what I’d expect from any Ghirardelli product. In fact, if it hadn’t said Eggnog on the back of the wrapper, I would have thought it was white chocolate, but even a little more muted than regular white chocolate. I would have never guessed that it was supposed to be eggnog.

Saddened that I had been robbed of the experience of tasting delicious eggnog chocolate, I moved on.

Pecan Pie

Ghirardelli actually did a pretty good job of making a chocolate that tasted like pecan pie. The pecans were plentiful and added a nice crunch. It’s sort of like a Mr. Goodbar on steroids – the chocolate is smooth and tasty, the pecans tasted delicious, and the chocolate had a very prominent taste and aroma of what seemed like a mixture of toffee, molasses, and maybe even some bourbon.  Mmmm, chocolate booze.

I have to say, the Pecan Pie square was one of the most complex chocolates I’ve ever had. The depth of flavor is really quality and everything plays together well. Nothing gets overwhelmed. The delicious milk chocolate, the pecans, the complex mixture of flavors that make up pecan pie filling, they were all perfectly married into that one chocolate square. While I was expecting to love the Eggnog and go “eh” at Pecan Pie, quite the opposite has occurred. I don’t crave chocolate often, but this would be one of my top picks to reach for if I was in the mood for chocolate. Good job, Ghirardelli.

Peppermint Bark

This is definitely the most Christmasy of the three candies. When you open the wrapper, you’re hit with that strong candy cane peppermint smell that screams presents and blinky lights and ornaments. It looks fun, too. The little pink flecks let you know that there’s really candy canes inside! My inner child hops up and down.

What I wasn’t expecting, but was a pleasant surprise, is that Peppermint Bark has a milk chocolate base. Let’s face it, it’s hard not to nail mint and chocolate. They go together like buffalo wings and ranch sauce. I think Ghirardelli steps it up with the crushed candy canes inside, though. They add a fun crunch and intensify the peppermint flavor. Peppermint Bark tastes a lot like an upgraded version of Andes Crème de Menthe chocolates – you know, the ones with the green stuff sandwiched in between two layers of chocolate. But Ghirardelli’s chocolate is of a higher quality and the peppermint is more intense and tastes more like real candy cane than just simulated mint. I realize that candy canes themselves are made out of artificial mint flavoring, but it’s…different. It’s candy cane!

Well, two out of three ain’t bad. I’m sad that I didn’t get to taste eggnog in chocolate form, but the Pecan Pie really surprised me and the Peppermint Bark was nothing but Christmas fun. I would put these out beside the homemade chocolate chip cookies and the bowl of red-and-green M&Ms. I’d just cross the “Eggnog” off the wrappers and write “Snowflake” or something instead. Then people would just think it was white chocolate and not be all disappointed like I was. Snowflakes and white chocolate don’t really have anything to do with each other, but that’s okay. It’s keeping with the Christmas theme. Limited Edition Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares Holiday Chocolate Assortment are a solid addition to your holiday festivities.

Oh, and by the way – Merry Christmas!

Limited Edition Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares Holiday Chocolate Assortment

  • Eggnog Score: 2 out of 5 disappointed elves
  • Pecan Pie Score: 4.5 out of 5 happy chocolate-loving reindeer
  • Peppermint Bark Score: 4 out of 5 minty fresh snowmen
  • Price: $8.99
  • Size: 7.03 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Borders Books and Music #0069
  • Nutritional Quirks: Contains corn flakes.  Wait, what?