Marshmallow Crispy Oreo

 

Product circa: Intermittently from 2014 to 2019

Golden Oreo cookies with a creme that tastes like the marshmallows you get in cereal, plus the addition of tiny Rice Krispies in said creme.

I ate opened this package four years after I bought them in 2019 and... they were fine.  But I can’t help look through my nostalgia glasses back to 2014, when I first tried these fresh.  They were incredible.  The cereal-marshmallow flavor went so well with the cookies, it was like a revelation.  The only way I’ll be able to know I’m not crazy is if Oreo every decides to revive this variety.

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
 

Fruity Pebbles Treats

Note: I try only to remark upon limited time and/or rare products on this blog, not simply new products.  Unless otherwise confirmed via research, any product presented on this site is presumed to be limited time and/or rare by my own personal opinion.  This product is an example.

I was one of myriad children who was taught to make Rice Krispies Treats by a parent or relative.  They're delicious of course, and simple enough to warrant beginning to teach a child their way around the kitchen.  If you were like me, then there was a point when you underwent an invigorating realization that the Rice Krispies in the recipe were easily interchangeable with any other cereal, and your imagination began to run wild.  As an imaginative exercise, perhaps you sought to realize which cereal would be the wildest to make Treats with.  If you had, then you probably would have settled on Fruity Pebbles Treats.

In my opinion, Fruity Pebbles is one of the gems in the cereal aisle.  It's been around forever, the box features your favorite Flintstones characters, and the cereal offers a texture and flavor that no other brand attempts to match.  My jaw dropped when I found these in the store, but alas, I ended up disappointed.

Honestly, the packaging on these is great; the wrappers are bright red, and they feature a photograph of the snack, which is quite colorful.  Sadly, the snack itself fails to impress.  The clustered cereal doesn't offer the bright and fruity burst of flavor that the original cereal does; a dull version of the original is offered instead.  The texture of the snack is strange... it has an almost elastic quality where it will compress when you squeeze or bite into it, but it will reform to its original shape quickly afterward.  I realize that marshmallow is spongy and sometimes elastic, but it's a very unsettling texture that doesn't show itself in home-made Rice Krispies Treats, or even the packaged ones.  Lastly, there's a salty taste in the snack that leaves you with a salty aftertaste.

Ultimately, Fruity Pebbles Treats offer over-processed artificial flavor and texture.  You're much better off making them from scratch.

Fruity Pebbles Treats: 0 NOMS (Unpleasant)

Original Rice Krispies Treats(for comparison): (Great)

Acquired: supermarket

Printed Fun Pop-Tarts Gingerbread

 Another holiday limited edition and in one of my favorite flavors, and you could color me excited.

On top of that, the front of these Pop-Tarts have fun prints on them, which also belies that the fronts are plain instead of covered with frosting, which I often find is a bit overkill with most Pop Tarts. I've always been the kind of guy that enjoys the pie crust or cake more than the pie filling or frosting, so a plain Pop Tart is okay with me.

Unfortunately, these Pop-Tarts still fall into the trap of overbearing sweetness. Whereas most Pop-Tarts fillings are a fruity, syrupy jam (or otherwise a grainy paste in the case of spicy/earthy/chocolatey flavors), this version's filling is straight up marshmallow. With each bite, the filling oozes and stretches into strings, like a good fried mozzarella stick. Marshmallow with gingerbread? Why?

While the filling may not have hit the mark, the pastry dough is a much better creation. It parts ways in style from most, if not all Pop-Tarts doughs I've had. Whether or not it's able to claim the appropriate health accolades, this version's dough takes a wheat/whole grain approach. Its texture is much more tender than you'd expect. Its flavor is lightly of gingerbread, and it has that earthy and wheaty flavor that you'd expect from whole wheat bread or whole wheat pasta. It's also a bit more salty than I expected. The pastry dough for this product is legitimately interesting.

Overall, while the dough is different and good and the filling is basically marshmallow creme, I feel they're very much mismatched. This stuff is only worth a buy if you adore marshmallow, or if you're buying just for the novelty of it.

EDIT: I just realized that while I best enjoy Pop-Tarts at room temperature, the product deserves to also be tried heated/toasted, since that is the recommended serving suggestion.  Wow, these things are surprisingly different and better when heated.  The gingerbread flavor of the dough is more pronounced, and finally the inner marshmallow has reached a soft and not a spongy consistency.  Somehow, when heated, the marshmallow filling actually works with the pastry!  I will be bumping up the final NOM rating by 1, and I will be sure to try every Pop-Tarts product heated and also at room temperature from now on!

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

Acquired: supermarket