Tag: Pop-Tarts

I don’t bake, hang out at bakeries, or lollygag in the aisle at my local supermarket that consists of sugar, spice, and everything needed to make baked goods, so I didn’t know about the confetti cake.

If I lingered in the baking aisle like I linger in the magazine section at Waldenbooks Borders Barnes & Noble, I would’ve eventually noticed Duncan Hines makes a Confetti Cake Mix. But instead I had to learn about the confetti cake’s existence via Kellogg’s Limited Edition Frosted Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts.

I also probably would’ve learned about confetti cake earlier if one of the baker’s dozen or so of cake reality shows out there made one. Seriously, I’ve watched Ace of Cakes, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Cake Boss, Ultimate Cake Off, Fabulous Cakes, Cupcake Wars, DC Cupcakes, The Cupcake Girls, Last Cake Standing, Staten Island Cakes, and Have Cake, Will Travel, and not once did any of them bake this colorful dessert.

With its white frosting with colorful sprinkles on top, Limited Edition Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts look they contracted clown herpes, which I believe one can get by either being sprayed with water from a water squirter that looks like a flower or while stuffed in a small car with many other clowns. While the exterior looks like clown herpes, the multicolored cake-flavored filling looks like the pus that would ooze out of clown herpes sores.

Geez, I totally made these Pop-Tarts sound completely unappetizing, which, by the way, they are not.

The Limited Edition Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts are surprisingly tasty and they do taste like cake, albeit a slightly artificial cake. The crust does have a buttery flavor to it, but because that butteriness seems to linger in my mouth for a while it’s a little off-putting.

Okay, those last two sentences probably didn’t help make these Pop-Tarts sound appetizing, but, overall, I really like them and I think they’re yummy enough that I would put them somewhere at the bottom of my list of Top 10 Favorite Pop-Tarts Flavors of All-Time.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 190 calories, 35 calories from fat, 3.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat*, 1.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 0.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 15 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

*made with partially hydrogenated oil

Item: Limited Edition Frosted Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts
Price: $2.79
Size: 8 count
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Tastes like cake. Buttery crust. Tastes great toasted or not toasted.
Cons: Looks like they have clown herpes. Limited edition. Confetti sprinkles come off easily. The number of cake reality show. The number of brick and mortar booksellers.

When I die, I hope my tombstone doesn’t say, “Ate way too many Pop-Tarts,” even though I have eaten way too many Pop-Tarts.

Oh wait, I’m being cremated, so I hope my urn isn’t etched with “Ate way too many Pop-Tarts” or my body isn’t burned into ashes using a giant toaster oven.

If humans didn’t poop, I would have more variety of Pop-Tarts in my body than any grocery store on the planet. Just look at all the different Pop-Tarts I’ve eaten and reviewed over the years in a convenient linked list that totally looks like a ploy to increase this blog’s page views:

• Ice Creme Sandwich Pop-Tarts
• Wild! Grape Pop-Tarts
• Limited Edition Gingerbread Printed Fun Pop-Tarts
• Limited Edition Pumpking Pie Pop-Tarts
• Blueberry Muffin Pop-Tarts
• Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts
• 20% Fiber Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts
• Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts
• Whole Grain Strawberry Pop-Tarts
• Hot Chocolate Pop-Tarts
• Mint Chocolate Chip Pop-Tarts
• Hello Kitty Meow Berry Pop-Tarts
• GoTarts
• Apple Strudel Pop-Tarts
• Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts
• Cookie and Cream Pop-Tarts
• Caramel Chocolate Snak Stix Pop-Tarts
• French Toast Pop-Tarts
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts
• Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts
• S’more Pop-Tarts

If this list of Pop-Tarts flavors was instead a list of women I’ve slept with, I would be considered a manwhore and probably have/had spread an STD or two. Or three. Or everything that’s listed in the Oxford American Handbook of Clinical Medicine.

The latest Pop-Tarts flavor that has allowed me to add another notch to the side of my toaster is the Limited Edition Frosted Cherry Turnover Pop-Tarts.

If you look at the photo below, you’ll notice Kellogg’s is being very generous by calling these Pop-Tarts “frosted.” There’s no doubt that there’s frosting on top, but instead of a layer of it like with other frosted Pop-Tarts, it’s drizzled on much like you’d find on many actual cherry turnovers. This amount of frosting is equivalent to the amount of skin a Wicked Weasel bikini covers, which is just enough to make you wonder, “Why bother?”

There has been a regular Frosted Cherry Pop-Tarts for some time now with a proper layer of frosting on top. I thought the Limited Edition Frosted Cherry Turnover Pop-Tarts would taste exactly the same. So in order to find out, I increased my chances for Type II diabetes by picking up a box and eating regular Frosted Cherry Pop-Tarts.

After tasting both, the difference in flavor reminds me of the time my parents switched my usual Frosted Blueberry Pop-Tarts with Blueberry Pop-Tarts without frosting. Back then, my young taste buds could notice a significant difference. The unfrosted one was less sweet, the blueberry flavor was less pronounced, and the lack of sweetness and flavor made me cry until my parents could produce in front of me a Frosted Blueberry Pop-Tart.

The Limited Edition Frosted Cherry Turnover Pop-Tart is also less sweet and the cherry flavor is less pronounced than a regular cherry Pop-Tart. It’s as if the Pop-Tart’s nearly unfrosted crust doesn’t want the cherry to pop. But when I could taste the cherry filling, it didn’t have any artificial taste to it, which I guess there shouldn’t be since it’s made with real fruit (not only dried cherries, but also dried apples).

The Limited Edition Frosted Cherry Turnover Pop-Tarts are a disappointment and I’m glad they’re a limited edition. However, if you try them and adore them, don’t fret about them being limited edition. Even though they don’t taste exactly alike, grab a box of regular Cherry Pop-Tarts, scrape off the frosting, steal the frosting packet from a box of Toaster Strudels, drizzle some of it on top of the naked Pop-Tart, and there you go. The limited edition is limited no more.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 190 calories 30 calories from fat, 3.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 0.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 220 milligrams of sodium, 37 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Limited Edition Frosted Cherry Turnover Pop-Tarts
Price: $2.79
Size: 8 pack
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: It’s a limited edition. The box might be worth $1.99 in a future eBay auction. Frosted Cherry Pop-Tarts. Wicked Weasel bikinis.
Cons: Disappointing flavor. It has frosting, but really can’t be considered frosted. Being burned in a giant toaster oven. The difference between frosted and unfrosted Pop-Tarts. Kellogg’s still making unfrosted Pop-Tarts. Lame attempts to gain page views.

Many of you reading this may wonder why a 30-year-old man is reviewing Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts [22], a sugary abomination clearly designed solely to be eaten by children for, you know, “breakfast.”  (We know better, don’t we, kids?)  It’s pretty simple — reviewing a fine product like Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts [61] is the easiest way for me to meet my word quota without having to say anything of substance.  If you look carefully, you’ll realize this entire review is only five sentences long.  Can I get an “Amen!” for cheating the system?  A few more of these and I’ll finally be able to afford those pec implants.  I mean, penis smallification surgery!  Obviously.

But since we’re here, we might as well take a closer look at this affront to parents and dentists alike, by which of course I’m referring to Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts [161].  As a teenager I used to scarf down the S’mores variety with the same frequency that most of my peers were watching scrambled porn (€œI think that was a boob!  Sweet!€), but I haven’t had one of any kind in probably a decade.  Back then I never bothered reading nutritional information because I was swimming a billion hours a week (estimated) so it really didn’t matter, but apparently Pop-Tarts is not health food.  Crazy!

But what they lack in nutritional value, Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts [252] more than make up for in visual insanity.  The package alone has caused more seizures than a viewing of Tron on acid — you have the respective Kellogg’s and Pop-Tarts logos superimposed on an old-timey “ice cream shoppe” (the extra “pe” stands for quaintness) awning, with a helpful “New Flavor!” tag in one corner, and that’s just the top half.  The bottom shows a picture of the Pop-Tart itself with a real ice cream sandwich flying around it, leaving a rainbow comet trail in its wake that also proclaims it a good source of calcium.  Holy balls, I want to eat one of these and go fight a leprechaun.  You’re my bitch now, Lucky.  Removing one from the foil wrapper is only a slight letdown, as it does indeed boast an abundance of multicolored sprinkles, plus a chocolate swirl.  I can honestly say it’s the least boring Pop-Tart I’ve ever seen, which is not saying much, but there it is.

Obviously Kellogg’s can’t put actual ice cream inside their Pop-Tarts, yet have set themselves the task of making the brand taste as much like ice cream as possible, so I was curious about how they’d accomplish this.  The answer, it turns out, is “just cram a whole mess of frosting up in there.”  It really tastes more like marshmallow or cake frosting than ice cream, which is not such a bad thing.  The rainbow sprinkles further put me in the mindset of cake, to the point where “Ye Olde Birth-day Cake” would probably be a more accurate brand name than “Ice Cream Shoppe.”  The chocolate drizzle on the top does indeed look a bit like hot fudge, but unless you’ve got hypersensitive taste buds, you’re not going to be able to detect the chocolate — the frosting taste dominates over all, with perhaps a bit of sprinkle evident if my eyes aren’t just liking the pretty colors and arbitrarily assigning a taste to them.  And let’s be honest, any ice cream cookie sandwich you’ve ever eaten had either chocolate chips or M&Ms in the cookies, not just the rainbow sprinkles offered to us by Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts [616].

I wasn’t really disappointed by the Pop-Tarts because they still taste good, even if they don’t perfectly capture the flavor they’re trying to approximate.  They reminded me more than a little of the S’mores Pop-Tarts of my youth, just with less chocolate and a more overtly sugary flavor to the filling.  True, they taste more like a birthday cake than an ice cream sandwich, but since either is a perfectly acceptable treat when you’re a kid, I’d say they meet the needs of their target audience, as well as those of us just looking to recapture a bit of our youth.

Thanks Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts.  [727! Word quota accomplished!]

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 15 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and a myriad vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tarts
Price: $2.35
Size: 1 box of 8
Purchased at: Acme
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes good. Hearkening back to really unhealthy youth.  Saying the full name makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something.  Scrambled porn.  Talking smack to leprechauns.  Staring at box cheaper than buying drugs.  Can’t go wrong with cake.  Meeting word quota.
Cons: Wang surgery not cheap.  Scrambled porn actually 1979 4-H livestock semifinals.  Requires “toasting” device to unlock full potential.  Doesn’t taste like ice cream.  Hollow feeling at working the system.

The Limited Edition Gingerbread Printed Fun Pop-Tarts are a seasonal flavor that’s been around for a few years, but I never picked them up because the images printed on them freak me out.

The images include a gingerbread house with a working chimney and gingerbread men ice skating, snowboarding and being an ice hockey goalie. Seriously, they look like the hallucinations one would have if they decided to huff a spray snow can or wear a homemade Santa beard made with cotton balls and rubber cement.

Gingerbread men don’t snowboard or ice skate. They just lie there on their backs with their arms stretched out and legs spread open, like a prostitute letting time pass by, waiting for their pay, while their client does their thing on top of them, occasionally letting out an unenthusiastic moan or “You feel so good.”

Instead, Kellogg’s should’ve printed realistic holiday images on these Limited Edition Gingerbread Printed Fun Pop-Tarts, and I’m not talking about Santa or Christmas trees.

I’m talking about images of people camping out the day before Black Friday at a Best Buy, hoping to score a dirt cheap laptop or HDTV from a brand they’ve never heard of. I’m talking about images of two adults fighting over a toy in the middle of a Walmart. I’m talking about images of children finding out that Santa doesn’t exist when they see their parents stuffing their stockings on Christmas Eve. I’m talking about images of Jewish people having to explain to non-Jewish people what Hanukkah is and how to spell it.

Kellogg’s decided to go bareback with these Pop-Tarts and not make them frosted. I don’t think the Pop-Tarts’ brown crust makes a good canvas for the machine that stamps on the images because the combination of the crust and Federal Food Drug & Cosmetic Act-approved food coloring makes it looks like the Jersey Shore’s Snooki is snowboarding, ice skating and playing goalie for the New Jersey Devils on these Pop-Tarts.

Although they’re not frosted, there are sugar crystals sprinkled on top, which seems unnecessary because sprinkling sugar on an already sugary Pop-Tart is like pooping on poop. What really gives these Pop-Tarts their sugary, teeth-rotting goodness is the white filling inside them, which has a strong vanilla flavor with a bit of gingerbread. The filling combined with the mild gingerbread flavor of the pastry, creates a pleasant Pop-Tarts flavor, which makes me regret not overcoming the freaky images on these Pop-Tarts earlier.

Overall, I enjoyed the Limited Edition Gingerbread Printed Fun Pop-Tarts, especially when toasted and flipped over so I didn’t have to stare at an image of Snooki skiing while eating it.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry/50 grams – 200 calories, 45 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 220 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Limited Edition Gingerbread Printed Fun Pop-Tarts
Price: $3.99
Size: 12 pastries
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant gingerbread flavor. Best when toasted and flipped over. Vanilla filling also had a little gingerbread flavor. Sniffing rubber cement. Contains seven vitamins and minerals.
Cons: Not frosted. Images freak me out. Gingerbread images remind me of Snooki. Limited edition. Missing Thanksgiving dinner to wait in line at Best Buy for a cheap laptop.

According to the Kellogg’s Ice Creme Sandwich Pop-Tarts box, they have “25% Less Sugar Than Leading Toaster Pastries.” But if I’m not mistaken, aren’t Pop-Tarts the leading toaster pastry?

Or did I get sucked through a wormhole and end up in an alternate universe where Pillsbury Toaster Strudels are the leading toaster pastry and The Situation is a fat nobody from New Jersey who got his nickname because the person who enters the bathroom after him will end up in a bad situation?

Wait, let me tolerate MTV and TMZ to find out if I went through a wormhole.

Nope, still in the same universe where The Situation has six-pack abs, Snookie is still orange, there’s a particular hot tub in New Jersey that surprisingly can transmit STDs and Pop-Tarts are the leading toaster pastry.

But if I were in an alternate universe where Toaster Strudels were the ruling toaster pastry, the statement “25% Less Sugar Than Leading Toaster Pastries” wouldn’t be true, because most Toaster Strudels have nine grams of sugar, while these Ice Creme Sandwich Pop-Tarts have 11 grams.

So it seems Kellogg’s is admitting, in a slightly misleading way, that most of their Pop-Tarts are, as Def Leppard likes to say, sticky sweet. But at least these Ice Cream Sandwich Pop-Tarts have 25 percent less sugar than other Pop-Tarts, which have 15-17 grams of sugar. Although unfrosted Pop-Tarts, which I’m surprised still exist, have around 13 grams.

Twenty-five percent less sugar is fine and dandy, if you’re a mother trying to prevent your child from getting hyper or turning into The Situation from an alternate universe, but having less sugar makes the Ice Cream Sandwich Pop-Tarts the most insipid flavor Kellogg’s has ever offered, and that includes unfrosted Pop-Tarts and Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts.

These Pop-Tarts had the potential to be really good because I loves me some ice cream sandwiches, but the vanilla filling wasn’t filled with vanilla and the chocolate crust was chocolame. I tried them every way possible, as if I broke out the Kama Sutra of Pop-Tarts eating. But no matter how I tried them, they were still disappointing. Maybe if they artificially flavored them a bit more they would be enjoyable, but with the way they are now I’d really like these Ice Cream Sandwich Pop-Tarts to melt away.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry/48 grams – 190 calories, 45 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 11 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Frosted Ice Creme Sandwich Pop-Tarts
Price: $3.79
Size: 8 pack
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: 25 percent less sugar than the leading toaster pastry, i.e. Pop-Tarts. Contains vitamins and minerals. Use high fructose corn syrup. Kama Sutra.
Cons: Worst Pop-Tart flavor ever. Vanilla filling wasn’t filled with vanilla. Chocolate crust was chocolame. TMZ. MTV. The water in the Jersey Shore hot tub. Entering the bathroom after The Situation from an alternate universe uses it.