Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening – Walmart has pizza for all the times!
(That fits the tune, right? Did you sing along as you read it? Solid.) ??It’s true, Walmart has decided we, as a species, don’t have enough solutions to our 24-hour pizza needs and has launched both a breakfast and a dessert line of pizzas. I, for one, will always and forever hail the cold-leftover-slice-of-pizza-straight-out-of-the-fridge as one of the most satisfying breakfast foods out there (HOW is it so delicious hot and cold?), so I went out to find the dessert situation it’s created.??I was lucky enough to stumble upon all three flavors of the new Great Value (I’ll be the judge of that) dessert pizzas and immediately knew I had to try them all — Pineapple, Cinnamon Apple, and S’ mores.
Apple Cinnamon straight out of the box had enormous apple pieces atop the pizza along with blobs splattered of what I assume was supposed to be the icing drizzle. The word “drizzle” in the product description and image on the box is an outright lie.
Pineapple had bright, appetizing pineapple pieces, a visible cinnamon sauce, and like its apple brethren, icing blobs trying their best to meet expectations of a “drizzle” but failing miserably.
S’ mores appeared to be the closest to the image on the front of the package and had a plethora of marshmallows, chocolate pieces, and graham crumble. ??The prep instructions are straightforward, and the pizzas even come pre-wrapped sitting in an ovenable (real word, I looked it up) tray. So all you had to do was pull off the plastic wrap and pop it straight into the oven!
With the Apple Cinnamon one, I didn’t realize when I got excited about the giant apple pieces that it takes longer than 18 minutes to heat those pieces of frozen apple. They were thawed but STILL COLD. They also had no added cinnamon/sugar flavor. When I bit into the pizza, I got a mix of decently-toasty sweet crust, lukewarm flavorless sugar goo icing, and a cold mass of apple that filled my mouth with cold liquid when I bit into it and didn’t taste like anything. It. Was. Horrible.
The s’ mores pizza looked and smelled the most appetizing of the three. I mean, are we surprised? The crust was perfectly baked, solidly crispy on the bottom, but very soft (and thicker than I thought it would be) throughout. Honestly, this tasted like a big open-face chocolate babka with marshmallows, and I wasn’t mad at it. But I do wish the graham crumble and marshmallows had a strong enough flavor to compete with the chocolate. It was definitely the best of the three but didn’t quite live up to the s’ mores hype.
Sidebar about the crust – all three dessert pizzas say they’re made on a waffle crust. I tried really hard to believe what I was eating was a waffle base, but it wasn’t. It was still delightful, but more of a sweetened dessert focaccia than a waffle. There weren’t even any square indents.
I realize that when I say this, many of you will roll your eyes so loud that I’ll be able to hear it — I like pineapple and ham pizza.
(Please stay calm)
Once baked, the Great Value Pineapple Dessert Pizza has a flavor that I imagine a pineapple upside-down cake on cinnamon toast would have. The crust was fine. It was sweet and definitely not a waffle. The cinnamon sauce could have had more of the warm spice, and the fruit chunks were delightful. Though, I’d still pick the cake version if forced to choose. For those of you who hate the golden fruit on pizza, this probably isn’t good enough to make a turncoat out of you.
Overall, there’s a LOT of food for less than $5 with these pizzas, but the s’ mores one is the only one worth buying.
Purchased Price: $4.74 each
Size: 23.95 oz. (Apple Cinnamon), 23.55 oz. (Pineapple), 20.7 oz. (S’mores)
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 2 out of 10 (Apple Cinnamon), 5 out of 10 (Pineapple), 6 out of 10 (S’mores)
Nutrition Facts: (1/5 pizza) Cinnamon Apple – 320 calories, 11 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 370 milligrams of sodium, 51 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 19 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein. Pineapple – 310 calories, 10 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 330 milligrams of sodium, 49 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 18 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein. (1/4 pizza) S’mores – 420 calories, 12 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 430 milligrams of sodium, 74 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 30 grams of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.