MAPLE BACON POP TARTS

Maple Bacon is a relatively new flavor fad, but as far as I am concerned it ought to be retired immediately.  And I'm a huge bacon lover, as well as someone who enjoys maple in many forms (syrup, cookies, doughnut bars, etc.).

As these flavors are already associated with breakfast, you might think that a Pop Tart would be a perfect way to replicate them.  You would be wrong.  I'm not a big fan of bacon bits sprinkled on a maple doughnut either, but at least that can involve real food rather than imitations.  Here, you have frosting sprinkled with bacon-flavored something covering a pastry filled with maple-flavored something.  Indeed, neither bacon nor maple were listed as ingredients.

I thought that the bacon flavor was too "smokey" and overpowered whatever enjoyment I might have had of the maple flavor.  Other victims...I mean, co-workers...that I shared these with thought the opposite.  But we all agreed that these two tastes didn't work together.  Not as a Pop Tart, at least.  If you like this flavor combination, stick with drizzling syrup on your warm, crispy bacon.

RATING: 1/5

PUMPKIN SPICE HOSTESS CUPCAKES

As I grew to adulthood, I eventually realized that there was no such thing as the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or pumpkin spice.  And yet that doesn't stop all three of them from appearing like clockwork each year!

Usually the onslaught of pumpkin spice-flavored everything doesn't begin until late October or early November, so I was surprised to see these on the shelf in mid-August.  I wasn't surprised to see that these cupcakes contain no cinnamon, cloves, ginger, or nutmeg (aka "pumpkin spice"), because I expected they consisted mostly of artificial flavors.  But I was surprised to note the following small print on the back of the box: "Partially produced with genetic engineering".  Frankly, if you are eating Hostess cup cakes, you are probably not going to be concerned, but it did make me scratch my head.  But I digress...

These cupcakes taste somewhat like a spice cake mix, but not quite.  There is a slight hint of sweetness to them...possibly orange?...but they don't taste anything like the pumpkin pie pictured on the box.  Hostess missed a good opportunity to change the frosting, though.  These would have been perfect with cream cheese-flavored frosting, but alas they appear to be a more generic vanilla.

The bottom line is that fans of spice cake and pumpkin spice will enjoy them, but in a couple of months you'll instead be able to pick up a cream cheese frosted spice cupcake along with your latte, so you might as well wait.  Good, but not great.

RATING: 3/5

BLUE RASPBERRY POP TARTS

Despite my current fascination with Pop Tarts, and all the interesting "limited edition" flavors Kellogg's has been releasing lately, I didn't eat them very often while growing up.  I'm not sure why.  It isn't as if my mother was anti-processed food...after all, she gave us Pillsbury "food sticks," and who knows what those were made of?  But at least those were labeled as chocolate, peanut butter and vanilla rather than purely artificial flavors.

With Blue Raspberry Pop Tarts, Kellogg's has pretty much abandoned all pretense of these pastries being part of a nutritious breakfast.  At least all of their original Pop Tarts were based upon things found in nature--brown sugar and cinnamon, strawberry, blueberry and apple currant.  There is nothing natural about the bright Ti-D-Bowl blue color here...although theses pastries would look great next to a blue Powerade, Icee, Boo Berry cereal or cotton candy.  You know--things that will all make your poop turn green.

The flavor is a slightly tart raspberry, but it is not nearly strong enough to differentiate it from the regular raspberry Pop Tarts.  So, the selling point of this new flavor must be the blue color which extends to stripes on the white icing.  But that just makes it seem like you are eating a baby shower decoration...unlike the Wild Berry Pop Tarts with bright purple and blue that at least seem more offbeat and exciting.

To summarize, it doesn't taste any different than regular raspberry Pop Tarts, and it has a subdued color scheme for the outer frosting that doesn't make it stand out from any of the new "wild" flavors.  In other words, it is merely average.  This would be the Pop Tart that hangs out on the side of a room during a party, which you later forgot was even there.  Not bad, but nothing special either...

RATING:  3/5

SWEDISH FISH OREOS

There are flavors that taste great together...and then there are flavors that should be subject to a restraining order and never allowed to come within 90 feet of each other.  Swedish Fish Oreos are definitely in the latter group.

For anyone who might be unfamiliar with them, Swedish Fish are chewy candy more akin to a soft gumdrop than a gummi bear.  The flavor has never officially been disclosed, but there are those who suspect it is lingonberry due to its Swedish origin (and, yes, you can buy them at IKEA to go with your meatballs).  To me, Swedish Fish taste more like wild cherry than anything--and not the "good" kind of wild cherry as in a Life Saver, but the "bad" kind of wild cherry as in a Chlorasceptic throat lozenge.

The best that can be said about these cookies is that Oreo has captured the taste, if not the consistency, of Swedish Fish in the bright red creme.  You'll realize that immediately as you open the bag and inhale the aroma.  The creme is surrounded by the standard chocolate Oreo wafer rather than a graham or yellow cookie as many of the recent limited edition Oreos have been.  I suppose the Nabisco employee who came up with this combination might have been thinking about chocolate-covered cherry cordials.  Of course, the employee might also have been thinking about how many people he or she could make sick by proposing this combination.

Swedish Fish Oreos have a taste that will stay with you for a long time.  A very long time.  I violated the rules of childhood by having one before dinner, and yet after eating a full dinner and washing it down with a few drinks, I could *still* taste the Swedish Fish Oreo about an hour later.  I have a feeling that if I scraped the top of my tongue off with a cheese grater, I could still taste the Swedish Fish Oreo.  It may not be the worst thing I've ever eaten, but it is definitely the worst tasting cookie I've had in a long time...Oreo or otherwise!

RATING: 1/5