REVIEW: Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears

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Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears Bag

In honor of the conclusion of Alaska’s annual Fat Bear Week, I too am preparing for hibernation—with Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears. Rather than scoop up salmon or forage for lush greenery, I ordered a 1.5-pound bag of the new dipped treats online. (So far, they’ve been spotted in this quantity only at Costco and Sam’s Club, but both stores are too far from my forest.)

I’m a huge fan of Reese’s Dipped Animal Crackers, so I was thrilled to see Reese’s add to its confectionery menagerie. Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears are a similar species, but they swap the animal cracker for a crunchy graham cookie. Like the crackers, these Bears are covered in a thick layer of peanut butter candy confection with a chocolate-dipped base.

Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears in the bag

Speaking of fat bears, Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears are not your toddler’s Teddy Grahams. These cookies vary in appearance—some are on the slim side, while others have honey jar tummies—but overall, they are comparable to the animal crackers in size. I am sure dipping a smaller cookie in peanut butter coating would have lost the distinctive bear shape, despite making it easier to toss them into one’s gaping maw.

Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears family

Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears two sides

Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears size

As the bag promises, the bears boast a strong crunch. In this respect, they are more like a crunchy cookie than a crumbly Honey Maid cracker. The cookie’s honey graham flavor is noticeable, but it doesn’t overwhelm the peanut butter flavor, which remains the star of the show. The peanut butter candy crème coating is smooth and sweet, pairing well with the hint of chocolate. The flavor is similar to enjoying a graham cracker spread thickly with sweet peanut butter and a sprinkle of chocolate chips. As a sweet snack or casual dessert, they are absolutely delicious.

Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears bite

The main differences between Reese’s Dipped Animal Crackers and Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears are that the bears are a little crunchier, and you can taste their flavor more than the animal crackers, which are pretty mild to begin with. The subtle difference detracts from the novelty of the new bears, but they are so tasty that it doesn’t matter.

Reese’s Dipped Graham Bears bag back

While I initially balked at the size of this bag, I may need to order another one before hibernation season kicks off. If you are a fan of Reese’s Dipped products, you will bear-ly be able to resist these.

Purchased Price: More than one should pay on eBay
Size: 24 oz package
Purchased at: ebay
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (3 pieces) 130 calories, 6 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 9 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Cheez-It Hot Honey Crackers

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Swicy is everywhere these days. Sweet plus spicy makes the ultimate flavor hack. Heat tames the sweet, sweet rounds out the spice, and your taste buds ride the flavor rollercoaster.

Now Cheez-It joins the swicy chat with its new limited-time Hot Honey Cheez-It Crackers.

I’ll admit, I felt skeptical for two reasons:

First, Cheez-It cheese is distinct, and I didn’t know if hot honey could hold its own without being overtaken. On my charcuterie boards, hot honey usually pairs well with mellow cheeses like Gruyère – not cheddar.

Second, outside of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or Takis, I rarely trust a snack’s “heat” claims. Spice levels usually disappoint.

Still, I stan Cheez-It. So of course I copped.

First impression: no real smell. Like most Cheez-It boxes, opening the liner just hits your nose with… cardboard. For a second, my brain swore it caught Italian seasoning (probably because I stared at those specks of seasoning), but nope – just cardboard.

Digging in, the crackers looked inconsistent. Some carried a heavy dusting, others barely any. The cracker itself also looked lighter, which made me wonder if this was a white cheddar base – or maybe lighter meant “honey” and darker meant “heat.” The plot thickened.

Then I popped one in my mouth. Skepticism: shattered. These deliver.

Sweetness lands first, heat follows, and it all layers over that familiar Cheez-It cheese that wedges itself in your molars (it’s glorious, don’t come at me). The balance works, and together they hit eat-a-whole-box-in-a-sitting level of snackable.

Using white cheddar as the base? Boss move. The person who made that call knew precisely what they were doing. The heat doesn’t reach Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or Takis territory, but it’s real and builds into a warm, satisfying kick.

It doesn’t matter if the cracker looks lightly seasoned, pale, or the usual Cheez-It orange. If every piece carried maximum seasoning, the flavor might overwhelm, but the mix keeps you reaching back. This limited time flavor smashes.

Final verdict: Run, don’t walk! Hot Honey Cheez-It earns a spot, at least a trial run, in your snack rotation.

Purchased Price: $3.77
Size: 12.4 oz
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (27 crackers – 30g) 150 calories, 7 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Cheez-It Wendy’s Baconator Crackers

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Wendy’s has made several forays into the grocery store in recent years, starting with its canned chili, then ground beef patties in select stores, and now it’s entering the cracker and chip aisle. After a recent Takis collaboration at Wendy’s restaurants, we can also find its popular Baconator lending its flavor to Cheez-Its. Does the taste of those bacon-topped square burgers translate to the orange squares of Cheez-It crackers?

Well, like many snacks that try to replicate meat flavors, these are going to be divisive. After opening the package, I didn’t find the smell to be particularly strong, but when I got a little closer and actually sniffed a cracker, I didn’t like the scent of these at all, nor did I think they smelled like something I would choose to put in my mouth. They look much like a standard Cheez-It but have more powdery speckles of seasoning. I expected them to lean into the bacon part of the flavor and have an artificial smoky taste like many things that try to mimic bacon, but I didn’t get much of that here. In fact, I don’t think they remind me of bacon at all. They have a strongly savory, umami aspect to them, and in addition to the regular cheesy flavor, I mostly picked up on onion and garlic. I think those were included to enhance the burger flavor, but a Baconator itself doesn’t actually have onions, so it seems like an odd choice to me that they’d come through this prominently.

I thought I was going to hate these after first smelling them, and there is no doubt they have a strong flavor that will put off many people. My husband is one of those people; he equated the smell to a urinal (I thought it was more BO) and instantly spit the single cracker he tried into the trash can. I can’t honestly say I would pay money to eat these again, but I also didn’t hate them as much as he did. They’re salty and kind of compel me to eat more, even when I’m not sure I actually want to. A look at the ingredients offers a possible explanation for this: these Baconator Cheez-Its contain MSG. I personally have no problem with MSG, and it’s probably the reason I’ve made it through as much of this box as I have.

The back of the box features a code to scan that gives you a coupon for $2 off a Baconator in the Wendy’s app, which could be some consolation if you hate these so much that you have to trash them all and immediately need to eat an actual bacon cheeseburger to cleanse your palate. Will I finish this box of Baconator Cheez-Its that taste nothing like a Baconator? Yes. Will I try to share them with anyone else? No, for fear that anyone I offer them to may no longer trust any food I give them again.

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 12.4 oz box
Purchased at: Jewel
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (26 crackers) 150 calories, 7 grams of total fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 270 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 0 grams of total sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Awesome Sauce Goldfish Crackers

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If there are two things the internet loves, it’s tier lists and sauces. That’s it – just those two things. Nothing more.

Don’t act like you’ve never glared at a fifteen-minute YouTube video of some dork ranking their favorite… I don’t know, band-aid shapes and raged out when they put “butterfly” in the C-tier. That’s a great functional shape! Who is this hypothetical fool I’m inventing out of thin air?!

Then you’ve got the social media sauce epidemic we’ve been living in for the past decade. Every “viral” sandwich, burger, burrito, etc, looks delicious… until it’s smothered with a waterfall of multi-colored sauces. Who’s eating these wet disasters?! A little dab’ll do ya!

So, in honor of the internet’s two biggest (fact-checked) obsessions, I decided to make my own sauce tier list. Rapid fire, ready:

S-Tier – None.

Yeah, that’s as far as I got. I don’t have a favorite sauce. I’m desperately seeking a favorite sauce to fill my S(auce)-tier. If only there were a new sauce out there to knock my socks off, a great sauce, maybe even an… oh, hey, Goldfish has a new “AWESOME Sauce” flavor. Let’s do it.

If you’re like me, seek help, but also, you’re probably wondering what “awesome sauce” is. I ate two handfuls, and I’m still curious.

Pepperidge Farm doesn’t even know, as the bag reads, “Sweet, smoky, tangy… Awesome. The taste that’s hard to describe and impossible to resist.”

I agree with half of that statement. They’re hard to describe but quite easy to resist.

My initial assumption was that these would be a generic “burger sauce.” I think I was hoping for that because deep down, I feared what was coming, and let’s just say it’s a flavor that would probably land on my C tier – Chick-fil-A sauce.

I know people swear by it, but you can keep Chick-fil-A sauce. I think it’s a strange concoction that isn’t better than the individual sum of its parts. I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re going for.

Initially, these taste like a sweet-ish BBQ sauce, and right when you start to enjoy that, the tang gets a bit vinegary, and if you start to enjoy that, the flavor flat-out dies in a time span shorter than a real goldfish’s memory.

This is one of the worst Goldfish crackers I’ve ever had, even beyond the flavor itself. The cracker is so bland and… crackery. As dumb as it sounds, it’s the first time I’ve ever been cognizant of the cracker. I’ve never gotten that from other varieties because the flavors persist.

I mean, I can’t argue with the bag; these are sweet, smokey, and tangy. They would’ve been quite good if they were also a little spicy. They could’ve been saltier too.

I can’t say these are awesome. They’re not awe-ful, but I’m not a big fan. If you love Chick-fil-A sauce, you’ll probably wanna catch ’em all, but again, it’s one of the quickest flavor drop-offs I can remember in a savory snack like this. These probably should’ve been “Flavor Blasted.”

D-tier confirmed.

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 6.1 oz.
Purchased at: Shop Rite
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (53 pieces) 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 300 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of total sugars, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Harry Potter Butterbeer Goldfish

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Apparently, it’s Butterbeer Season, a March-through-May festivity at Universal Orlando Resort that Google has just informed me is traditionally celebrated with a frothy glass of the titular butterscotch beverage. But, like Harry Potter’s Patronus, a new crop of Butterbeer-flavored products has poofed onto the market as if by magic, and thus Butterbeer Season can now be celebrated in the comfort of your own home (or local grocery store parking lot if you really can’t wait). From this flood, I reeled in quite the catch: Butterscotch Goldfish (or, as their parents would call them when they’re angry, Harry Potter Butterbeer Butterscotch Flavored Graham Crackers).

Goldfish’s Grahams line swaps the classic savory flavors of the “snack that smiles back” and cracker-like texture for a sweeter, more cookie-esque style. Rather than being brittle and cheesy, these Butterbeer Goldfish are dense and dessert-y. Beyond that, though, I’m honestly finding them a bit hard to explain. They certainly smell like butterscotch, but when I took my first nibble, the immediate flavor wasn’t what I was expecting: it was salty. As far as I can tell, this saltiness didn’t come from the Goldfish cracker itself but rather from the gritty seasoning it’s covered with. These aren’t nearly as powdery and messy as, say, orange-dust-engulfed Cheetos, but I still found the coating inconvenient and mildly unsettling.

That taste quickly gave way to a richer graham cracker flavor, but it wasn’t one that I would have immediately identified as “butterscotch” had that word not been literally written on the bag. Sure, I can kind of taste the “butter” element, but I was expecting some additional caramelized creaminess that never surfaced. Puzzled by how to pin down this agreeable, comforting, but rather indistinct flavor, I sampled another piece… which turned into a handful… and soon I found myself as full of fish as a patron of an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, but not necessarily full of insights. (Well, okay, they’re not all shaped like fish—there are fun Butterbeer barrels and foaming glasses in there, too.)

These Goldfish are tasty and toasty, sugary and brown sugar-y, and have a subtle treacly aftertaste that reminded me a bit of maple syrup. But they left me wishing I was a Hogwarts student so I could use an “Accio” spell to conjure up an understanding of why exactly they have been branded as butterscotch-tasting… or how exactly they’re different than the other similar flavors of Goldfish Grahams I’ve had in the past.

But I don’t mean to Avada Kedavra with faint praise: Butterbeer Goldfish are not bad by any means, it’s just that in order to differentiate them from any other graham snack on the market, you might need a Sorting Hat.

Purchased Price: $3.19
Size: 6.1 oz bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (31 pieces) 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

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