SPOTTED ON SHELVES – 5/25/2012

Here are some new products found on store shelves by us and your fellow readers. We may or may not review them, but we’d like to let you know what new items are popping up. We’ll also occasionally throw in an unusual product.

Good Humor Mounds Bar

Last year, Good Humor released Reese’s Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cups. This year, they’ve expanded their candy bar inspired line with Mounds and York Ice Cream Bars. Mounds Ice Cream Bars are coconut light ice cream with real coconut dipped in a dark chocolate flavored coating, while York Ice Cream Bars are made up of peppermint light ice cream dipped in dark chocolate flavored coating.

New IHOP products

Yay! More IHOP At Home frozen breakfasts based on nothing from IHOP’s restaurant menu. About this time last year the first IHOP At Home products hit the shelves. Come on, Denny’s, it’s been a year! Frozen Grand Slams FTW!

Hostess Apple Cinnamon Donettes

Hostess Soft-Baked Cookies

Is it just me or do those new Apple Cinnamon Donettes have a weird color to them? They look like rocks in a bag. Well, thank goodness the new Hostess Soft Baked Cookies look like cookies. I could’ve sworn Hostess sold cookies in the past or maybe it’s all the white Twinkies cream I’ve consumed that’s clouding my memory. Read a Hostess Soft Baked Cookies review here.

DiGiorno Italian-Style Favorites

Two-thirds of the DiGiorno Italian-Style Favorites pizza flavors — Chicken Parmesan and Meatball Marinara — sound like they’re pizzas topped with Italian dishes. They also sound like Subway sandwiches. Oh wait…They are Subway sandwiches. There’s also a Meat Trio variety made up of sausage, pepperoni, and salami. The pizza’s crust has a touch of olive oil and herbs, but I would’ve preferred a crust stuffed with hot dogs.

Herr Hot Dog Chips

Speaking of hot dogs (segue), here’s a picture of Herr’s artificially flavored hot dog potato chips. I wonder if they taste similar to a Costco hot dog topped with ketchup, mustard, and the contents of a crushed snack-szied bag of Ruffles.

Images 2-6 courtesy of Impulsive Buy reviewer Adam

If you’re out shopping and see a new product on the shelf (or really unusual), snap a picture of it, email it to us at [email protected] with “Spotted” in the subject line, and you might see it in our next Spotted on Shelves post.

REVIEW: Special K Pastry Crisps (Chocolatey Delight and Brown Sugar Cinnamon)

Special K Pastry Crisps (Chocolatey Delight and Brown Sugar Cinnamon)

I’m not going to lie. Being a 23-year-old dude does come with a certain amount of biological advantages. Chief among these, of course, is a metabolism fast enough it outrace the Millennium Falcon on the Kessel Run and still have time for a bathroom stop. Twelve parsecs? Please. I burn through Twinkies in ten.

Having said metabolism affords me quite a few liberties when wandering through Walmart. Endcaps and register lanes offering 99-cent fruit pies and bagged chips are child’s play for my appetite, which instead often leads me to entire family-size bags of potato chips and cookies. Now, I realize these little jaunts into junk food bliss will eventually take their toll on me, and in an effort to stave off the advent of full man-boobage development and male pattern baldness, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least peek into what any future “diet” might entail.

There are, of course, many options. The Paleo Diet and Atkins Diet are especially attractive to my inner sense of wannabe-machismo, but who am I kidding, I could never give up on the worthless carbs of packaged snacks. That brings up the intriguing option of Fiber One, if only for the shameful premise that eating 7,000 percent of my daily RDA in fake fiber wouldn’t endear me to my co-workers. With these options crossed off the list, I rounded the cereal aisle at Walmart thinking that my experiment in semi-healthy eating wasn’t going to happen. That’s when they hit me. Or rather, I hit them, thanks to dodging an aisle clearing drag race of old people in electric scooters. That’s right friends, Special K.

I have no idea what the “K” stands for in Special K (potassium?), and after more than a decade of eschewing their products, I still have no idea what makes them so special. But when finding myself suddenly facing the new Chocolatey Delight and Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pastry Crisps, I decided to take a little trip into the future and see if the coming years of man-boobage can be staved off with a little help from what looked to be a Pop-Tart in disguise.

I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is I’m probably going to get man-boobs no matter what. The good news is that the new Special K Pastry Crisps will help me slow that ineluctable fate one portion controlled wrapper at a time.

Special K Chocolatey Delight Pastry Crisps Outtards

The Chocolatey Delight crisps taste somewhere between a chocolate fudge Pop-Tart and a Keebler Fudge Stripe cookie. There’s a pronounced shortbread crisp which lacks the heavy and dull wheat snack bread like crusts of a Pop-Tart, while a lickable portion of chocolatey “icing” provides added sweetness and pronounced cocoa flavor. Is it chocolate? I don’t know for sure, but it’s chocolatey, and hey, we’re not eating for man boobs, remember?

Special K Chocolatey Delight Pastry Crisps Innards

In any case, there’s enough of the sweet glycerin-based filling to keep each bite interesting and moist, and despite the relatively small size, I find myself preferring the crumbly morsels and sweet “crisp” to any ambiguously flavored chocolate Pop-Tart I’ve had in the past. My only complaint is that each wrapper contains two very small pastries. We’re talking slightly larger than a baseball card here and less than a half ounce each, so probably no more than a few man-chomps for a crisp.

Special K Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pastry Crisps Innards

The Brown Sugar Cinnamon flavor isn’t as good, although the smell alone makes it worth buying. It’s that intensely rich, buttery cinnamon sugar spread smell that wafts through malls across these here United States thanks to the Cinnabon franchise. A light drizzle of sweet icing won’t fool even the most diet-food inoculated eaters into thinking it could actually pass for cream cheese icing, but it adds a nice touch to the otherwise crispy pastry.

Special K Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pastry Crisps Wrapper

The taste is standard as far as brown sugar cinnamon goes, with a little extra emphasis on the cinnamon. Nothing life-changing, but at 100 calories per two pastries, one can’t set his sights that high. Again, my only complaint is the size, and in this case, the amount of cinnamon-sugar “goo.” The paste actually has a nice consistency, but it’s tough to appreciate when a scant teaspoon or so fills the shell.

I’m not going to lie. Buying a pack of Special K Pastry Crisps isn’t the most masculine thing I’ve done in the past week. But I can live with that. Just as a I can live with a slow metabolism when I get older, provided Special K continue to disguise Pop-Tarts in the guise of 100-calorie pack Pastry Crisps. Until then though, it’s full steam ahead down the cookie aisle, provided the scooter drag races don’t take me out first.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 crisps – 100 calories, 20 calories from fat, 2 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams to trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 25 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 7 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Special K Pastry Crisps (Chocolatey Delight and Brown Sugar Cinnamon)
Price: $2.54
Size: 5 pack
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Chocolatey Delight)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Brown Sugar Cinnamon)
Pros: Filling tastes just as good as a Pop-Tart. Chocolatey Delight reminds me of a Keebler cookie. No lame edges. No hydrogenated oils. Icing drizzle provides extra sweetness. Smells great. No toaster required. Portion control. Avoiding man boobs.
Cons: Small, very small. Not real chocolate. Needs more gooey filling. Icing could use more pronounced flavor. Avoiding death by electric scooter at Walmart. A future with a slow metabolism.

NEWS: Kellogg’s Releases S’more Limited Edition Eggo Seasons Waffles

Kellogg's Eggo Seasons S'mores Waffles

I’ve never yearned for a box of frozen waffles. I just put them in my cart and say, “Meh. It’s part of a complete breakfast.”

But these Kellogg’s Limited Edition Eggo Seasons S’mores waffles have got me craving for some frozen waffles I have to stick in a toaster for about 4-5 minutes. But it’s okay I have to wait, because you know what they say, “The older the berry the sweeter the juice.” Wait, I don’t think that applies with frozen waffles. Anyhoo, each waffle has small bits of graham, marshmallow, and chocolate.

Kellogg’s Limited Edition Eggo Seasons S’mores is the second product from the Eggo Seasons line. The first was a pumpkin spice flavored waffle, which was released last fall. Like the pumpkin spice version, the Limited Edition Eggo Seasons S’mores Waffles are a Target exclusive.

If you’ve tried them, let us know what you think of them in the comments.

Photo via Impulsive Buy contributor Adam.

REVIEW: Wonka Ice Cream

Wonka Ice Cream

I recently watched a biography about Ben & Jerry’s on Netflix while taste testing the flavors from the new Wonka Ice Cream line. Ever since then, I’ve been having a recurring nightmare that goes something like this:

NO, BEN!

NO, JERRY!

I’M SORRY!

I won’t cheat on you two ever again! Please don’t give me concrete shoes and turn me into Phish Food. No, Ben. I can’t take anymore whipping of my Cinnamon Buns. Jerry? What are you doing with that knife? No! Not the Banana Split! Not the Banana Split, Jerry! No more Bonnaroo Buzz, Ben. My nipples can’t take any more. Please, I don’t want anymore Schweddy Balls from another Chubby Hubby sitting on my chest. I can’t breathe. Please, can’t you Imagine Whirled Peace?

Maybe it’s my conscience telling me I shouldn’t cheat on Ben & Jerry’s. Or maybe it’s my body telling me I shouldn’t eat ice cream right before I go to sleep.

Wonka’s new ice cream line comes in seven flavors: Chocolate Snowflakes, Kerfuffle Truffle, Chipperberry Swirl, Chocolate Chipper Chip, Chocolate Mintropolis, Caramel Nut Kadoozle, and Kernelpuff Caramelstuff. And I’m going to review all seven of them right now in an order that does not follow the previous sentence.

Kerfuffle Truffle

Wonka Kerfuffle Truffle Ice Cream

If you were jealous of Augustus Gloop when he fell into the chocolate river, but not when he got sucked through a pipe, you can experience a near drowning by chocolate with Wonka’s Kerfuffle Truffle Ice Cream, which is made up of chocolate ice cream with chocolate truffles and fudge swirls. This was my least favorite of the seven flavors, but not because it tasted like what I imagine somekind of gloop tastes like or anything like that.

I hoped the three parts of the ice cream would create a flavor kerfuffle, but the firm chocolate truffles and almost pudding-like fudge swirl didn’t make the ice cream taste anything more than a regular chocolate ice cream. They did give the ice cream a variety of textures and it’s good for a chocolate ice cream, but because it doesn’t stray from that, it’s a little disappointing. Not very Wonka.

Chocolate Snowflakes

Wonka Chocolate Snowflakes Ice Cream

Much like Kerfuffle Truffle, Chocolate Snowflake is good, but it’s not a very creative flavor. Sure, the combination of vanilla ice cream with “melt in your mouth” chocolate flakes might have you thinking of something magical, but it’s just a chocolate chip ice cream. Yes, there was melting in my mouth, but it was the vanilla ice cream that did most of the melting, which it should’ve been since it’s heat-hating ice cream. The chocolate flakes do melt away, but it happens much later after the ice cream does. Perhaps, they should’ve called the ice cream “Chocolate Hail.” The vanilla ice cream is bright white, which makes it easier for the chocolate flakes stand out, and there are a lot of chocolate flakes. But, again, it’s a simple flavor.

Chocolate Mintropolis

Wonka Kerfuffle Truffle Ice Cream

When I bite into one of the mini peppermint patties in the Wonka Chocolate Mintropolis Ice Cream, I get the sensation of wishing it had a stronger mintiness that makes me get the sensation of my mouth feeling like it’s the lobby of the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel in Alta, Norway. Chocolate Mintropolis also has chocolate mint cookie chunks swimming in its chocolate ice cream, but the ice cream as a whole is not as minty as I would’ve liked.

However, it’s a pleasurable ice cream with four different textures: the chocolate ice cream’s creaminess, the mini peppermint patty’s firmness, the chewiness of some of the chocolate mint cookie pieces, and the crunchiness of the other cookie chunks. The crunchiness surprised me because when I first started eating the ice cream, all I got were chewy cookies, but then I got a spoonful with a crunch, and then another. That surprise crunch is kind of Wonka-like, don’t you think?

There’s enough mini peppermint patties and chocolate mint cookies to ensure you have a bit of either in every spoonful. While Chocolate Mintropolis isn’t as minty as I hoped, I do think it’s a couple steps above Kerfuffle Truffle.

Chipperberry Swirl

Wonka Chipperberry Swirl Ice Cream

You know how I complained about how Chocolate Snowflake was a simple flavor? Well, Chipperberry Swirl pretty much takes the vanilla ice cream and chocolate in Chocolate Snowflake and makes it better with the addition of black raspberry ice cream. It’s the only flavor with any fruit flavor. The fruity ice cream is a little tangy, which makes Chipperberry Swirl taste like a frozen yogurt, but its nutrition facts and ingredients list assures me that it isn’t. The raspberry ice cream blends well with the chocolate chips, which there were a lot of.

Oh, I should mention the chocolate chips aren’t like the chocolate chips you’d find in cookies, they’re chips of chocolate, like the chips of ice one would find scattered around an ice sculpture in the lobby of the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel in Alta, Norway. Much like the other flavors, there were a lot of add-ins in Chipperberry Swirl. There are so many chocolate chips that if you don’t get some as you scoop some out, consider yourself the worst scooper ever. But you’ll have many opportunities to practice your scooping because this is a hard flavor to put down.

Caramel Nut Kadoozle

Wonka Caramel Nut Kadoozle Ice Cream

Wonka’s Caramel Nut Kadoozle contains a caboodle of nuts. Within its caramel ice cream there are walnut caramel swirls and pieces of mixed nut brittle which have peanuts, almonds, walnuts, cashews, and pecans. If you love caramel as much as I love the feel of baby oil on skin, you’ll enjoy the one-two punch of the caramel ice cream and walnut caramel swirls. The gooey swirls are sweet, but they’re also a little nutty and salty, which also are the red flags I look for when out on first dates.

What makes this ice cream extraordinary is the mixed nut brittle, which provides not only a crunchy texture, but also a bit of mystery with every chunk. With each piece, I wasn’t sure what nutty flavor I’d get after biting into it. It could be mostly peanuts, or cashews, or walnuts, or any combination of the five nuts. Your molars are the key to each mystery mixed nut brittle chunk.

Kernelpuff Caramelstuff

Wonka Kernelpuff Caramelstuff Ice Cream

I became sad when I looked through Kernelpuff Caramelstuff’s ingredient list and didn’t see popped popcorn kernels. I’ve had ice creams with bits of cakes, cookies, pretzels, and potato chips, but I’ve always wanted to experience an ice cream with popcorn mixed in. My ice cream/popcorn fantasy remains a fantasy because instead of popcorn, Kernelpuff Caramelstuff has bits of puffed millet. Here’s a Wikipedia link in case you’re like me and thought a millet was what one calls a mullet when it’s on a child younger than six years old.

Along with the puffed millet, Kernelpuff Caramelstuff is also made up of caramel ice cream, pecan pralines and salted caramel swirls. The puffed millet doesn’t really add any flavor, but their texture is similar to those tiny bits of popcorn you’d find at the bottom of the microwaveable popcorn bag or the tub of movie theater popcorn. It adds a different mouthfeel with the creamy ice cream, gooey caramel, and crunchy pecan pralines. The pecan pralines are divine; they’re more sweet than nutty, which helps this ice cream flavor differentiate itself from the nuttier Caramel Nut Kadoozle.

Chocolate Chipper Chip

Wonka Chocolate Chipper Dip Ice Cream

Finally, there’s Chocolate Chipper Chip, which turns me into the demanding Veruca Salt because the combination of vanilla ice cream with chocolate and potato chips bark pieces makes me want to sing “I Want It Now.” The flavor is similar to Ben & Jerry’s Late Night Snack, except it lacks a caramel swirl and the potato chips don’t come in fudge covered potato chip ball form. But it doesn’t need the caramel swirl because the sweet and slightly salty combination works well with this ice cream.

Like the other Wonka Ice Cream flavors, there are a lot of add-ins in the 14-ounce container of Chocolate Chipper Chip. Every spoonful had a bit of the chocolate and potato chip bark. The potato chips taste like regular Lay’s potato chips, but 50 percent of the time it was hard to detect that flavor through the chocolate. I also noticed a lack of potato chip crunch as I scooped my way through the ice cream, which was extremely disappointing and made me think Ben & Jerry’s Late Night Snack got it right with their fudge covered potato chip balls. Despite these issues, Chocolate Chipper Chip is my favorite of the seven Wonka Ice Cream flavors, but not by much over Kernelpuff Caramelstuff and Caramel Nut Kadoozle.

You can’t go wrong with any of the Wonka Ice Cream flavors. There are a few boring flavors, but none of them are bad. As I mentioned throughout this review, each container of ice cream has a lot of add-ins and they’re in easy scoopable pieces. And that’s what stands out with these Wonka Ice Cream flavors. There have been several Ben & Jerry’s flavors I’ve tried that have had huge, hard pieces of brownies or toffee bars that forced me to stab into the pint of ice cream with my spoon like I’m getting revenge for making me chubby in order to break down those pieces into smaller chunks. That’s a nightmare I don’t like to face when I’m trying to enjoy some ice cream.

(Disclaimer: I received samples of Wonka Ice Cream for free in order to write this review. Too bad I’m not going through a break up right now, because if I was, the fat from the seven containers of ice cream in my freezer would fill the broken parts of my heart.)

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – Caramel Nut Kadoozle – 250 calories, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 135 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, and 26 grams of sugar. Chipperberry Swirl – 210 calories, 13 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 30 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, and 18 grams of sugar. Chocolate Chipper Chip – 270 calories, 17 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 130 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, and 21 grams of sugar. Chocolate Mintropolis – 250 calories, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 70 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, and 19 grams of sugar. Chocolate Snowflakes – 1/2 cup serving – 220 calories, 14 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 30 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, and 18 grams of sugar. Kerfuffle Truffle – 260 calories, 15 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 28 grams of carbohydrates, and 22 grams of sugar. Kernelpuff Caramelstuff – 230 calories, 13 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 130 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, and 23 grams of sugar.)

Item: Wonka Ice Cream
Price: FREE
Size: 14 ounces
Purchased at: Received from the nice folks at Nestle
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Kerfuffle Truffle)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Chocolate Snowflakes)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Chocolate Mintropolis)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Chipperberry Swirl)
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Caramel Nut Kadoozle)
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Kernelpuff Caramelstuff)
Rating: 9 out of 10 (Chocolate Chipper Chip)
Pros: Chocolate Chipper Chip makes me chipper. Caramel Nut Kadoozle is a doozy. Kernelpuff Caramelstuff is the stuff. Chipperberry Swirl makes me squeal like a little girl. Chocolate Mintropolis is all right. Lots of add-ins in easy to scoop pieces. Upside down labels are a nice Wonka touch.
Cons: Not available nationwide, yet. As decadent as other premium ice creams. Comes in 14 ounce containers. Kernelpuff Caramelstuff doesn’t contain popcorn. Kerfuffle Truffle and Chocolate Snowflakes are boring.

NEWS: Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s Add The Word ‘Amazing’ To Their Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger

Hardee's in Zamalek

The Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s Amazing Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger isn’t new. Well, the addition of the word “Amazing” and the promotional tie-in with the upcoming release of The Amazing Spider-Man is new, but everything else, not so much.

Here’s a 2010 review from An Immovable Feast. Here’s another review from Junk Food Betty. And, here’s a review from A Hamburger Today. In case you’re scared to jump down the rabbit hole of Carl’s Jr. Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger reviews, they weren’t favorable.

The 2012 version consists of a charbroiled beef patty, bacon, American cheese, Swiss cheese, mayo, grilled bread, and the word “Amazing.” In order to earn the word “Amazing,” I hope every cow and pig used to make the Amazing Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger was bitten by a radioactive spider. That would be awesome! Oh wait…That would be amazing! Prices for the burger start at $3.29 and may vary by location.

On July 4th, the day after the movie is released, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s will be holding a “Spider-Man Eats Free” promotion at their restaurants. Any guest who comes to one of their restaurants dressed as Spider-Man will receive a free Amazing Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger.

That’s amazing, but it would be even more so if one could also get a free drink and fries for singing the theme song from the original Spider-Man cartoon.

Image via flickr user Staeiou / CC BY SA 2.0