Little Debbie is a girl who’s got dresses for every season, every holiday, and every occasion. I can imagine her right now examining her extensive wardrobe of flavors. “No, a Boston Creme Roll won’t do for June, nor will a Strawberry Shortcake Roll quite capture September. I must put on something distinctly autumnal!”
Of course, something “distinctively autumnal” means changing out the vanilla cake with “pumpkin spice.” But is Little Debbie’s beauty only skin deep? Are all the dresses and flavors just scaffolds covering a stale, cloyingly sweet snack cake whose best days are long behind her?
Clearly, further investigation was in order. Each individually wrapped roll is easy on the eyes, their orange hue are attractive this time of year. A drizzle of icing and voluptuous cream filling practically spills out of the cake, and despite a $1.99 price tag and and no mention of pumpkin on its ingredient list, I fell hard.
But after trying them, I realized the rolls are all style and no substance. A pretty face but no personality. There’s pumpkin-flavored, pumpkin spice-flavored, and then there’s these; orange with specks of brown suggesting cinnamon and nutmeg which just aren’t there. Through many pumpkin seasons, I’ve learned few pumpkin products can ever live up to the platonic idea of a pumpkin pie. But as for the Little Debbie Pumpkin Spice Rolls, this brings pumpkin spice to a new low.
That said, I can’t turn away from Little Debbie. I can’t just shoot her a text and be like, “Hey, that’s cool, but yea, no.” To tell you the truth, I kind of liked them, albeit in a secret rendezvous, tell absolutely nobody about this sort of way.
The cake is at first dense, chewy, and hyper sweet, a common theme the icing carries on with a fake vanilla flavor. Yet the filling, normally a mix of confectioner’s sugar and cream cheese in traditional pumpkin or pumpkin spice rolls, is where it’s at.
If I didn’t know better, I would have said Little Debbie robbed a Hostess plant, because the filling tastes exactly like what’s in a Twinkie. It’s lighter than you’d expect, but ooey-gooey just the same, degenerating into a cloying and sticky cream that has just enough artificial palm oil richness to make you sort of put it in the realm of Oreo filling.
Little Debbie: I’m on to your game. And frankly, all these bells and whistles of the seasons, the changing of the dresses, they work and they don’t work. Your Pumpkin Spice Rolls offer absolutely nothing seasonal, and although the Twinkie filling and super sweet cake may be enough to make schmucks like me enjoy them, they won’t be confused for an actual pumpkin spice roll.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 roll – 260 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 1.0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 270 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)
Item: Little Debbie Pumpkin Spice Rolls
Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: 6 pack
Purchased at: United Supermarkets
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Twinkie-inspired cream filling. Super-sweet and ooey-gooey. Moist and dense cake. Giving into childhood cravings. Perhaps the first Little Debbie product I’ve found without partially hydrogenated oil.
Cons: Doesn’t taste like pumpkin or pumpkin spice. Very one note in sweetness. Not nearly as good as the pumpkin roll your mother made, or the one you bought at the Walmart bakery. Incredibly messy to eat.
Wow! You’re review was BRILLIANT! And indeed, it was like fall foliage: so lovely – bucolic, even – then gradually ripping off Little Debbi’s mask and exposing her as a crispy, brown, dead leaf that gets raked off the lawn and burned in a backyard fire pit! I couldn’t agree more!
Little Debbie, why have you forsaken us?!?! Glad you spread the word before it was too late. Adam: nobly carrying the burden for us all. Thanks for yet another great read!!
Why not they had used real pumpkin puree in it and then for the drizzle make it pumpkin spice.
I typically like Little Debbie rolls, but yeah, these were way too sweet with nary a hint of spice. (Apparently there’s cinnamon in there. Somewhere.) How can so much disappointment come from such a little snack cake?
This is pretty much my review as well. My quick and dirty review: “A little bit of pumpkin pie spiced cake with the annoying crunchy frosting drizzle. Mostly just a whole lotta cream filling.”
Such a shame that these weren’t all that great 🙁 sounded delicious, shame they weren’t all that “pumpkinny”.
Yep, nailed it. The creme is too sweet and there’s too much of it and the cake (very) vaguely has a pumpkin spice flavor to it. Avoid these and go for the Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights. It’s a smiley face so you know its good!
Wow. I love these little rolls of sweet fall flavors. I enjoy lots of cream and I think the pumpkin/spice flavoring is just a bit ore than I like but for the price, it’s a quick treat.
I bought these just to see if they were as good as oatmeal pies, yep they have surpassed the deliciousness of those. I found a new love. I have bought extras to put in freezer for later. Wondering how long these pumpkin spice rolls will be out.
I thought they did the trick! For $1.99 you aren’t going to get bakery level pumpkin rolls. My son loved them. He wanted me to go back and get more. The frosting may have been overdone but, when you compare to other Little Debbie’s, this is by far one of their better products. It is not two bucks that you will waste, if you like cheap snack cakes once in a while.
I actually really enjoyed these. They had just enough pumpkin spice flavor to the cake and the cream is very sweet but not in a sickening way. The simple sweetness of the cream cuts through the denseness of the cake perfectly. I never thought I would like any Little Debbie roll as much as the strawberry rolls, but I’m addicted.
My family likes then, so we must be odd or the rest of you have no taste. Either way, I never take someone else’s opinion until I try things for myself! Just a Mom.
We bought one box of the Pumpkin Spice Rolls and LOVED them. They were NOT chewy or overly sweet. They had the right touch of pumpkin without it being too pumpkiny, (is that even a word?) When we went back a few days later to buy more of them, the store was sold out and we have been looking all over the city for them, to no avail. Don’t know why every vendor that has a pumpkin product only brings them out in October and not for the rest of the year.