REVIEW: Milk Bar Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake Ice Cream

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Milk Bar Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake Ice Cream Pint

What is Milk Bar Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake Ice Cream?

It’s a mouthful in every sense! True to the Milk Bar standard, this ice cream loads in the flavors and textures to your heart’s content. Packed into the seasonal candy cane cookie dough flavored ice cream are crushed candy cane bits, chocolate-flavored chunks, a gooey marshmallow swirl, and the renowned cornflake crunch.

Milk Bar Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake Ice Cream Bowl

How is it?

The ice cream base was a perfect mix of sweet candy peppermint flavor and toasty, buttery cookie dough flavor. Really impressive and not at all overwhelming in mint, as some minty ice creams can be. Plus, despite having a reindeer line-up’s worth of inclusions, everything was noticeably present and accounted for upon the first scoop.

Milk Bar Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake Ice Cream Marshmallow

I quickly encountered a large swirl of gooey marshmallows and was surprised by how much marshmallow flavor it really had. You lose the marshmallow flavor somewhat when this swirl isn’t the majority of a bite, as it’s the most subtle flavor of the lot. That being said, I thought it was authentic and a fun texture change true to the gooey description.

The candy cane crunchies and chocolate-flavored pieces were pretty standard and added a nice crunch and sweetness without being too waxy. Nothing overly innovative there, but they balance out the other sweet and creative inclusions.

Milk Bar Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake Ice Cream Cornflakes

The real pay dirt of this ice cream is the cornflake crunch. Anyone who has attempted to bake the Momofuku Milk Bar cookies will recognize this golden nugget of an ingredient. I found a large pocket of cornflake crunch and dug right in. This was my favorite part of this ice cream by far, as it delivered crunch, cereal milk sweetness, and a buttery balance.

Anything else you need to know?

Just like its Gingerbread counterpart, this flavor is seasonal. So don’t cut it down to the wire like a Turbo Man shopping trip. Go find this flavor now while you still can.

Conclusion:

Despite a possibly overwhelming number of inclusions, this ice cream was balanced in sweetness and texture variety. The cornflake crunch stood out, while the candy cane crunch and chocolate-flavored pieces helped round out the standard expectations. One of the better iterations of a mint ice cream I’ve ever had.

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 14 oz
Purchased at: Whole Foods
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 380 calories, 21 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 85 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates, <1 grams of fiber, 33 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza

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Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza Box

What is Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza?

Red Baron’s new “Fully Loaded” product line is named for its generous toppings. This pepperoni variety promises two kinds of pepperoni tossed among mozzarella cheese and a zesty tomato sauce. Also available are Five Cheese and Supreme varieties.

How is it?

As an avid fan of both junk food and the written word, I like to luxuriate in product descriptions. Finding just the right word can evoke glorious imagery. As I read the official Fully Loaded descriptions on Red Baron’s website, certain phrases characterizing this new product line’s toppings appealed to my inner word nerd: “loaded,” “mounds,” “piled high.”

What bounty! What splendor!

Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza Frozen

Unpackaged, the pizza is unfettered from those lofty expectations. Contrary to the product’s name, the Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza isn’t overloaded with toppings, although it offers enough to deliver great flavor.

Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza Toppings

Slices of crisp, lightly spicy pepperoni pair with chewy, salty little pepperoni cubes to ensure each piece of pizza gets a hit of meat. Mozzarella covers the pizza but is too spare to achieve cheese-pull status. Flecks of cheddar are also present, but their flavor is largely lost among the mozzarella and pepperoni spices. The tomato sauce is a nice surprise: thick in texture with hints of sweetness and smoky paprika.

Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza Crust

The real bounty of this pizza lies in the crust, which may be the most successful of all the Red Baron products I’ve tried. Moderately seasoned and buttery, it’s not too greasy. Thick and chewy, it somehow manages to remain airy and light. My only complaint is its tendency toward gumminess in the middle of the pizza, where the lightest part of the crust absorbs the sauce.

Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza Cooked

The crust’s edges are crisp — and I mean crisp. Have you ever watched a cooking show where the host bites into their final creation, turns to the camera, and asks the viewer, “Did you hear that?” I was tempted to recreate that for you, but this is a written review and so you can’t hear the satisfying crunch of my pizza cutter rolling through this crispy, crispy crust. I’m sorry for that.

And I’m sorry to demote your star status, toppings.

Anything else you need to know?

Red Baron Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza Side

This pizza reminds me a lot of DiGiorno’s Crispy Pan Pizza because they have similarly thick, yet airy crusts at comparable price points. I like both products equally.

Conclusion:

Red Baron’s Fully Loaded Pepperoni Pizza is hearty, flavorful, and among the brand’s stronger offerings. The product’s name sets high expectations that the toppings themselves don’t fulfill, but its thick, crispy crust helps to deliver an abundant bite.

Purchased Price: $7.99
Size: 27.85 oz (1 lb and 11.85 oz)/789 g
Purchased at: Giant Eagle
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (per 1/6 pizza) 380 calories, 19 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 680 milligrams of sodium, 37 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Popeyes Chocolate Chip Cookie

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Popeyes Chocolate Chip Cookie Wrapper

What is Popeyes Chocolate Chip Cookie?

As the smoke finally clears from the drawn-out and bloated chicken sandwich wars that it started, Popeyes has set its sight on something many of its competitors already offer — chocolate chip cookies. Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and even KFC, all who were challenged by Popeyes’ titan of a chicken sandwich in 2019, have all offered cookies for years, and this time it’s Popeyes showing up fashionably late to the party.

How is it?

What set Popeyes’ chicken sandwich apart from the rest was its hand-breaded freshness. While I know it’s a fast food sandwich, it still felt like a step above the price point and an experience that lived up to and exceeded the hype.

Popeyes Chocolate Chip Cookie Top

It’s with that mindset that I was immediately let down when handed a chocolate chip cookie inside of a cellophane bag, clearly not baked on-site and far from fresh.

Popeyes Chocolate Chip Cookie Split

Maybe my expectations for Popeyes are too high, but this cookie tastes about as generic and nondescript as you can imagine. The base has a typical brown sugar and vanilla flavor with a less than desirable amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips throughout. It’s a bit dry and crumbly, not stale per se but a far cry from the soft and fresh texture of a place like Subway. This cookie isn’t awful, but for such a late entrant into the cookie space, it’s wholly unremarkable.

Anything else you need to know?

Popeyes Chocolate Chip Cookie Bottom

Did this cookie come from Safeway? Costco? KFC? If I didn’t walk into Popeyes and buy it with my own two hands, I would never be able to tell — it’s the definition of underwhelming and basic.

Conclusion:

For a chain that delivers an apple pie with a legitimately crispy crunchy fried outer shell and pulled off freshly fried chocolate-filled beignets, this cookie feels like the definition of an afterthought and not one worthy of capping off a meal that starts with Popeyes’ fantastic sandwich.

Purchased Price: 79 cents
Size: One Cookie
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cookie) 190 calories, 08grams of fat, 5 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 130 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Strawberry Banana Cheerios Cereal

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Limited Edition Strawberry Banana Cheerios Cereal Box

What is Limited Edition Strawberry Banana Cheerios Cereal?

After the Strawberry Cheerios and Banana Nut Cheerios of yesteryear, both have joined forces. There are also heart-shaped pieces, which makes me wonder if they’re trying to get a jump on Valentine’s Day. Bold move, General Mills.

How is it?

To me, Honey Nut Cheerios might be the perfect cereal. There’s a kind of spectrum that runs from bran flakes on the healthy end to Cocoa Puffs on the other, and Honey Nut Cheerios artfully balances right in the center like a world-class gymnast. The taste is just sweet enough that you feel like you’re getting a bit of a treat. Now I don’t know if Honey Nut Cheerios would really be considered healthy by nutritionists (who would probably recommend a breakfast of wild-caught salmon instead) but darnit, it FEELS healthy.

So the question here is whether or not these are as good as HNC. Short answer: no.

Limited Edition Strawberry Banana Cheerios Cereal Bowl

Strawberry Banana Cheerios have two types of pieces, pink and plain: they’re also in the shape of either hearts or traditional Cheerios “Os.” The pink are strawberry flavored, while the plain are, in theory, banana-flavored. While the pinks provided that standard artificial strawberry flavor you’ve encountered elsewhere, the plains had an aftertaste of popcorn, which is weird.

When I had the cereal in a bowl, I was able to taste a little bit of banana flavor. The pieces kept their integrity while I was eating and didn’t turn to mush, but considering how fast I can scarf down cereal, that’s a low bar to clear.

Limited Edition Strawberry Banana Cheerios Cereal Real Banana

I put a banana down next to my cereal knowing that next time, this cereal was going to get banana-fied, whether it wants to or not. This may be a crime.

Anything else you need to know?

Limited Edition Strawberry Banana Cheerios Cereal Back

From the back of the box I have learned that, sadly, a car powered by strawberry juice did not in fact drive across the state of Texas. Disappointing.

Conclusion:

Strawberry Banana Cheerios are inoffensive, but they are lacking in flavor. That’s okay though, because BYOB (Bring Your Own Banana).

Purchased Price: $4.88
Size: 14.9 oz box
Purchased at: Stop & Shop
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup) 140 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 11 grams total sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream

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Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream Pint

What is Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream?

This festive flavor is an on-brand addition to Milk Bar’s lineup of quirky-but-upscale re-imaginings of nostalgic desserts. Between the chunks of gingerbread cookie, brightly colored candy “gems,” and sweet bits of icing, this gingerbread-flavored ice cream is more filled than Santa’s sleigh.

How is it?

Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream Cookie

My first bite of pure ice cream was pleasantly milky with a hint of spice — tasty, but not quite something to write to the North Pole about. The cookie that I secured in my next spoonful packed a much stronger punch of ginger flavor, with an interesting consistency more solid than cookie dough but not as firm as an actual cookie (a bit reminiscent of a Ben & Jerry’s mix-in).

Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream Icing

When I found some icing next (the white color is surprisingly hard to identify in the tannish ice cream), its burst of sugariness was much more flavorful than the bland, just-for-show icing I typically associate with gingerbread cookies. Like the cookie crunch, it also brings a textural surprise — it doesn’t appear in the thick, creamy spirals illustrated on the pint, but rather as a series of squarish shards more similar to pieces of white chocolate.

On their own, these ingredients were tasty though not particularly thrilling. But when I finally scooped up ice cream, icing, and cookie all together, the sweetness of the icing and the spice of the cookie contrasted very nicely, and the rich ice cream was a satisfying backdrop to hold it all together.

Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream Top

Oh yeah, and I guess the candy gems were there too. They just didn’t add much more than a pop of (admittedly welcome) color.

Anything else you need to know?

In case you missed the banner on the pint saying so four times in a row, this flavor is seasonal, so be sure to grab some before it makes like a Christmas tree and leaves.

Conclusion:

Filled with cookies and icing, Milk Bar Gingerbread House Ice Cream’s blend of sugar, spice, and everything ice is sure to end up on the nice list.

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 14 oz
Purchased at: Whole Foods
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 400 calories, 23 grams of fat, 15 grams of saturated fat, 85 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 43 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 38 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

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