Dan, Author at The Impulsive Buy

REVIEW: 7-Eleven Birthday Cake Slurpee

July 11, 2016September 2, 2023 Dan 4 Comments

It’s Slurpee’s 50th birthday, and to celebrate, 7-Eleven has released a slew of celebratory products, from the Birthday Cake Slurpee I bought to Birthday Cake Cappuccinos and Slurpee doodle Pop-Tarts.

Heck, I’m surprised they didn’t inject their hot dogs with Funfetti, since those same dogs have probably been rolling under that heat lamp for the past 50 years anyway.

Since I rode my bicycle to 7-Eleven in the summer heat, I wouldn’t make it home in time without a birthday puddle in my cup. So I was forced to photograph my Birthday Cake Slurpee in front of pedestrians who looked at me like an escaped zoo animal.

But most of them were capturing Pokémon with their phones anyway, so I like to think my weird photo-shoot was hidden behind a Snorlax.

My first Slurpee sip was more “funeral” than “birthday.” A flowing log flume of watered-down vanilla flavor cascaded through my mouth, and it was chased by a faint lemon zest. If nothing else, I give 7-Eleven’s mad food scientists credit for including a more subtle frosting note.

All debates about icing authenticity aside, the watery vanilla made an awful first impression. Iciness in a cola or fruity Slurpee is acceptable, because soda and fruit juice are things that actually occur in real life. But runny liquid vanilla paste tastes sadly unnatural, as if someone had cried all over a cake.

Maybe 7-Eleven accidentally booked “Prenuppo the Recently Divorced Clown” for Slurpee’s birthday party.

But it wasn’t all tears and tragedy, because the Slurpee actually improved as time and the laws of physics went on. Gravity sent the sweet ribbons of syrupy vanilla extract twisting to the bottom of the cup, while thermodynamics turned the slush into crystallized batter.

The increased vanilla flavor concentration made my Birthday Cake Slurpee considerably more pleasant, so I tried greedily Slurpee-ing down the remaining purée before it could metamorphose into something even more melted and sloppy.

I didn’t make it in time, though (damn you, sun!). I was soon left with a dizzyingly sweet concoction that made me grimace like the time I sipped straight from a vanilla extract bottle (damn you, tempting smell!). But all hope was not lost, because I still had reinforcements to call in.

Slurpee’s birthday celebration also includes a new Birthday Cake Doughnut, and for only 99 cents, I couldn’t resist garnishing my Slurpee and turning myself into a gawk-worthy street performer.

I’m surprised no one tossed a handful of change into my Slurpee cup.

The dry and crumbly doughnut sucks up the “juices,” and the lightly golden-sweet pastry lends a welcome, floury yellow cake flavor to a Slurpee that’s otherwise pure frosting. Meanwhile, the ring’s own caked on icing provides a buttery pop that complements the drink’s vanilla and lemon combo.

This birthday is an afternoon-long affair, too. Even as I tried biking my calories off, an aftertaste of tangy vanilla custard lingered. And like any post-party funk, it was simultaneously uncomfortable, bittersweet, and a little sticky.

So while I was able to derive some enjoyment from its various ups and downs, this Birthday Cake Slurpee was just too high maintenance to ever be a repeat purchase. The Slurpee is barely worth a novelty buy, and I hope 7-Eleven tries a birthday cake milkshake for Slurpee’s 100th birthday party instead. It would be less texturally off-putting, and I likely won’t have any teeth left by then anyway.

Oh, and I hope they don’t hire that darn clown again. I think I saw the poor fella sleeping in his tiny car last night.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 fl oz – 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.19
Size: Small
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Half-melted cake batter Slurpee abdomens. Spiraling vanilla tentacles. Using a doughnut like a paper umbrella. The sweet feeling of air conditioning on my vanilla-stained face.
Cons: “Crying Clown” cake flavoring. Custard hangovers. Shouting “I am not an animal!” to helpless passerby. Becoming a real life Snorlax after too many doughnuts. Frosting-filled frankfurters.

REVIEW: Pillsbury Girl Scouts Thin Mints Brownie Mix

July 1, 2016August 12, 2023 Dan 4 Comments

Before we begin, let me say this: don’t Google “Pillsbury Doughgirl.”

I did so with the intention of cracking some joke about how the Pillsbury Doughboy shouldn’t be allowed on this box of Girl Scouts Thin Mints Brownie Mix, but instead I learned three things:

Yes, there was a female “Poppie Fresh” mascot introduced in the ‘70s, but fans still weirdly debate whether she’s the Doughboy’s wife or sister.
It only takes creepy internet photographers two Google image search results to make these mascots’ relationship disturbingly erotic.
The Urban Dictionary definition of “Pillsbury Dough Girl” would make even George Carlin blush.

So excuse me as I unplug my computer and mourn the loss of my innocence by cramming an 8”x8” rectangle of baked chocolate mint goodness into my mouth.

The brownie mix itself is pale brown and floury: the kind of messy stuff you’ll inevitably end up wearing like a cocoa powder apron. It tastes like a pulverized Junior Mint mixed with beach sand.

The recipe is so easy a blob of anthropomorphized crescent roll dough could make it. It only requires water, oil, and an egg, so just raid your nearest public swimming pool, Jiffy Lube, and McDonald’s All-Day Breakfast to procure the necessary ingredients.

After the specified 50 strokes of a spoon, what’s left is a decadent and thick chocolate batter studded with little square chocolate chunks. I popped a solid chocolate square in my mouth, and it popped back with a rich, slightly bitter chocolate mint bite —- a lot like an Andes Mint.

With a perfect golden ratio of chocolate to mint, the batter tasted so good raw I didn’t want to bake it. But salmonella might’ve been what killed the Pillsbury Doughgirl, so I let it sit in the oven for 30 minutes while wondered — in a chocolate daze — whether that minty fresh brown batter is what courses through the Doughboy’s veins to keep him Poppin’ Fresh.

When I finally opened my oven, a gust of mint chocolate scented air smacked me like a water balloon filled with Shamrock Shakes. After my bubbling cocoa lava brownies cooled, I dug in with the voracity of a cartoon caveman.

Yep, these taste exactly like Thin Mints. Like any sane human, I prefer my brownies gooey in the middle and crispy on the crust, and this helped recreate the “crisp cookie enrobed in creamy chocolate” textural contrast of the famous Girl Scout Cookie.

These Thin Mint Brownies lack a lot of the traditional vanilla-tinged, eggy fudge flavor of other brownies, mostly because the pleasant and pervasive buzz of peppermint usurps its place. The milk chocolate and sweetened cocoa brownie base, meanwhile, is still appropriately moist, and the formerly solid chocolate morsels provide welcome land mine bursts of magmatic, minty chocolate liqueur.

I can’t recommend these brownies to everyone, because loving mint is an obvious prerequisite. Girl Scout Cookie consumers tend to be loyal to a specific cookie, and because Thin Mints are tied for 3rd in my book — right behind Do-Si-Dos and my personal, peanut buttery Tagalong messiahs — I thought these brownies were just slightly above average.

On the other hand, those who can casually empty a roll of Thin Mints like it’s a peeled banana will give satisfied merit badges to these complexly chocolatized delights.

Wait, how half-baked and dumb do I have to be to think “chocolatized” is a real word? Did the Doughboy put another “special green” ingredient in these brownies?

(Nutrition Facts – 1/12 package, as prepared – 190 calories, 70 calories from fat, 8.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 18 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein..)

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 14.1 oz box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Authentic Thin Mint texture. Ooey-gooey-kablooey chocolate morsel explosions. Declaring “Tagalongology” as my official religion. Chocolatize me, Cap’n!
Cons: Fudge droughts. A criminal lack of Do-Si-Do brownies. Feeling half-baked after eating half-baked brownies. The number of red squiggles spellcheck gave this review.

REVIEW: Nabisco Red Velvet Chips Ahoy Cookies

June 27, 2016August 30, 2023 Dan 2 Comments

Wouldn’t life be more fun if humans were stuffed with sugary white crème?

Doctors would use frosting bags instead of syringes. Getting a paper cut could help you ice that last cupcake. Donating blood would be as easy as pushing down on your nose like a whipped cream nozzle. What a good ol’ gooey world it would be.

Hey, I see you groaning out there. Why don’t you try writing an entertaining introduction to yet another processed snack cookie?

Today’s Instagram-able and instantly grab-able treat is Red Velvet Chips Ahoy!, a new flavor from Nabisco’s cookie brand that loves pissing off autocorrect by requiring exclamation points in the middle of sentences.

Look Chips Ahoy!, just because you’ll never live up to big brother Oreo’s legacy doesn’t mean you have to take it out on us.

Speaking of brothers, Red Velvet Chips Ahoy! debuted alongside S’mores Chips Ahoy!. But while S’mores is the extroverted cookie that goes to bonfires, Red Velvet is the basement-dwelling “womanizer” who tries to act classy while lamenting to his body pillow.

Like any such basement “gentleman,” these cookies are super oily, more than a little buttery, and have a belly full of cream cheese. Slick and crumbly to the touch, my moist cookie practically melted under the weight of my gaze, let alone my teeth.

With one cookie down, I can already say these taste a lot like real red velvet cake. Well, maybe not “As Seen And Drooled Over on the Food Network” real, but definitely “As Purchased from the Walmart Bakery” real red velvet cake.

The maroon dough has a great fluffy, sweetened cocoa base inside of its squishy exterior, and there are persistent pulses of browned butter throughout.

I’m not sure if the cream cheese chips and crème core are supposed to taste the same, but as I crammed entire cookies into my mouth like they were plastic pizza disks into that retro Ninja Turtles toy we all owned, they certainly had the same flavor. The crème and chips are quite buttery, creamy, and buttercream frosting-y, with a slightly off-putting — but no less authentic — granulated texture.

As for red velvet cake’s signature, slightly sour tang, it can be tasted in these Red Velvet Chips Ahoy! cookies, but not if you nibble on ‘em slowly. To get “astronaut beverage” levels of biting tang, you have to cram entire cookies into your mouth like they’re obscure Ninja Turtles metaphors crammed into my reviews.

Red Velvet Chips Ahoy! cookies really do taste like 1-2 bite sized versions of grocery store red velvet cakes —- the kind you buy on clearance because they already have “Happy 74th Birthday Clarence” sloppily iced onto them. Though these cookies have a more tactile cookie “crust” than a real cake, they share all the buttery ups and gritty downs of the real thing.

They even have the faint chemical aftertaste from the food dye. While this artificialness may be off-putting to some, I’ve tasted eau de Red 40 in so many red velvet cakes that it’s become a welcome part of the red velvet experience.

These pleasant, yet shamelessly processed cookies would nonetheless work as a welcome snack at a summer picnic or a dessert pizza at an action figure birthday party.

And if that last picture didn’t clue you in:, let me tell you: I am not a S’mores Chips Ahoy! in real life.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 140 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 55 milligrams of sodium, 65 milligrams of potassium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein..)

Purchased Price: $2.59
Size: 9.6 oz
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Grocery store-grade red velvet authenticity. Moist and spongy cookie “crust.” The underrated joy of buttery saturated fat. Lifesaving cookie crème transfusions.
Cons: Mostly unwanted dye aftertaste. The necessary evil of gritty cream. Secretly being a basement-loving cookie in real life. Accidentally spilling cookies on my floor while checking nutrition facts.

REVIEW: Wendy’s Bacon Mozzarella Burger

June 9, 2016August 25, 2023 Dan

Listen close, boys and girls: today’s secret word is “twang.”

Yep, “twang:” everyone’s favorite flavor descriptor that’s fun to overuse and hard to explain, but easily recognizable when you taste it. And every time I use it in my review of Wendy’s new Bacon Mozzarella Burger, I want you to scream as loud as you can like it’s Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

My apologies to any librarians reading this.

There’s a lot going on in this sandwich, and as the kind of easily overwhelmed person who can’t even decide which grocery aisle to go down first, it helps for me to quickly break it down into parts. So after fixing my hair in the bun’s reflective gloss and becoming That Guy Publically Pointing A Camera At His Hamburger™, I started dissecting.

Let’s start with that Brioche bun: it has a hyper garlicky and buttery glaze on top of a fragile and well-browned shell that hides fluffy, doughy innards. It’s addictively lick-able, but make sure you don’t touch your camera lens after handling it, unless you like having your review photos look like something out of a hazy movie desert scene.

The festive leafy greens on my Bacon Mozzarella Burger ranged from “fresh, and crisp” to “dark and damp clumps that belong in an amateur production of Little Shop of Horrors.” However, every leaf does a good job of absorbing the addictive twanginess (AHHH!) of the Parmesan Garlic sauce.

And speaking of Parmesan Garlic sauce: Parmesan Garlic sauce! It’s easily the best part of this sandwich, as it combines a buttery base with a biting garlic twang and nostril-tickling notes of nutty cheese that’s been carefully aged in the remote hills of Italy by a wise hermit.

The combo of cheesy and creamy really did remind me of Italian restaurant Alfredo sauce. When doused in this sauce, the burger’s raw red onions deliver a welcome two-pronged bite effect. That’s right: this twang’s got fangs.

The beef burger itself is impressive, too. It tastes freshly browned and salted without being dry, while its core is juicy without being messy. I just wish the bacon and cheese had as much flavor. The Applewood Smoked Bacon tasted of neither apples nor fresh cedar planks, and it had little charcoal-smoked twang.

The mozzarella, meanwhile, was smooth but practically tasteless—it’s a boring cheese choice that really puts the sleepy “zz” in mozzarella.

It doesn’t matter too much, though. Just like in nature and in many other multi-ingredient burgers, when eaten as a whole, the Bacon Mozzarella Burger’s strongly flavored ingredients swallow many of the weaker ones. In this case, the bun, burger, and Parmesan Garlic sauce dominate with a tasty trio of buttered garlic beef.

It’s like an Olive Garden meal (with breadsticks) in squeezable sandwich form and on a drive-thru budget. Though my single burger rang up at $5.99, the suggested price is $4.69. At that dollar figure, I’d highly recommend this “Taste of Fast Food Italy Burger.”

Even though some ingredients underwhelmed, the rest were impressive enough that you’d think Wendy brought them back from a study abroad trip in Italy that she won’t shut up about for the next five years.

Now I think I need to stop licking butter off my camera and get out of this restaurant before the secret Wendy’s police hauls me off kicking, screaming, and babbling about twangy Italian cheese hermits.

(Nutrition Facts – Single burger – 620 calories, 330 calories from fat, 37 grams of fat, 15 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 120 milligrams of cholesterol, 1430 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 37 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: Single
Purchased at: Wendy’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Italian-American fusion you can eat at 70mph. Buttery Brioche worth ruining technology over. Parmesan cave gurus. Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Twang Chung tonight.
Cons: MozzZzzZZarella. Having to go to Home Depot for properly woody bacon. Burger price variability. Limp spinach swamp monsters. Eternally being “That Guy.”

REVIEW: Caramel & Chocolate Mentos Caramels

May 31, 2016August 14, 2023 Dan 6 Comments

Be careful, Mentos.

You’re walking on thin ice by bringing your Caramel & Chocolate Mentos Caramels into the Rolo Mafia’s territory. Sure, you may have sold your chewy chocolate and caramel bites in Europe for a while now, but things are different in America.

Rolo rules the chocolatey caramel morsel game here, and Don Rolo has been known to make some pretty unrefusable offers in order to discourage competition. Let’s just say that if you wake up tomorrow with the bleeding, severed head of a cherry gummy bear in your bed, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Apparently you’ve released a Caramel & Mint Dark Chocolate variety, too, but I couldn’t find those. Maybe the Junior Mint Yakuza already got to ’em.

I’m telling you, Mentos: thin ice. Speaking of which, you know why Ice Breakers haven’t broken into the chocolate caramel market? Because they don’t want to be sleeping with the Swedish Fishes, either.

But okay, maybe I’m not giving you enough credit. Maybe you can roll with the best of ’em. The Don says you have one shot, so time to put your honey-colored sugar goo where my mouth is.

I see your trick now, Mentos. You inverted my expectations by putting the chocolate inside the caramel. This way you can claim originality, just like how my bootleg “Nookie” shoes have a haphazardly inverted -— and totally not copyright infringing -— checkmark.

Sorry if it sounds like I’m being hard on you. That’s just because you’re being hard on my teeth. Despite your sticky, pliable caramel shell, I had to apply so much violent dental force to break through it that several anti-fracking petitioners showed up outside my window.

And speaking of dark brown stuff that lurks beneath the surface, your equally gummy chocolate center sure isn’t as valuable as crude oil. In fact, I could barely taste it. There’s a faint fudginess and an aftertaste of ho-hum, sweetened cocoa, but it doesn’t have the creaminess of a Rolo, the butteriness of a Reese’s, or even the mock carnivorous delight of a cheap chocolate bunny.

All I did taste was caramel: simple, super processed, and not at all salted. There’s a bit of that classic “mouthwatering browned sugar” caramel flavor, but it’s mostly like the generic caramel swirl you’d find in a disappointing, birthday party-ruining store brand ice cream.

Taken together, your Mentos Caramels really are just inside-out Rolos with inferior ingredients. If I may extend my analogy further, it’s like what would happen if Great Value tried to make an Uh-Oh! Oreo. The only people I could recommend these to are those who love Mary Janes, old saltwater taffy, and whatever other rock-hard, filling removing candies the old lady down the street hands out on Halloween.

Sure, Mentos Caramels might not taste that bad, and sure, I could just suck on them until they don’t suck my molars from their sockets, but there’s just no reason to pick them over a Rolo when I’m in the checkout aisle making an Impulsive Buy (See what I did there? Meta reference).

So for your crimes against candy and dental plans, Mentos, I’m sentencing you to “death by overused 2005 YouTube meme.” By which I mean Diet Coke.

Uhh, crap. I guess you win this round. Apparently Mentos Caramels only make the drink angrily fume for five straight minutes instead of erupting. I promise I’ll find some way to punish you.

Right after I finish chugging this bottle of flat, fudgy caramel cola.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available.)

Purchased Price: 99 cents
Size: 36 g tube
Purchased at: Meijer
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Fleeting fudge phantoms. Acceptable for deserted island caramel fixes. The legitimately tasty idea of Chocolate Caramel Coke. Chocolate bunny filets.
Cons: Counterfeit Uh-Oh! Rolos. Budget caramel. So long, dental plan! Having to suck my Mentos instead of chewing them. Organized candy crime.

Author: Dan

REVIEW: 7-Eleven Birthday Cake Slurpee

REVIEW: Pillsbury Girl Scouts Thin Mints Brownie Mix

REVIEW: Nabisco Red Velvet Chips Ahoy Cookies

REVIEW: Wendy’s Bacon Mozzarella Burger

REVIEW: Caramel & Chocolate Mentos Caramels

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