Here are some quick reviews of new-ish store brand products we’re too lazy to write full reviews for:
Item: The Snack Artist Creme Cake
Purchased Price: $2.99 (on sale)
Size: 6 creme cakes
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent. Looks like a Twinkie. Smells like a Twinkie. Will still fit in my Twinkie Container. Something to fill the space on Safeway shelves where Hostess Twinkies were.
Cons: Dry cake. Not as satisfying as a Twinkie. Makes me want to buy the rights to make Twinkies so I can start making them ASAP. Despite making four holes on the bottom of each creme cake, they were stingy with the creme filling.
Item: The Snack Artist Chocolate Cupcake
Purchased Price: $2.99 (on sale)
Size: 6 cupcakes
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Devine. Wonderful chocolate goodness. As good as the Hostess version. Moist cake. Frosting has a slight sugary crunch to them.
Cons: Could use more creme in the middle. They appear to be slightly smaller than the Hostess version. Why can’t they make their Creme Cakes as good?
Item: Open Nature’s Supreme Multi-grain Ultra Thin Crust Pizza
Purchased Price: $3.99 (on sale)
Size: 5.35 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: 100 percent natural. Meat and cheeses helped give it flavor, making up for other ingredients. Might make it a decent Frisbee. Loaded with toppings (Italian sausage, uncured pepperoni, roasted green and red peppers, and roasted onions) Crunchy crust. Allows me to be an all-natural food snob for five minutes.
Cons: Although there were lots of onion and peppers, they didn’t enhance the pizza’s flavor. Sauce lacked flavor. Not microwaveable. Although 100 percent natural, it’s still a pizza and it still has nutrition facts that will make your doctor shake his or her finger at you.
Item: Market Pantry Sausage Pizza Spirals
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 6.8 ounces/8 pieces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Microwaveable. Not completely gross.
Cons: They give pizza a bad name. Makes pizza rolls seem so much better. Contains trans fat. Unpleasant doughiness, even if prepared in an oven. Mushy pizza filling.
I like this kind of post. I too have seen a lot of the new snack artist cakes and wondered if they can match what I can remember of actual Hostess products. Of course, if we still had Hostess, I’d likely eat them and remind myself they’re really not as amazing as I thought.
All things considered, I think this begs a Twinkie substitute taste off between Drake’s, Weight Watcher’s, Great Value, etc. etc.
A good way to shorten a growing list of reviews! Never heard of Snack Artist, but the Great Value golden creme cakes are a pretty damn good Twinkie clone.
I like this post idea, gives us the final word on more products.
I don’t like The Snack Artist. Where does he get off calling himself an artist?
Too bad the pizza spirals sucked — they look pretty cool.
I agree with the other comments – really like the lightning round idea. Especially for generics – your brand names are always gonna get the spotlight, but there’s a ton of generics out there (Archer Farms and Safeway Selects come to mind) that I’d love to hear your opinion about.
Twinkies will be back around soon, I bet. They’re too good and too unhealthy to go away completely.
I’m a little disturbed by the graphics on the Snack Artist twinkies. It looks like a part twinkie sheep is about to ravage a sleeping full twinkie. Who is having a bad dream…probably about ravaging sheep twinkies! 🙂