Breyers Blasts! Oreo Birthday Blast

It's December 31 and this post is to celebrate this first year of Ephemeral Noms and the last day of Oreo's 100th anniversary year, 2012.

Oreo got all that it could out of its commemorative Birthday Oreo iteration that came out over a year ago.  As late as this summer there could be seen in stores a collaboration between Oreo and Breyers called Breyers Blasts! Oreo Birthday Blast ice cream.

What this stuff amounts to is an overly complicated cake batter ice cream... and it didn't need to be that way.  Even though it's easy to understand that the cake-flavored vanilla creme of the Birthday Oreo is the centerpiece of the whole snack, I feel they gave it just a bit too much presence in this ice cream.  It might even be that the presence of this Oreo creme makes the mix a bit sweeter than you may expect, but it's barely noticeable.  I wish there were a bit more cookie crumbs in the mix, and perhaps even a bit less cake-flavored creme.

This stuff is good, but I'm not sure it's preferable (or appreciably different) than an average cake batter ice cream.


Breyers Blasts! Oreo Birthday Blast: - Good
Original Breyers Natural Vanilla(for comparison): - Good

Printed Fun Pop-Tarts Frosted Sugar Cookie

Arguably a holiday flavor, Pop-Tarts has rolled out their Sugar Cookie variety for at least the 2nd year in a row.  Perhaps it's simply a wintry flavor and not specifically for the holidays?

Anyway, I'm glad it's back.

Not only are its frosted fronts printed with adorable images, but its flavor and texture rank at the top if its class.  It's yet another vaguely vanilla flavor with perhaps a bit of butter, but it has an added doughy flavor that those cake products are able to achieve.  Along with that, the filling inside is very dense and chewy such that it takes effort to pull a bite away.  It may sound strange, but it's very satisfying.

When toasted, almost everything about it improves.  The sweetness stays the same, the texture softens, while all the flavors intensify, especially the butter.  It's almost like eating a sugar cookie straight out of the oven, and that's not hyperbole.  Incredible.


Printed Fun Pop-Tarts Sugar Cookie: - Outstanding

Original Pop-Tarts (Strawberry, for comparison): - Good

M&M's White Chocolate Peppermint

M&Ms has issued another seasonal flavor, again with white chocolate as a vehicle, and again in slightly larger sized candies.

This one is much simpler than the last.  The peppermint is so strong on these that you can smell the spicy scent through the candy shell as you pour them out of the bag.  After the crunch, a peppery and dry stab of peppermint fills your mouth.  The flavor is so strong that it mostly overpowers the subtle notes of the white chocolate and almost overpowers its sweetness, even.  This doesn't have what I would call balance, but true fans of peppermint won't care.

I'm inclined to give this product only 1 NOM, but given my general distaste of peppermint in anything but gum, I'll bump this up barely into the 2-NOM range to give the general public's taste a benefit of the doubt.


M&M's White Chocolate Peppermint:- Good
Original M&M's (for comparison): - Good

Chex Mix Muddy Buddies Peppermint Bark

Chex Mix has rolled out a holiday flavor: Muddy Buddies Peppermint Bark.  If you haven't looked at the Chex Mix products in your local stores recently, you should do so; you'd be surprised at how many different flavors they offer... from sweet to salty to sweet & salty.  The Muddy Buddies line usually involves chocolate, but this one does not (thankfully, more on that later).  Perhaps this has white chocolate in it?

It's hard to tell.  The traditional Chex cereal base is covered in the traditional confectioner's sugar, but what's making it stick to the cereal is a mystery.  It could be white chocolate, or it could be simply a fatty mix containing hydrogenated vegetable oil.  Either way, each bite has the expected crunch which very well combines with the fatty coating.

Along with sweetness of everything described above is a moderate dusting of peppermint flavor.  Its bitterness and dryness is completely balanced with sweet.  And... it's gloriously absent of chocolate.  I feel that chocolate-mint combos are a bit too prevalent in today's processed sweets, and so this stuff is quite refreshing (no pun intended).

As someone who's really not a fan of peppermint, I find myself keep reaching for these until the bag is empty.  If it weren't for my (admitted) distaste for peppermint, this would be rated 3 NOMs.


Chex Mix Muddy Buddies Peppermint Bark: - Good

Pop-Tarts 2012 Team USA

The sixth of several summer-related posts in a row!

Pop-Tarts issued a flavor celebrating the participation of the United States Olympic team in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England during August.

This product has a few humorous and notable things going on with it:

1) The name of the flavor is "2012 Team USA".  That's it.  Despite it claiming in smaller writing below the title that it is a "mixed berry" pastry, it's technically 2012 Team USA-flavored.
2) The foil wrappers inside the box are gold, not silver(like usual), because of course, the USA accepts nothing less than gold for the Olympics.
3) The pastries themselves are the most obnoxious I've ever seen.  The pastry dough is colored with deep red, with a white frosting and red and blue rock candy sprinkles.

As for the taste, it's barely discernible from the standard Strawberry Pop-Tarts.  If anything, the flavor is more muddled and less characteristic.


 Pop-Tarts 2012 Team USA:- Good
Original Pop-Tarts(Strawberry, for comparison):- Good

acquired: Giant

The Amazing Spider-Man Limited Edition Spidey Berry

The fifth of several summer-related posts in a row!

Another standalone limited time cereal, this product also celebrates the Amazing Spider-Man film from this summer.

This "berry" cereal is actually just flavored with strawberry, and it wafts to your nose from the moment you open the bag.  Speckled with "lizard villain" marshmallows, these strawberry "webs" are almost of the same construction as what you'd find in Honeycomb cereal.

But quite frankly, familiar expectations should end there.  Why?  Because while the flavor of the cereal easily resembles that of strawberry milk, the sweetness of the "webs" are dialed down almost to zero, with only the marshmallows providing each bite's sugar.  I applaud the company for avoiding the unnecessary calories(think of the children!) and avoiding the saccharine pit into which these cereals too often fall, but unfortunately I think that the stuff just needs to be a bit more sweet.

The restraint of this cereal's sweetness is a novelty that makes it interesting and bumps it just barely into the 2-NOM range, but it'd be better with more sugar.


The Amazing Spider-Man Limited Edition Spidey Berry: - Good