REVIEW: Peeps Filled Delights Vanilla Caramel Brownie

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In my experience, Peeps are a polarizing force in society. You either love them passionately or think they’re the most disgusting non-food ever created. Thankfully, I made it out of childhood with my sense of whimsy intact and fall squarely in the former camp. Every year, I buy two packages of yellow chicks shortly after Valentine’s Day, and three more from the clearance bins the day after Easter.

I’ve fallen in love with every novelty flavor and dipped version of Peeps that have hit shelves in recent years. Now Peeps with a filling? And there’s a caramel version? I am overcome with the vapors – fetch me my fainting couch!

This year’s novelty Peeps have been rebranded as “Delights.” Fitting. But because I was throwing flavors in my shopping cart in a sort of Peep-sterical fit, I didn’t at first notice the word “filled” above the Vanilla Caramel Brownie. More attention should be called to the fact that these are different than the dipped Peeps.

The aroma inside the bag was all glorious fudge brownie. A closer sniff of the Peeps themselves was equally brownie and vanilla marshmallow. They looked like the now-standard dipped Peep – sparkling sugar-studded chick, thin shell of chocolate on the bottom, and a smattering of errant crystals clinging to the chocolate. They felt so precious in their individual cubicles – these Peeps fly business class.

I expected the caramel filling to be a big central blob, like a jelly doughnut. Instead, it was laced throughout like a ribbon, hitting all the major geographical areas of the peep – including the furthest point of the tail. And yeah, I made the others watch while I split this guy up.

I popped a cross-section in my mouth to get the full flavor. The caramel was beautifully thick and stayed just on the right side of the line between real and fake-tasting. The vanilla marshmallow was the typical Peeps sweetness, and the chocolate was like a shot of rich hot chocolate.

Of course, I had to give them the head-first treatment. It’s the only real way to eat a Peep, amiright? In this case, the filling added a nice little squish, which tickled the 7-year-old in me.

These were my favorite (excluding the originals). I want more. If you love Peeps, definitely try them. If you’re a Peeps hater, these just might win you over.

(Nutrition Facts – 3 chicks – 180 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein..)

Purchased Price: $2.49
Size: 1.75 oz 3-pack
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pros: Brownie-caramel-marshmallow-y goodness. Peeps finally have innards!
Cons: Easy to overlook the fact that they’re filled based on the packaging.

REVIEW: KFC Georgia Gold Chicken

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Recently, I’ve been referring to KFC as Kan’t Figure (out the) Colonel because of its revolving door of portrayals that started off as confusing and is now weirdly entertaining. The latest Colonel Sanders made his debut along with the chicken chain’s new Georgia Gold Honey Mustard BBQ Chicken.

Let me preface by saying I’m a connoisseur of anything honey mustard-flavored. Amongst the fast food landscape there is the full gamut of choices, from Chick-fil-A’s non-creamy offering to Papa John’s liquid euphoria that I would very much like to bathe in.

That’s the thing about honey mustard and its flavor profile, it’s all over the place. As Forrest Gump’s mom would say, “Honey mustard is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Is it cream based? What’s the honey-to-mustard ratio? How seedy is it? Let’s see where Georgia Gold lies.

(Side note – KFC, how bout Tom Hanks as the next colonel? I BET HE WOULD CRUSH IT.)

The chicken tenders I got came in an order of three in their own little container with some pickles for good measure. While I do love a good pickle, I’m not a huge fan when they are hot as they lose some of their gratifying crunch. They were marginal at best. I ate them first just so I could move quickly on to the stars of the dish, the tenders themselves, which were fantastic.

The meat inside was juicy, like insanely juicy, which I definitely was not expecting. The breading was, as I like to call it, Goldilocks-style. Not too crunchy or too mushy, it was juuuuuussssssst right.

With the perfect meat and breading I was excited for some intense flavor. However, it never materialized. It was hard to distinguish any flavor at all actually. As I looked to the bottom of the container, I saw what had happened. It had all pooled to the bottom grooves of the container so I decided to scoop up the concoction with my spork.

Once in my mouth, I got all the flavors I was hoping for. Hints of mustard and honey, a slight BBQ essence, even a little bit of heat towards the end, and all surprisingly well balanced. All notes could have been a bit stronger and I wish it was more of a smooth sauce rather than being slightly clumpy and oily, but regardless it was tasty!

I remedied the rest of my meal by adding the mixture right on top of the remaining tenders. After I was finished, forget my fingers, I wanted to lick those grooves. Yum, this was CONTAINER LICKIN’ GOOD!

(Nutrition Facts – 3 Tenders – 410 calories, 22 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 940 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 29 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.49
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Goldilocks-style breading. Insanely juicy white meat chicken. Tom Hanks as the new Colonel. A bathtub full of your favorite condiment.
Cons: Trying out a new honey mustard = taste bud Russian roulette. Georgia Gold sauce fleeing the tenders for the safety of the container grooves.

REVIEW: Coca-Cola Plus Ginger (Japan)

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For most of my life I’ve thought of ginger as more of a medicine than an ingredient.

When I felt nauseous playing DOOM, I sucked on ginger candy. When I felt something funny in my tummy while watching someone play DOOM, I drank ginger ale. And when it felt like the room was spinning around every time I closed my eyes after playing DOOM, I hung out next to the toilet.

While ginger ale is quite possibly the most popular beverage with ginger, more drinks are being offered with it, like ginger beers, ginger kombucha, and, last year, Pepsi put some into their wonderful 1893 Ginger Cola.

Because of my love for Pepsi’s craft ginger cola, the first thing I sought out during my Japan trip was the new Coca-Cola Plus Ginger.

While Pepsi Japan comes out annually with limited edition soda flavors you’ve never seen in a PETE plastic soda bottle, Coca-Cola Japan keeps it simple by just adding a bit of flavor to the standard Coke and does it at an Olympics-like frequency. About three years ago, Coca-Cola Japan sold a delicious orange-flavored Coke.

It’s funny that the Pepsi Japan flavors are like ideas from a cocaine binge (cucumber, baobab, cherry blossom), while the cola that once had actual cocaine in it ends up being tame.

Much like the amount of orange flavoring in the last limited edition Japanese Coke I had, this soda had the right amount of ginger flavor. You can’t miss it, but it doesn’t overwhelm the cola. To be honest, it tastes right at home with the cola spices. Also, it didn’t burn, like it does with ginger beer. Coca-Cola Plus Ginger is such a great tasting soda that I bought two more bottles at the end of my trip.

If you enjoyed Pepsi’s ginger cola, you’ll like this, if you get your hands on it. It’s only available in Japan for a limited time (it was available in Australia in 2016) or from an online Japanese snack seller. If you think you’ll be able to replicate it by mixing Coca-Cola with Seagram’s Ginger Ale, you won’t because I tried using various ratios and none of them tasted anything close.

I really hope Coca-Cola Plus Ginger ends up in the United States, or at least be an option on a Coke Freestyle machine.

(Nutrition Facts – 100 ml – 44 kcal, 0 grams of fat, 11 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sodium, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: 130 Japanese Yen
Size: 500 ml
Purchased at: Lawson Station
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: If you’re a fan of Pepsi’s 1893 Ginger Cola, you’ll like this. Right amount of ginger flavor. Ginger complements the cola spices. Doesn’t have ginger burn.
Cons: Not available in the U.S., but might be available through online Japanese snack sellers. The nauseous feeling I got when playing DOOM.

REVIEW: Hostess CupCakes Ice Cream

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There are few better values in the snack world than Hostess CupCakes. One buck gets you two spongy delights topped with a sheet of chocolate plastic and that oh so beautiful white curl of icing. Name a more recognizable cupcake in the world. I’ll wait.

You’re stumped. I know you’re stumped, because as far as store bought cupcakes go, Hostess has by far the most iconic. I’ve been eating those bad boys since I was crawling.

These days, I’m a huge fan of the orange variety, but I’ll never say a bad word about the classic chocolate version. Especially now that Hostess has decided to release them in ice cream form.

The ice cream flavor is described as “chocolate cake,” but it’s really just a fancier way of saying “chocolate.” This is chocolate ice cream through and through. You’d never think “cake” if you just ate it by itself. That being said, it’s creamy and stacks up fine to other chocolate ice creams I’ve had.

The ice cream is lined with white frosting swirls and chunks of cupcake, and this is where the overall product shined. But also really let me down.

The cake pieces were fine, when I actually found them. I’d say I got a nice chunk of cake one out of every three spoonfuls, but that’s just not enough.

They also tasted more like brownie bites than cake. I could imagine some people will be bummed about that, but I actually loved it. A hard chewy bite of frozen brownie is a texture all its own and they’re something I personally like to top my ice cream with. Still, I’m sure a lot of people are gonna be disappointed they aren’t more “cakey.”

The frosting swirls were also way too sporadic – probably even more so than the cake pieces. Normally I’d chalk this up to a small sample size, but I’ve eaten half the carton so far and the problem has persisted with each bowl.

It’s a shame because the three parts of this ice cream really did taste authentic to its namesake. When I actually got a chunk of cake and a ribbon of frosting on my spoon, I was essentially eating a frozen Hostess CupCake.

I know the cupcakes they’re mimicking here are chocolate, but I almost wish they reversed it and made the base ice cream a frosting-like flavor with chocolate swirls and chunks of cake. They could have at least used a chocolate ice cream mixed with a frosting ice cream to really pound the flavors home. The Twinkies Ice Cream uses a cream based ice cream, why couldn’t this?

So I guess what I’m getting at is that Hostess CupCake Ice Cream is really good if you wanna work for it. You could poke around the container in order to get cake and frosting in each spoonful, but you shouldn’t HAVE to do that. Call me lazy if you’d like, but they skimped on the best stuff and that was a big mistake.

If you like chocolate ice cream with a few brownie bites, that’s pretty much what you’re getting here. I guess the added bonus of tasting a Hostess CupCake every few scoops is nice, but not when the ice cream itself is named after said cupcakes.

In the end, it’s still not bad, but kind of a tease. I found myself thinking I’d rather spend four bucks on eight CupCakes than the ice cream. Actually, if you pick this up, grab some of the CupCakes too and just have them a la mode.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup (65g) – 180 calories, 70 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 4 grams sat fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 55 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 20 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $4.09
Size: 1.5 qts
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: When all three flavors mix it tastes just like a Hostess CupCake. Hostess branching out into the ice cream world. Brownie Bites as a topping. Orange Hostess CupCakes. The iconic icing curl.
Cons: Needs more icing ribbons and cake pieces. Chocolate cake ice cream tastes like normal chocolate ice cream. Wish they used an icing-flavored ice cream. Having to work for your flavors.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Peeps Oreo Cookies

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Goodbye red velvet and strange emoticon hearts!

Hello hoppy bunnies and pastel pallets!

As if there weren’t more Peeps flavors popping up than a rabbit’s litter in heat, this year Nabisco is gifting us the collaboration I’m not sure anyone anticipated or wanted – Limited Edition Peeps Oreo. This spring offering combines the Golden Oreo cookie with a fluorescent pink marshmallow Peeps flavored creme that unfortunately has no head you can rip off to begin your snacking.

The package exudes a very “Golden” aroma, with a strong vanilla, buttercream kind of sweetness that reminds me of a super intensified Nilla Wafer. It smells more like a cookie than a marshmallow, with no notable Peep perfume mingling in the wash of creaminess. They’re also very visually appealing – the spring colors and golden yellow glow simply look tasty.

The cookie is essentially a very sweet Golden Oreo, not too different from the Candy Corn flavor, which for me always tasted like a white frosted cupcake. What sets this one apart is a gritty sugar crystal crunch in the pink Peep creme that emulates the sparkly outside of the iconic marshmallow chick. This is the element I was most hoping Nabisco would incorporate into this mash up and they nailed it. It isn’t too intensely tough, but the creme adds a nice, smaller crunch to the bite of the big crumbly cookie.

The problem is that the Peeps Oreo doesn’t really remind me at all of a Peep. What they share in common is that they are a big blast of sugar; but the cookie is completely devoid of any of the marshmallow nuances that contribute to Peeps’ notoriously fluffy flavor. After eating two or three in a row, a strange artificial tang developed on my tongue and left a little bit of a filmy feeling in my mouth, but surprisingly it still wasn’t as unpleasant as some other weird food dyed flavors I’ve encountered over the years.

If you’re a diehard Peeps fan who simply can’t get enough cute marshmallows in your life, then definitely give this a try for the novelty texture in the creme. If you’re looking for the next greatest limited Oreo flavor, or a worthy follow up to the beloved Marshmallow Crispy version, you can probably skip over these and instead make a melted masterpiece by exploding a Peep in the microwave and stuffing it inside of two Golden Oreo wafers, which might be just a tad more fun.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 140 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 10.7 oz.
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Fun spring colors with pretty poppin’ pink. Gritty sugar-laced creme filling. Buttercream frosting sweetness. Classic golden Oreo sparkle.
Cons: Doesn’t really taste like Peeps. Slight artificial frosting tang buildup during snack-age.

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