Dump post: Oreos, Pop-Tarts, Lays, and Mountain Dew Baja Gold

 Just a post dumping old pics that I never posted.  I don't have individualized reviews of these, but I remember especially that the Oreos below were very good overall.

Goldfish Peppermint Cocoa

 

Product circa: holiday season 2025

I'm not a chocolate peppermint, but these are great.  Why?  Because of the restraint with the peppermint.  These seem to be plain chocolate cookies, with a peppermint "seasoning" on them.  That's it.  And the deft touch from the food scientists ends up being very pleasant, in a way that has you keep reaching for more.

Neapolitan Oreo

Product circa: 2022

Really glad they decided to put all 3 flavors into each cookie sandwich.  That’s definitely in the spirit of the “big reaches” that Oreo usually pulls off.

This is delicious.  There’s something about all 3 cremes together that really result in something complex.  Add to that the slightly-cinnamon and tons-of-vanilla cookies, and in the end, this is a really special product.  This is one that they should make permanent.  And surprisingly, I'm not too bothered by the overload of creme, here.

3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa with Marshmallow (ULTRA THROWBACK)

 

Product circa: 2013 and 2015 

Cute little fun-size-only candy bars that popped up a few times in the 2010s.

As perhaps could be expected, the only difference here is that the nougat has slightly more chocolate flavor than usual.  I was hoping that these would nail the “cereal marshmallow” flavor that some snacks have been able to do, but they do not.  With that said, they’re just as delicious as the original.

Chocolate Strawberry Oreo

Product circa: 2017

Chocolate cookie, chocolate cream, blob of strawberry creme in the middle.  Not bad, but the chocolate overpowers the strawberry.  With that said, the chocolate part tastes no worse than it always does.

Kit Kat Duos - Strawberry + Dark Chocolate

Product circa: 2022

I suppose that strawberry and chocolate aren't a strange combination, but they are when the strawberry is the same artificial flavoring used for hard candy and soft drinks.  They tried to dial back on too much strawberry, but it ends up being unremarkable.

Brownie Batter Oreo

 

Product circa: 2015

Simple: a chocolate cookie, with chocolate creme.  But the creme is somehow different than the regular Chocolate Creme Oreos that you can find; it’s darker, more sumptuous/unctuous??  It might even have some flour or flour-like flavor mixed in, like some cake batter products do.  Really good overall.

 

Choco Chip Oreo

 

Product circa: 2016

Golden Oreo cookies with vanilla creme, both of which have chocolate specks in them.  The creme seems to have a bit of brown sugar added to it and, IMO, I think the cookies might have a bit of that as well.

Overall, really delicious.  Despite being an overall “vanilla” treat, the specks still make it taste notably of chocolate, and the brown sugar tint to it all really adds a hearty nuance.  These might be slightly better than the original Oreo, whether we’re talking about the original or Golden.

M&M's Mega

 

Product Circa: Intermittent

Giant M&M's candies whose form factor is flatter than your average M&M's... probably because they would be too firm to bite through, otherwise.  Their taste and texture are otherwise very reminiscent of the original, surprisingly.  But are they more fun to eat than the original?  Very.

Reese's Chocolate Lava Big Cup

 

Product circa: autumn 2024

This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

Seemingly just a Big Cup with a layer of chocolate sauce/syrup thrown in.  It sounds dumb, but my stupid monkey brain really likes the decadence of it.  I'm not sure it actually tastes especially unique, except for perhaps that this slightly shifts the sweet/salty balance in the normal product a bit toward the former... but the texture and thought of chocolate sauce in my candy makes my mind's pleasure centers go brrrrrrr.

Milky Way Fudge

 

Product circa: 2022

A variation like this feels a little lazy.  It's a Milky Way bar with the nougat changed to chocolate nougat.  It's not bad.  It's reminiscent of a Milky Way Dark bar, but it's not as good, because almost nothing is as good as a Milky Way Dark bar.

Pop-Tarts Pretzel Chocolate

 

Kind of an odd choice.  Pop-Tarts changed the appearance of the pastry to look more like baked pretzel dough, added salt to it, and otherwise changed nothing else about the product.  It's mediocre at best.

Pop-Tarts Splitz

Product circa: autumn 2018

Surely Pop-Tarts has better ideas than simply mashing products together, right?  Maybe not.

These pastries are bifurcated into two different flavors on each half of the pastry.  Each side is also frosted differently.

The sugar cookie side: Not bad.  It has a doughy, buttery, cake batter vibe.  It tastes like the (obnoxiously named) Printed Fun Pop-Tarts Frosted Sugar Cookie, but not as good.

The brownie batter side: Good, but it doesn't have the "batter" taste, like the other side does (even though the other side really shouldn't).  It's a tasty chocolate Pop-Tart, but it's forgettable.

Each side eaten together: nothing special, certainly not greater than the sum of the parts.

Before we close, I need to share the absolutely hilarious comic panel from the back of this product's box:

Pop-Tarts Splitz:- Good
Original Pop-Tarts S'mores(for comparison):- Great 

Milk Chocolate Graham Pop-Tarts

This is the 2nd product that Pop-Tarts issued to celebrate their 50th anniversary.  The first one was a bust.  What about this one?

This one is better.  I'm a sucker for un-frosted Pop-Tarts, mainly for the fact that the texture of the flaky crust is much more noticeable and pleasant.  Similar to the old Gingerbread Pop-Tarts, the crust here is reminiscent of a whole-grain baked good, with bits of wheat/oats/whatever even visible in the crust when you look closely.  The result is more tender than usual with a nice earthy graham cracker flavor.

The chocolate filling is pleasant in its restraint.  They dialed back the sweetness here to give a mild flavor that nicely compliments the delicate crust.  This is one of those products that is more sophisticated than it is bold, and I love it when that happens.

By the way, all the thoughts I've written above refer to how the pastry tastes when it's heated or toasted.  Oddly, when eaten cold, the texture is unremarkable and the flavor is almost nonexistent.


Milk Chocolate Graham Pop-Tarts:- Great
Original Pop-Tarts S'mores(for comparison):- Great

Pop-Tarts Chocolate Vanilla Creme

Pop-Tarts were introduced in 1964, making 2014 the brand's 50th Anniversary.  They've introduced two limited time flavors for this occasion.

I'll start the first "Birthday Edition" Pop-Tarts review by saying that ephemeral Pop-Tarts are usually pretty remarkable, if not notable, at least.  These buck that trend.  What's worse, this flavor is supposedly a flashback to a successful past variety of Pop-Tarts.  Why they brought these back, I don't know.

The company forgot to put any flavor along with the sugar in this product.  The chocolate pastry is only vaguely reminiscent of chocolate, with plenty of their full-time products hitting a higher mark in this category.  The creme is supposedly vanilla creme, but it doesn't taste like it.  Its sweetness is on par, of course, and if I try hard, I can detect the slightest notes of powdered milk or powdered cream.  That's it.  No vanilla.

Oddly, this product doesn't improve when toasted and warm, like most Pop-Tarts do.  I just don't get what they were trying to do here.


Pop-Tarts Chocolate Vanilla Creme:- Passable
Original Pop-Tarts S'mores(for comparison):- Great

Fudge Covered Ritz

Our final late-summer post about a product from last winter.  Ritz decided to cover their crackers with fudge.  Not a bad idea, right?

Ritz is mostly regarded as a savory product, but because it's really only butter and flour, it can definitely act as a sweet one as well, and that's the tack that Nabisco is trying to take here.  I went in with high hopes, but I ended up disappointed.  The entire draw of Ritz, it's buttery and toasted flavor, are undetectable when paired with the mouthful of chocolate that accompanies it.  In turn, its crunch is more or less dampened by the rubbery snap of the coating as well, which itself is nice, but the two textures don't pair extremely well.  In fact, the texture very much reminds me of LU Petit Écolier cookies, but not quite as good.

For a more interesting take on the potential of sweet Ritz crackers, I would guide you to the Honey Wheat variety, which is sold year round.


Fudge Covered Ritz:- Good
Original Ritz(for comparison):- Great

Eggo Seasons S'mores

This appears to be the summer variety of Eggo's Seasons line, which offers seasonal variations of their normal products.  I welcome this marketing strategy.

To me, making something in a s'mores flavor is almost like cheating, since I've found that most of these iterations tend to be quite tasty.

But how do you make a frozen waffle taste like s'mores?  It looks like Eggo struggled with this question just like I did.  Instead of flavoring the entire waffle, they inserted small bits of marshmallow and chocolate into the batter so that the final product is speckled with little sweet bits.  The waffle itself seems to be of their whole wheat variety, which I suppose is to imitate the graham cracker in this equation.

In the end, it ends up tasting not much different than the original.  The occasional bite will have a sweet and chewy tooth to it, and it overall tastes slightly of chocolate.  It's good, but not different enough to be notable.


Eggo Seasons S'mores:- Good
Original Eggo(for comparison):- Good

Pop-Tarts Frosted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate

Pop-Tarts didn't skimp on rolling out winter flavors this past year.

I was particularly excited to pick up these, which seem like they'd be really good, right?

I think I see what they tried to do here, but the execution didn't result ideally.  Hot chocolate tends to stay fairly mild in terms of cocoa flavor, right?  Well, such a light hand with the cocoa in these pastries ended up having its dominance challenged by the marshmallow, which Pop-Tarts has been known to use liberally.  The balance is off.  What's worse, the resulting character of these reek of a artificial candy-like flavor, akin to Pop-Tarts Yum-Azing Vanilla. I feel like they could have done better, but I'm not sure how.  Perhaps an item like Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows isn't well able to be reduced to a breakfast pastry.


Pop-Tarts Frosted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate:- Passable
Original Pop-Tarts S'mores(for comparison):- Great
 

Pop-Tarts Spookylicious

The 2012 backlog continues!  We're throwing in a Halloween edition which I didn't pick up until after October.

Once again, these Pop-Tarts are a bit obnoxious with the amount of frosting and sprinkles, and while these additions add little to the experience, they are adorable and aren't really detrimental to the product.

The bite is soft and fudgey.  The chocolate filling is less sweet and more of a dark chocolate variety than most other chocolatey Pop-Tarts.  It's pleasant, but unremarkable.  The restrained sweetness is a nice surprise, but the filling needs just a bit more flavor.

When toasted, the gooey fudge increases viscosity and tastes a bit more like dark chocolate, devoid of a sweetness which I think it needs more of.

These pale in comparison to Pop-Tarts S'mores, which is a shining example of the order of what this snack could have been.


Pop-Tarts Spookylicious:- Good
Original Pop-Tarts S'mores(for comparison):- Great

NOMinally Ephemeral: Cadbury Screme Egg & Mike and Ike Mummy's Mix

Let's close out Halloween 2012 with two noms that are only ephemeral in name, no reviews required.

Cadbury has rolled out their Screme Egg, which is simply a Creme Egg with green filling.

Then we have Mike and Ike Mummy's Mix.  While this blend is a unique mix of flavors, the flavors themselves aren't unique.  At least, I think they aren't.  A rudimentary search on my part can not find which other blend contains the grape flavor, but I'm fairly sure it's out there.