The Impulsive Buy

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Midnight Coffee

Vin / January 15, 2021 / Reviews / 9 Comments

What is Dunkin’ Midnight Coffee?

In accordance with the present times, Dunkin’ has decided to get a little dark – darker than it’s ever gone before, in fact, with the release of the new Midnight Coffee.

How is it?

I almost always opt for the dark roast when I order my cold brews on the app, but that option seemed to disappear in the past month or so. Thankfully Dunkin’ has decided to go even darker with its new Midnight blend.

I’m just gonna say it – Dunkin’s regular base coffee stinks.

But it is a gateway to a better beverage. If you love it, more power to ya, but I can’t fathom drinking it black. It’s just not that good. 4 out of 10.

To reinforce my opinion, I tried a hot Midnight coffee against Dunkin’s regular roast, and it was (mid)night and day. Of all the crazy sugar bombs Dunkin’ drops monthly, this might be the most important menu addition in years.

Ok, I’m being dramatic. But for a dark roast fan like myself, this is big.

Midnight is a rich, darker blend that leans more towards espresso with big notes of bitter dark chocolate.

I found the taste to be softer and dryer than the standard, with a much more pleasant aftertaste. It made the regular coffee sour in comparison.

Anything else you need to know?

After taking a few sips of the straight black coffees, I added oat milk, which is the G.O.A.T. milk, not be confused with goat milk, which is a goat’s milk.

Again, Midnight was considerably better. The oat milk’s creaminess enhanced the dark chocolate notes slightly and left a chocolate-covered espresso bean flavor in its wake.

Conclusion:

Look, I’ll probably never order a hot black Midnight coffee again if I’m honest, but that doesn’t change the fact that Dunkin’ finally has a coffee I would drink black. It’s not hard to mask the flavor of Dunkin’s base roast, but I’m still thrilled it’s added a new starting point to my coffee order.

Dunkin’ better expand Midnight into the iced side of the menu because I see no reason to ever go back. If you’re a dark roast coffee drinker, this is definitely for you.

Purchased Price: $1.87
Size: Small
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not available on website.

REVIEW: Reese’s Snack Cake

Julie / January 14, 2021 / Reviews / 18 Comments

What are Reese’s Snack Cakes?

Each snack consists of a chocolate cake layer topped with Reese’s peanut butter creme and covered in milk chocolate.

How are they?

When I unwrapped my package of Reese’s Snack Cakes, I was expecting a take on a Hostess CupCake or Zinger: a supple, airy sponge slicked with icing. What I found looked more like a candy bar: two chocolate-coated rectangles nestled in a cardboard sleeve, compact and entirely coated with milk chocolate.

Intrigued by the snack’s appearance (and anything involving peanut butter), I felt this warranted deeper investigation. Because I’m weird, I like to analyze snacks layer by layer, pretending that I’m a junk food scientist studying a sugary ecosystem. Here are my findings:

The milk chocolate coating is smooth and creamy. It tastes like what you’d find in the candy aisle, but a little sturdier and less prone to melting.

Next, the peanut butter creme has the delicious flavor of Reese’s filling, but with textural differences that remind me of marzipan or even hard fudge. It is soft, but dense and malleable enough that the layer can retain its shape when separated from the cake.

Finally, the cake layer is difficult to classify. Its deep cocoa flavor pairs well with the other cake components, but its texture is unsuccessful. Dense, dry, and crumbly, it is barely a cake. It tastes like a cake deprived of moisture or air, with all of its crumbs squeezed together. It brings to mind protein-enhanced snack bars (think Protein One), and with six grams of protein, it could probably pass as one more easily than it could pass as a cake.

Overall, the peanut butter and chocolate outshine an unsuccessful cake, which should have been the star of this snack. A different product name would have helped to leverage expectations, but the result is not Reese’s strongest offering.

Anything else you need to know?

In press releases, Reese’s has billed its Snack Cakes as breakfast or mid-morning snacks. Given both the product’s candy bar sweetness and lack of resemblance to cake, I don’t understand the breakfast connection. Coffee cakes, muffins, and scones will not need to fight these snack cakes for space at the brunch table.

Conclusion:

Decidedly un-cakelike, Reese’s Snack Cakes deliver on the classic chocolate and peanut butter pair, but are worth less than the sum of their parts.

Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: 2.75 oz pack (2 cakes)
Purchased at: Sheetz
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 380 calories, 21 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 45 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 33 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of protein.

Baked Goods Candy Reese's

REVIEW: Limited Edition Chocolate Strawberry Cheerios Cereal

Holly / January 13, 2021 / Reviews / 1 Comment

The speed at which retail stores remove Christmas to put up Valentine’s Day merchandise manages to shock me every year. Wednesday, it was aisles of dreamy snowscape mini villages. Thursday, it’s giant stuffed bears, boxes of cards, and food dyed in vibrant red and pink. Peppermint is out and chocolate strawberry is in.

This year, General Mills decided to take a run at the Valentine’s Day market by releasing the Limited Edition Chocolate Strawberry Cheerios cereal. It is described as a “blissful pairing” of “delectable strawberries dipped in rich, chocolatey sauce.” I was beyond excited to give this a try.

For you see, dear readers, I don’t think I’m being too dramatic when I say chocolate strawberry is the absolute best flavor combination we humans have ever discovered. Okay, maybe a little dramatic, but chocolate strawberry flavor is easily my all-time favorite. Chocolate covered strawberries themselves can be difficult to eat, but with the onslaught of chocolate strawberry flavored foods in the past few years, I’m able to enjoy my favorite pairing with a less awkward mess.

The first thing I noticed just by looking at the box was that the flavor would be coming from the cereal itself. Normally it seems companies will just add a handful of chocolate chunks and strawberry bits to their regular product (looking at you, Special K Chocolate Strawberry).

In this case, General Mills blended its Chocolate Cheerios and Strawberry Cheerios to create this treat. The smell of the strawberry cereal was extremely strong upon opening the plastic. I tossed a handful of dry cereal back and found it to be kind of boring. The strawberry was there, but muted. The chocolate was almost nonexistent.

I wasn’t going to let my hopes be dashed. Surely it would get better once I added the milk. It had to, right? RIGHT?! Lucky milk gave it the glow up it needed. The first thing I noticed as I added milk to the cereal was the pinkish hue of strawberry flavor was coming off the O shapes. The chocolate pieces also began to change the milk from white to chocolatey brown. With my first bite of the milk and cereal, I was met with the flavors I had expected. Bright, juicy strawberry and rich, deep chocolate came through with each spoonful.

After finishing the cereal, I was left with a chocolatey milk. Now, normally I’m not a big fan of the milk after I finish the cereal. I know, you can drag me in the comments, but this might have changed my mind. For the sake of getting a thorough review, I gingerly took a sip. The cereal’s flavors soaked deeply into the milk, leaving an absolutely delicious chocolate strawberry flavored milk beverage. I ended up finishing the milk, which is something I never do.

The high expectations I had for this cereal were (thankfully) met. They in no way replace the authentic taste and experience of eating a chocolate-covered strawberry, but this delivered the flavors I was looking for. In the same way Pumpkin Spice Cheerios add a seasonal fall twist to your morning breakfast routine, these will get you in the mood for love, spring, and 50% off candy on February 15th.

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: 10.9 oz box
Purchased at: Publix
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup) 140 calories, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

Cereal Cheerios General Mills

SPOTTED – 1/12/2021

Marvo / January 12, 2021 / Spotted on Shelves

Here are some interesting new products found on store shelves by your fellow readers. If you’ve tried any of the products, share your thoughts about them in the comments.

*Little Debbie Limited Edition Mini Cinnamon Spiced Hot Chocolate Donuts*

*Little Debbie Limited Edition Mini Apple Cinnamon Donuts*

(Spotted by David P at Drug Mart.)

Golden Grahams S mores Remix Snacking Mix — *Golden Grahams S’mores Remix Snacking Mix*

There are also two Cinnamon Toast Crunch varieties — Cinnamon Vanilla and Chocolate Caramel. (Spotted by Robbie at Walmart.)

H E B Creamy Creations Limited Edition Spurs Sherbet — *H-E-B Creamy Creations Limited Edition Spurs Sherbet*

(Spotted by Robbie at H-E-B.)

H E B Watermelon Sparkling Water with Caffeine — *H-E-B Watermelon Sparkling Water with Caffeine*

There are also Mango, Ginger Lime, and Cucumber Lime, and Cranberry Apple flavors. (Spotted by Robbie at H-E-B.)

*Pillsbury Ready to Bake Safe to Eat Raw Pokemon Shape Sugar Cookie Dough*

(Spotted by Robbie at Walmart.)

Nerda Rope Valentine Exchange — *Nerds Rope Valentine Exchange*

(Spotted by Robbie at Walmart.)

REVIEW: Java Chip Oreo and Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies

Ann / January 12, 2021 / Reviews / 2 Comments

Everyone loves a comeback story. Like the Buffalo Bills 1993 wild card victory, or Diana Nyad finally completing the 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida after several failed attempts, or fat (yeah, fat, it’s allowed now). These are victories we can stand behind, nodding and muttering, “Well, I’ll be damned. They did it.”

With the love of a comeback in mind, I’d like to introduce you to the Rocky Balboa of cookies, the Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo, and the 2007–2008 Chicago Cubs of cookies (they’re not QUITE there yet), the Java Chip Oreo.

Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane to consider Oreo’s initial attempts. In 2018, Nabisco launched a Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo using Golden cookies and a chocolate cream that had a nearly undetectable hazelnut flavor, the cookies’ greatest flaw. Similarly, Nabisco is not new to coffee flavor combinations, having launched Dunkin’ Mocha Oreo, Latte Oreo Thins, and Tiramisu Oreo with varying degrees of success.

Upon opening, the Hazelnut Oreo had me concerned. These mostly smelled of chocolate, maybe even just plain Oreo. However, the Java Chip package had a robust and pleasant coffee aroma that immediately reminded me of coffee ice cream, perhaps because of how sugary sweet it was.

Because coffee can be a strong flavor, I decided to try the Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo first. To be fair (TO BE FAIR), the pressure was ON. Launching a chocolate hazelnut flavor is a huge challenge in a confectioner world dominated mainly by Nutella, a mammoth of a product that’s often imitated but never duplicated, and Oreo had already failed that test once. BUT. NOT. THIS. TIME.

Friends, these updated Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo are a dream. The hazelnut flavor in the cream filling is POWERFUL, and the slightly darker, more bitter chocolate cookie rounds out the flavor delivery into an irrefutable success. I think I might have said “wow” out loud.

The flavor is not overwhelming or artificial tasting. It’s nutty, balanced, and definitely there. These might be my new favorite Oreo. I’m already thinking up what kinds of baked goods I’d like to make with them. Yum. I’m not giving them a perfect score because the creme is the standard Oreo texture, where I think hazelnut spread is usually impeccably smooth.

As mentioned earlier, however, the story is not as sweet for Java Chip. These cookies are certainly tasty. Using Oreo cream to emulate ice cream is definitely strategic and, in my opinion, a closer flavor match than aiming for coffee alone. But overall, I wasn’t that impressed.

The little added texture element of the tiny chocolate chips throughout the Java Chip cream certainly aided the experience. If java chip is your favorite ice cream, I can see a Dairy Queen coffee Blizzard with chopped up pieces of Java Chip Oreo Cookies being GREAT. But I wouldn’t seek these out again. There are just too many more exciting options available.

Overall, these are good, but the Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo stands out. Nabisco had some ground to recover from its 2018 miscue, and I think it’s done so here. Time will tell if it can better impress us with a coffee, java, or espresso iteration in the future.

Purchased Price: $3.67 each
Size: 17 oz (Family Size)

Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 9 out 10 (Chocolate Hazelnut), 6 out of 10 (Java Chip)
Nutrition Facts: (2 cookies) 140 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 13 grams of total sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.

Cookies Nabisco Oreo

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Midnight Coffee

What is Dunkin’ Midnight Coffee?

How is it?

Anything else you need to know?

Conclusion:

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REVIEW: Reese’s Snack Cake

What are Reese’s Snack Cakes?

How are they?

Anything else you need to know?

Conclusion:

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REVIEW: Limited Edition Chocolate Strawberry Cheerios Cereal

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SPOTTED – 1/12/2021

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REVIEW: Java Chip Oreo and Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies

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