Taco Bell’s new Strawberry Cinnabon Delights are simply a mild variation on the Cinnabon Delights we’ve been eating at the chain for years now. But that’s the appeal of the revamped product — it takes what we already love and changes it up just enoughto make it feel different but not too different. It’s a safe bet for a limited time only fast food snack … maybe too safe.
Weirdly enough, the new product comes in two comically disparate sizes. You can get a 2-pack for about $3 or you can splurge for the 12-pack version that’ll run you well over $8 once applicable state and local taxes are factored in. You’d think there’d be a middle ground, medium-sized product on the table, but like “fetch” in Mean Girls, six-packs of Strawberry Cinnabon Delights just aren’t happening.
I opted for the 12-pack because hey, you have to eat something while watching blender infomercials at two in the morning. The first thing you’ll notice is the smell. The bag emits a very strong scent of strawberry (of the artificial persuasion), and you also get a nice, greasy, fried dough smell that automatically tricks you into thinking your kitchen is a top-secret Dunkin’ location. You get a whiff of these things, and you will be entranced.
If you’ve ever had a Munchkin from Dunkin’ before, it’s more or less the same thing here — except the Delights are jam-packed full of cream cheese frosting. And as the name implies, the exterior dough ball is speckled with a nice dusting of strawberry-flavored sugar. It can be a little faint in low-light situations, but you can definitely see red speckles all over these things.
Taste-wise, the Delights are pretty much exactly what you’d expect. That’s the best thing about the product — and its biggest weakness at the same time. I guess the question is how much of a cream cheese-to-strawberry-flavoring-to-fried-dough ratio you prefer. I’d argue that it’s probably something like 45 percent cream cheese, 45 percent fried dough and 10 percent strawberry. As powerful as the strawberry scent may be, the overall product doesn’t taste that much like the fruit it’s imitating. Granted, it’s more flavorful than a generic grocery store brand strawberry doughnut hole, but the gap isn’t as wide as you might anticipate.
The good news about these Delights is that they’re perfect for instant gratification snacking. Alas, it’s such a mild recalculation of the standard Cinnabon Delight formula that it kind of feels like an unnecessary field trip. If you already love the product, you’re more than likely going to love these, but if you’re not a fan, I doubt these strawberry variants will win you over.
The price point is the real backbreaker here. For two Delights you can literally destroy in ten seconds, it’s a bit expensive, especially considering it almost costs as much as some full-sized cereals. With this particular product, Taco Bell is obviously pitching to people who already enjoy the regular Delights. It’ll likely please them, but newcomers might be a little disappointed in how non-special this special edition dessert tastes.
Purchased Price: $7.39
Size: 12-pack
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (One piece) 80 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 35 milligrams of sodium, 7 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar (includes 4 grams of added sugar), and less than 1 gram of protein.