REVIEW: Boar’s Head Apple Pie Dessert Hummus

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Boar s Head Apple Pie Dessert Hummus Tub

What is Boar’s Head Apple Pie Dessert Hummus?

For some reason, and I don’t know why this happened, someone at Boar’s Head decided that apple pie and hummus belonged together. Weirdly, they were right.

How is it?

Boar s Head Apple Pie Dessert Hummus Top

This hummus does its job of mimicking apple pie a little too well. I was expecting a vague apple flavor and tons of sugary sweetness, but it’s more complex than that. The flavor actually tastes like the syrup-soaked pieces of piecrust that you get in the bottom of a dish of any halfway decent pie, also known as “the best part.” I was expecting them to go heavy on the apple, and instead they went all-in on the crust. The usual chickpea flavor of hummus was barely even discernable.

This left me in a weird kind of dessert purgatory, because even though the flavor evoked pie, the grainy hummus texture did not. My mouth kept looking for the tactile feeling of a crisp and buttery pie shell, and obviously I didn’t get it. After polishing off a full serving of the hummus, I was ready to run out to the store and buy myself a real apple pie…which I could then cover in this apple pie hummus, forming a kind of pie-ception. Yeah, that’s definitely going to happen.

Boar s Head Apple Pie Dessert Hummus Cookie

I tried to mitigate the problem by adding more texture. After eating the hummus alone, I spread some of it on one of the Stella D’Oro Margherite cookies I always keep on hand. It was enjoyable, but the texture of the cookie wasn’t enough like pie to solve the problem. The prospect of trying to match the hummus with different kinds of cookies is appealing, however.

Anything else you need to know?

Boar’s Head also puts out a dark chocolate hummus, which is probably the better flavor because chocolate comes in all kinds of different textures already. I had the chocolate variety about a year ago and was impressed with just how chocolatey it was, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised at how much this hummus tasted like its namesake.

Conclusion:

If you’re curious about dessert hummus and/or are looking for some kind of sweet spread, both this and the chocolate variety are solid buys that will satisfy a sugar craving. But if you want pie – and I mean if there’s even a snowball’s chance in hell that you might ever, at some conceivable point, want an apple pie – buy the apple pie. As for me, I’m going to buy a giant Dutch apple pie tomorrow and send Boar’s Head an invoice.

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 8 oz
Purchased at: King Kullen
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2 Tbsp) 60 calories, 2 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 9 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 5 grams of sugar (5 grams of added sugar), and 1 gram of protein.

REVIEW: AHA Fuji Apple + White Tea, Blackberry + Lemon, and Pineapple + Passionfruit Sparkling Water

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AHA Fuji Apple + White Tea Blackberry + Lemon and Pineapple + Passionfruit Sparkling Water Cans

Since its debut in 2020, AHA Flavored Sparkling Water has become a standout in the beverage aisle due to its refreshing flavor combinations and vibrant, colorful packaging. The Coca-Cola-backed brand, along with popular competitors like La Croix, bubly, and Spindrift, leads a surge in seltzer sales by appealing to crowds who want a healthier, just-as-fizzy alternative to soda.

When AHA first appeared on shelves, I had only dipped my toe in the sparkling water, uh, waters and generally missed the sweetness I’d become accustomed to in other carbonated beverages. But, determined to cut back on my diet soda intake, I bought a few cans of AHA, which lists only carbonated water and natural flavors as ingredients. Two years later, the brand remains a favorite.

At my local Giant Eagle, I recently discovered three new AHA flavors: Fuji Apple + White Tea, Blackberry + Lemon, and Pineapple + Passionfruit. I exclaimed, “Aha!” before loading them into my cart because I couldn’t resist. (One day, you’re cool, and before you know it, you’re making puns at the grocery store.)

AHA Fuji Apple White Tea

First, I sampled the Fuji Apple + White Tea flavor. Unlike the other two flavors, this variety is caffeinated, containing 30 milligrams of caffeine per can (about the equivalent of 1/2 cup of green tea). It is also the only variety to include electrolyte sources (calcium and magnesium chlorides and potassium bicarbonate) in its list of ingredients.

Although I don’t often gravitate toward apple flavors, I love this product. The water’s carbonation had the same sharp, refreshing bubble quality as other AHA products. It perfectly recalled the taste of a sweet, crisp Fuji. The white tea component was mellow but still detectable in the drink’s smooth finish. Also a fan of AHA’s caffeinated Citrus + Green Tea and Mango + Black Tea flavors, I will add this newest variety to my rotation.

AHA Blackberry Lemon

Up next: Blackberry + Lemon. This flavor sounded the best to me on paper but was my least favorite of the three. I detected no lemon notes, which left a dominating blackberry flavor that didn’t taste very realistic. Its perfume-y quality left a harsh aftertaste. The product is not undrinkable, but I won’t buy it again.

AHA Pineapple Passionfruit

Last was Pineapple + Passionfruit. This one made me double-check the ingredients list for fruit juice or sugar. Nope. The sweet, smooth tropical taste, including a subtly tart undercurrent of passionfruit, was purely the product of natural flavors. This product was not only my favorite of the bunch, but also a rival to my favorite AHA flavor, Peach + Honey.

AHA Fuji Apple + White Tea Blackberry + Lemon and Pineapple + Passionfruit Sparkling Water Glasses

“Aha!” is defined as “an expression of triumphant discovery, surprise, or derision,” so it is appropriate that my reaction to AHA’s new flavors involved a little bit of all three. See? Zero calories, zero sweeteners, and zero sodium do not have to equal boring.

Purchased Price: $3.99 each
Purchased at: Giant Eagle
Size: 8 pack of 12 oz cans
Rating: 9 out of 10 (Fuji Apple + White Tea), 10 out of 10 (Pineapple + Passionfruit), 4 out of 10 (Blackberry + Lemon)
Nutrition Facts: (per 12 oz can – all varieties) 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.

REVIEW: H-E-B Limited Edition Vanilla Milkshake Wavy Potato Chips

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H E B Limited Edition Vanilla Milkshake Wavy Potato Chips Bag

What are H-E-B Limited Edition Vanilla Milkshake Wavy Potato Chips?

I often see new interesting items in the SPOTTED section of this site that I never see in person. Sometimes that’s just bad luck, sometimes it’s a product I would never buy, and sometimes it’s region-specific. A couple of weeks ago, a chip caught my eye so strikingly that I had to seek it out.

Exclusive to Texas-based grocery store H-E-B, this gorgeous teal bag is part of the Late Night Flavors collection, promising the flavor of a vanilla milkshake on wavy chips.

I put out a request to my Instagram followers, and someone in San Antonio was down for the hunt! Shout out to Lauren T for not only going to H-E-B and finding the chips but shipping them more perfectly than any other junk food oddity I’ve bought online (like that one time I purchased Cola Pringles from South Korea).

How are they?

H E B Limited Edition Vanilla Milkshake Wavy Potato Chips Pour

Much like a trip to the diner for a creamy shake and hot fresh, salty fries after a night of revelry, these chips are awesome. It’s an undisputed fact that wavy chips bring more flavor and crunch than their flatter counterparts, and these are excellent crunchy chips. Not as crunchy as a harder-cooked kettle style chip and not as greasy as the iconic Ruffles, these have a firm but gentle crunch akin to the Lays Wavy line.

The flavor strikes an even 50/50 split of sweet and salty with a strong undercurrent of pure potato. They aren’t too aggressively sweet or salty, which allows them to stay in balance as a crave-able chip that doesn’t steer too far into weird “is this dessert?” territory. These chips would have been a confusing train wreck if they were chocolate-based, but the nice neutral blanket of mild vanilla keeps them smooth and just sweet enough to keep me endlessly snacking in glee.

Anything else you need to know?

H E B Limited Edition Vanilla Milkshake Wavy Potato Chips Closeup

Have you ever dunked your fries into a fast food vanilla shake? That’s exactly what these taste like. I prefer to eat my fries and shake separately but for them to be combined into one flavor and bagged is fully a-okay by me. Fried potatoes and sweetened milk are a helluva tasty combo and one that should be explored more.

Conclusion:

Would I pay $20 to have these shipped to me again out of pure curiosity? No. But if I lived in Texas, near one of H-E-B’s 340 stores in Texas and Mexico, I would absolutely grab another bag the second these are gone because they’re enjoyable to eat.

Purchased Price: $2.55 (minus my crazy shipping scheme)
Size: 7 oz bag
Purchased at: H-E-B
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (11 chips/28 grams) 150 calories, 9 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.

REVIEW: Haagen-Dazs City Sweets Ice Cream Collection

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Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Pints

In its new City Sweets collection, Haagen-Dazs pairs some of its beloved ice cream flavors with classic city snacks and desserts you might eat with one hand while strolling around town. Available in Dulce De Leche Churro, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel, Summer Berry Cake Pop, Coffee Chocolate Brownie, and Black & White Cookie, it’s pretty clear right away that some of these flavors make more sense than others.

Black & White cookies are an iconic New York treat, and churros and pretzels are things I’d associate with grabbing from a street cart on the corner, but cake pops seem to have made their way into the lineup solely by virtue of being on a stick. I guess they have them at Starbucks, and it’s hard to walk around a city without bumping into thirty of those. Maybe San Antonio or Atlanta is known for their cake pop culture and I wasn’t aware? Coffee could certainly be something you’d walk around with, and a brownie is handheld, but that one doesn’t exactly scream “city” to me either. That being said, I’ve never been one to turn down a brownie regardless of its credibility as street fare, so let’s find out if these pints deserve a place in my bodega’s freezer.

Black & White Cookie

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Black White Top

Black & White Cookie combines “vanilla bean ice cream with soft cookie pieces and ripples of chocolate frosting.” Beneath this description, they encourage us to “Forget the cookie and grab your spoon,” and I agree with Haagen-Dazs here. I prefer this flavor in ice cream format more than any Black & White cookie I’ve ever eaten.

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Black White Cookie Spoon

There are a very generous number of cookie pieces throughout the pint, and they mimic the soft texture of a Black & White cookie surprisingly well without ending up soggy. There are actually so many pieces that I think I got at least one in just about every bite. While you don’t really notice them tasting lemony, I did see lemon oil in the ingredients list, which I think is often typical of the cookie base in these treats. Points for authenticity, Haagen-Dazs. The frosting ripple tastes and feels like actual frosting and not just a generic chocolate sauce. I anticipated this pint being fairly boring, but it ended up being my favorite of the bunch.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 410 calories, 24 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 36 grams of total sugars, 28 grams of added sugars, 6 grams of protein

Coffee Chocolate Brownie

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Coffee Chocolate Brownie

Coffee Chocolate Brownie features “classic coffee ice cream, gooey brownies, rich espresso chocolate sauce, and crunchy cocoa nibs.” I’ve had better coffee ice creams, but I still like the base here, and while it’s not as present as some of the swirls in the other flavors, the espresso chocolate sauce does give a nice coffee flavor boost when you get some.

I have two main issues with this flavor. First, it seems that most of the cocoa nibs have been pulverized, so instead of getting a crunchy bit here and there, a lot of spoonfuls are kind of gritty (is this the city tie-in?). The other problem is the brownie pieces in my pint were almost nonexistent. For as many cookie pieces as there were in Black & White, I had to go digging to find any brownies, and when I did, they were too small to be anything but the suggestion that possibly a brownie had once been nearby. There weren’t any chunks large enough to have a gooey texture, and if brownie wasn’t in the name of the ice cream, I couldn’t have told you this contained brownies.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 360 calories, 20 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 130 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 31 grams of total sugars, 25 grams of added sugars, 6 grams of protein

Dulce De Leche Churro

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Dulce de Leche Churro

In Dulce De Leche Churro, “cinnamon churro ice cream and thick, gooey dulce de leche sauce” get paired up with “crispy, cinnamon-y churro pieces.” This ice cream stands out to me as creamier than some of the others, and the base does taste like cinnamon churros and not just cinnamon. I really like it. The dulce de leche ribbon is thick and gooey as advertised. The churro pieces themselves are plentiful, but unfortunately, they fall into two categories. Some are crispy, almost surprisingly so, more reminiscent of crunchy cereal pieces than the crispy outside of fried dough. There’s an audible crunch to them, and my first few bites had only these pieces.

It came as a different sort of surprise when I ran across one of the non-crispy pieces. They look the same as the crispy ones but bloated, like whatever they were coated in failed to keep the ice cream from saturating the interiors. These pieces have a chewy (not in a good way), waxy texture to them, and I was tempted to spit them out. They seem like maybe they’re not supposed to be in there, like part of the cardboard container somehow ended up getting mixed in. If you can avoid or overlook these pieces, this flavor might be the best one, but that’ll take some careful eating because there are a lot of them.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 390 calories, 23 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 gram of dietary fiber, 37 grams of total sugars, 30 grams of added sugars, 5 grams of protein

Summer Berry Cake Pop

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Summer Berry Cake Pop Bowl

In Summer Berry Cake Pop, we’re given the duo of strawberry ice cream and sweet cream ice cream with “perfect, fluffy cake pieces” finished with “tangy raspberry sauce.” I like the strawberry ice cream, and the sweet cream flavor, while not particularly noticeable as sweet cream, is fine enough. When it comes to the cake, though, this is another instance of the mix-in being a dud. There are more cake chunks than there were brownies, and the cake pieces don’t detract from my enjoyment like the weird churro ones did. Instead, they’re just kind of there. They don’t really taste like anything, and there’s definitely nothing fluffy about them. Are cake pops ever fluffy? They’re kind of an underwhelming dessert to begin with. When you take fluffy cake, tear and smoosh it to pieces, then smash those pieces back together, you’re left with a denser and arguably less enjoyable product than you started with. So if you take this into account, the cake pieces here probably do taste like what you might expect from a cake pop. The best feature of this pint is the raspberry sauce thickly swirled throughout, and it delivers the tanginess it claims.

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Summer Berry Cake Pop Closeup

Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 320 calories, 20 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 29 grams of total sugars, 23 grams of added sugars, 5 grams of protein

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Top

For Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel, Haagen-Dazs says, “our incredible chocolate ice cream and thick, creamy peanut butter are complemented by crunchy, lightly salted pretzel pieces.” As a huge pretzel person, I was eager to dig into this one but immediately realized I’d have to exercise some patience. It was clear upon opening that it needed some time to soften up, and even after a few minutes when I tried to spoon some out, I basically picked the top third of the pint up in a solid piece revealing the peanut butter to be totally in the center, more like what you’d find in a pint with a “core” than one with peanut butter dispersed throughout. This core is solid, and I had to hack at it to distribute it throughout a serving. Otherwise, it’s all chocolate ice cream with no peanut butter flavor.

Haagen Dazs City Sweets Collection Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel

The pretzel pieces are individually coated in chocolate which keeps them enjoyably crunchy and adds a deeper chocolate flavor than the ice cream alone. There are a lot of them, and you’re likely to have one in each spoonful, so you know this is a pretzel ice cream. While not mentioned in the description, there are also fudgy chocolate pieces that don’t have pretzel centers. When I’m getting sad that I don’t taste any peanut butter, one of these fudgy pieces shows up to make me forget I’m missing a component.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 450 calories, 30 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 190 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of total carbohydrates, 3 gram of dietary fiber, 28 grams of total sugars, 21 grams of added sugars, 9 grams of protein

There was potential with this series, but most of the flavors missed the mark. Black & White Cookie does its namesake proud and is way worth picking up, but most of them melted under the bright lights. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to get the others, but none of them are so bad that you’ll drop them in the park for the pigeons…except maybe those soggy churro pieces you set aside.

Purchased Price: $4.79 each
Size: 14 oz
Purchased at: Jewel-Osco

REVIEW: DiGiorno Stuffed Pizza Bites

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DiGiorno Stuffed Pizza Bites Bags

Tearing open my two bags of DiGiorno Stuffed Pizza Bites (which I keep wanting to call pizza rolls à la Totino’s), I was hit with the powerful feeling that I’d just gotten home from fourth grade soccer practice and was racing to prep my afternoon snack before my favorite cartoon started.

The bag suggests three ways to cook these adorable little Hot Pockets lookalikes, but since I don’t have an air fryer, I was limited to using my oven (for 22 minutes at 350° F) and microwave (for 1 minute and 15 seconds). Regardless of appliance used, the cooked pizza bites emitted the immensely comforting smell of warm dough, grassy herbs, and tangy marinara sauce, with just a hint of processed uncanniness to really drive the nostalgia home.

The bag advises you to use the oven or air fryer if you like a crispier texture and the microwave if you seek a softer pizza bite. The bites that I baked in the oven were impressively firm with a satisfying crunch. The microwaved ones, though… varied. One of the two that I put in the microwave came out noticeably softer but not mushy or falling apart as I’d feared, and in fact, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I preferred it to its oven-ed counterparts. The other, though, somehow ended up extremely overcooked, a thick brick with even the filling nuked stiff. Whoops. Anyway!

DiGiorno Stuffed Pizza Bites Outsides

The two flavors were unsurprisingly pretty much impossible to distinguish just by looking at their outsides, though even after a bite I couldn’t immediately identify which was which. The one that I eventually pegged as the four-cheese was an oozy, vodka sauce-looking shade of orange. The other was flecked with dark red chunks that I immediately guessed were flecks of tomato from the sauce, but ended up being the pepperoni. Whoops again!

DiGiorno Stuffed Pizza Bites Insides

The four cheese flavor’s titular cheeses are reduced fat mozzarella, parmesan, asiago, and romano. The best way I can think to describe the potent results of mashing them all together is “funky.” I could make out a fresh, creamy flavor that probably came from the mozzarella, but there were also undertones of sharpness. According to Google, that would be the Romano. There’s also a sort of earthy nuttiness that Google also tells me is typical for both parmesan and asiago. With the pepperoni flavor, mozzarella is the only one from the cheesy cacophony invited to the pizza party, so the taste was dominated instead by the meaty, faintly spicy tang of the pepperoni and marinara sauce. The four cheese flavor wasn’t bad, but I definitely preferred the simpler, more classic taste of the pepperoni.

At the end of the day, these were about what you’d expect from a pizza roll, er, bite. I appreciated their unique heft (“2x the size per piece,” the bag crows), but the experience wasn’t notably different than, say, the aforementioned Totino’s. These pizza bites might have briefly flashed me back to my childhood, but now that I’m old enough to simply order myself an actual pizza instead of rooting through the freezer for my mom’s purchases to satisfy my dough-sauce-cheese cravings, I’d rather just do that.

Purchased Price: $6.49 each
Size: 14 oz bag
Purchased at: ShopRite
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (3 bites) Four Cheese – 200 calories, 8 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 340 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 7 grams of protein. Pepperoni – 230 calories, 12 gram of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 550 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 7 grams of protein.

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