I guess every batch of Do Us A Flavour candidates has to have the water cooler flavour — the weird one that’ll get people talking. Last year’s batch of Canadian flavours had Maple Moose, and sticking with the sweet theme, this year there’s Cinnamon Bun.
Everyone who I’ve spoken to has recoiled in horror at the thought of cinnamon bun chips, but I’m just going to come out and admit it: it’s actually pretty close to my dream chip flavour. Now, before you write me off as a complete sociopath (who dreams of cinnamon bun chips??), hear me out. My dream chip flavour? Cinnamon Sugar Doritos.
Keep in mind that this wouldn’t be a salty/sweet combination; this would be a full-out dessert chip. Think about it. It would be like a churro in chip form! How is this not a thing yet??
Doritos executives: please feel free to steal this idea.
Alas, since Churro Doritos are not yet a thing (and may never be), Cinnamon Bun Lay’s is probably the closest that we’ll get.
I’ll say two things about these chips right off the bat:
1) They’re not gross. They’re edible.
2) That’s probably the nicest thing I have to say about this particular flavour. These are clearly not going to satisfy my dream Doritos cravings.
I had hoped that they were going to be a full-out dessert experience, but it really isn’t. It’s way too subtle. That’s not necessarily a problem, but the flavours never really come together in any meaningful way.
If you were eating a bag of plain Lay’s and one fell on a Cinnabon and then you ate it, it would probably taste something like these chips.
It’s weird. They’re slightly buttery, with a somewhat pronounced sweet cinnamony flavour — they actually do a pretty decent job of capturing the flavour of a cinnamon bun. But then there’s the plain Lay’s flavour, which is equally pronounced. Both flavours announce to your tastebuds “Yep, here I am!” but neither has any particular interest in cooperating with the other. They’re both just there; two random tastes that have seemingly been crammed together on a whim.
I wish they had just gone all out with the cinnamon bun flavour and let the chip be more of a vehicle for crunch than anything else, because as it is now it’s pretty muddled. It’s neither here nor there, and it’s slightly off-putting.
I was able to tolerate them, but I had a few other people try them and no one could make it past a chip or two, so I may just have a higher than average tolerance for sweet cinnamony chips. But clearly, these aren’t the chips I’ve been dreaming of.
Way to kill my dreams, Lay’s. Way to kill my dreams.
(Nutrition Facts – 50 grams/per 27 chips – 270 calories, 17 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 90 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fibre, 2 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.)
Item: Lay’s Cinnamon Bun Potato Chips (Canada)
Purchased Price: $3.50 CAN
Size: 180 gram bag
Purchased at: Hasty Market
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Reasonable facsimile of the flavour of a cinnamon bun.
Cons: Cinnamon bun and potato chip flavours are just as incongruous as you’d think. Too subtle. Killer of dreams.