REVIEW: Dr Pepper Peeps Marshmallows

/ / Reviews / 3 Comments

What are they?

This Walmart-exclusive flavor of the Easter perennial brings the classic soda into marshmallow form.

How are they?

It has probably been two decades since I last drank Dr Pepper, but when I smelled the carton of burgundy chicks, I could almost feel the carbonation in my mouth. Yep, that’s a Dr Pepper scent!

When I eat them, the flavor is diluted. It still tastes like Dr Pepper, but marshmallow is more prominent. Oh, and if you’re wondering, there’s no caffeine in the ingredients.

Dr Pepper diehards (and there are a lot of them) will probably want a stronger flavor. However, these are tame and safe enough that you could put them in Easter baskets for the whole family and everyone would be pleased with them. (As long as they like Peeps in general, that is.)

Anything else you need to know?

Back in 2018, I reviewed Peeps mystery flavors, and I guessed with 30 percent confidence that one of the flavors was Dr Pepper. I was wrong (it was blue raspberry), but I can’t help but wonder if my review gave Just Born the idea for this year’s product.

Conclusion:

Dr Pepper is a worthy addition to the selection of flavored Peeps, even if the flavor could be stronger.

Purchased Price: $1.36
Size: 3 oz package
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (4 chicks) 110 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 24 grams of sugar (including 24 grams of added sugar), and 1 gram of protein.

REVIEW: Burger King Mexican Original Chicken Sandwich

/ / Reviews / 4 Comments

I feel like there’s some really clever joke that does something with the idea, “Hey, you got your Taco Bell in my Burger King!” but I can’t actually think of the joke; I just know it’s out there, somewhere, in the ether. Maybe “My Burger King may taste like Taco Bell today, but at least my Dunkin’ doesn’t taste like Arby’s!” Nah. I’m going to need to workshop this one.

We’ve been getting some dinners from Burger King lately since the BK in the area is right on the way home from my daughter’s dance class, so it was very convenient to try out this new sandwich. Apparently, there are other special chicken sandwiches on offer right now: an Italian-style and an American-style, but the Mexican is the only new offering — others are returning fare.

I’ve always been fond of the BK long-and-thin chicken sandwich, so it was an appealing package right out of the paper sack. When I opened the sandwich up to see its beautiful innards, I saw a whole bunch of green specks that looked a bit like grains of rice. Later, I would find out these are little pieces of fried (and crunchy) jalapeno. I purposely didn’t look up the components for this item before tasting it so I would take note of what I was actually tasting and not what I was “supposed” to taste, so the little green bits were mysterious at first, although now I can’t imagine what else they could have been besides jalapeno. The other spicy component is a queso that is slathered on the buns.

For the first few bites, it was just a regular BK chicken sandwich. I asked my husband, “Are you sure you got me the Mexican one?” He gave me a “How stupid do you think I am?” look and I sheepishly returned to eating my strangely-oblong sandwich. Fortunately, it was at that point I started biting into the little jalapeno crumbs of joy and a pleasant spice began burning my mouth. This is actually pretty spicy, with the queso cheese bringing most of the heat, but as I’ve mentioned recently, I am new to spicy food so my “really spicy” might be someone else’s “meh, whatever.” That said, this sandwich was about as fiery as my food can get before it becomes a problem and I need a drink (and possibly some consoling), so it’s definitely not bland.

So, between the jalapeno and the queso, there’s definitely some spicy action going on here, but is it really “Mexican?” I can’t decide. With those two components, the sandwich definitely should taste Tex-Mex, but something about the stolid flavor of the original BK chicken sandwich seems to fight against that. I definitely want to have it again though, so it’s clear BK did something right. Even though they don’t carry the brunt of the spice quotient, those tiny little green jalapeno fried bits are addictive; as soon as I finished my sandwich, I ate all the little jalapeno pieces that had fallen onto my wrapper.

There’s something in me that doesn’t want to give this sandwich a high score because it’s not “really” Mexican, but….so what? More importantly, it was delicious, and deliciously spicy. Now I have a new dinner order for dance class nights.

Purchased Price: $5.29
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 680 calories, 31 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 1900 milligrams of sodium, 75 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 28 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Ben & Jerry’s Lights! Caramel! Action! Ice Cream

/ / Reviews

Ben & Jerry’s is one of the few companies that make a concerted effort to do the right thing. Whether you agree with its specific politics or not, B&J often uses its platform to raise awareness and money for lesser known causes, and in a world consumed by greed, that’s an admirable trait to have. The latest collaborative ice-cream-for-good comes courtesy of director Ava DuVernay and her ARRAY Alliance, dedicated to advancing social justice through art. Lights! Caramel! Action! is vanilla ice cream with salted caramel swirls, graham cracker swirls, and gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough.

As often as B&J advocates for good, they also like to slightly tweak already tried and true recipes and rebrand them with a celebrity endorsement — I’m looking at you, Mint Chocolate Chance — and that tends to yield mixed results. This pint combines some all-time great components into one container that’s no doubt good, but a bit too familiar.

The vanilla base is excellent, like, really, really good. Very smooth and creamy with a dense floral milky taste that’s as good or better than any B&J vanilla I can recall scooping in the last couple of years. Perhaps I haven’t had straight vanilla from the company in a while, but I’m impressed. I always found B&J vanilla to be satisfactory, and this exceeds that — simply delicious.

The chocolate chip cookie dough is also, unsurprisingly, fantastic. “Gobs” is absolutely the right way to describe them because they are big boulders of gritty brown sugar dough with crunchy chocolate that have been a hit since their inception in 1984. Undeniably delicious, but when paired with the vanilla base, it is exactly like a flavor that’s been on grocery store shelves since 1991 — essentially my whole ice cream-eating life.

Where this flavor switches things up is the dual swirls of salted caramel and graham cracker, and they’re both good but not quite as plentiful as I would like. The graham cracker brings a buttery and slightly salted grit to the profile, which interestingly overlaps with the dough a bit in its texture and pint presence. I always want more graham, but the amount here, although not super heavy, is satisfactory given the epic amount of dough and some of their shared characteristics.

The one component I really want more of is the salted caramel swirl. I’ve been lucky in my many years of reviewing ice cream to get some massive pools of caramel, but this is much more like last year’s Chewy Gooey Cookie — relatively thin and lacking any sticky sweet density. The caramel is there, and I enjoy what little I can taste. But being in the name, I wanted more of a caramel-y kick to take this creation to another level. As great as the vanilla base is, I think this could have been even better, more true-to-name, and unique, with a caramel base to give this flavor more caramelized sugary depth and character to go along with the iconic dough, incredible pun, and gritty graham.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free product sample from Ben & Jerry’s. Doing so did not influence my review.

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: One Pint
Purchased at: Received from Ben & Jerry’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup, 144g) 390 calories, 21 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 47 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 33 grams of total sugars, and 5 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Lucky Charms S’mores Cereal

/ / Reviews / 2 Comments

Remember last year’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms Mix Cereal? It’s understandable if you don’t because I also forgot about it and was only reminded about it when I searched for a similar product I knew existed a competing cereal company offered. But this new Lucky Charms S’mores Cereal is like the sequel to that, but with less popular cereals and a less verbose name. It’s basically Chocolate Lucky Charms mixed with what appears to be Golden Grahams.

What’s with the “what appears to be”?

After trying the square-shaped pieces on their own, I’m not sure they’re actually Golden Grahams. But it’s got to be, right? Golden Grahams is under the Big G tent. Why develop a slightly different cereal when there’s already an option? Ugh. This is getting me worked up. I’ve put too much effort and thought into this. If only I had some old-timey graham crackers that Sylvester Graham made to bring down my excitement.

I’m suspicious about the ridged-cereal pieces because, while they do have a mild flavor that reminds me of Golden Grahams, there’s also a taste that I would describe as lightly charred. Look, as someone who likes their marshmallows slightly burnt because it adds a unique flavor and TOTALLY not because I like fire a little too much, that char can be part of the s’mores experience. But it’s odd to be tasting it with a cereal. Granted, I notice that unusual flavor when eating those squares separately. But when mixed with the other pieces, it’s not noticeable at all.

What’s slightly more noticeable in the cereal as a whole, but not to a level that I’d like, is the graham. With most spoonfuls, it doesn’t stand out among the chocolatey pieces and sugary marshmallows, and because of that, it’s hard for me to say that this is s’mores-like. That’s especially the case when the chocolatey flavor leaks into the milk. It pretty much tastes like Chocolate Lucky Charms, which is still magically delicious, but this doesn’t have a magical s’mores flavor.

Lucky Charms S’mores Cereal is a decent part of a complete breakfast, but it’s also a slight disappointment. But, to make it compelling and a product I won’t forget, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms Mix Cereal, I’ve been thinking that I’m in an alternate universe where Golden Grahams is the beloved square-shaped cereal that has its own Grahamdust and Chocolate Lucky Charms is the original.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free product sample from General Mills. Doing so did not influence my review.

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 11 oz box
Purchased at: Received from General Mills
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup – cereal only) 140 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 240 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar (including 12 grams of added sugar), and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Cap’n Crunch’s Birthday Crunch Cereal

/ / Reviews / 4 Comments

What is it?

Despite looking older than his age for several decades now, Cap’n Crunch is turning 60 this year, and as such, he has made himself a celebratory birthday cake-flavored cereal. What, you don’t make your own birthday dessert? Well, LOOK AT YOU, Mr. I-Actually-Have-Friends-and-Family-Who-Love-Me.

How are they?

Distinctly birthday cake-y. What is “birthday cake” flavor, anyway? Generic vanilla sugar cake? Anyway, the Cap’n manages to capture the flavor admirably with his multi-colored misshaped balls. If I had one complaint, it would be that the flavor is a bit muted; if a full-on grade school birthday party cake is a 10, these were about a 5. Depending on your love for birthday cake flavor, this is either a good or bad thing.

Anything else you need to know?

As mentioned above, this cereal is entirely composed of multi-colored, oddly shaped balls. There are no yellow pillows (barrels?) or brightly and solidly colored “berries.” File this under “mildly interesting.”

Also, it appears from the picture on the box that the irregularly shaped pieces are supposed to be singularly colored; maybe the dye wasn’t set when my box was packed because what I ended up with looks like a hippie’s shirt closet.

Conclusion:

If you like birthday cake-flavored things and Cap’n Crunch, you will likely enjoy this version of the Quaker classic. Just try not to get hung up on the fact that the 60-year-old Cap’n has no one who cares enough to make him a cake.

Purchased Price: $4.78
Size: 14.8 oz
Purchased at: Hy-Vee
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (38 g) 150 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 14 grams of sugar (including 14 grams of added sugar), and 2 grams of protein.

Scroll to Top