PopTarts are surpassing both Oreos and Twinkies as the "junk food" most likely to regularly release strange new flavors. And unlike new Twinkies, which usually show up around a specific holiday, Kellogg's tends to release new PopTarts all year long...with several flavors at once!
Here's my impressions of the new 2022 releases...
KELLOGG'S EGGO:
Continuing their trend of creating a toaster pastry based upon their other products (Froot Loops, Apple Jacks), Kellogg's is now offering up an Eggo (waffle) flavored PopTart. Now, just wrap your head around that for a moment: Kellogg's is trying to replicate the taste of a quick "breakfast" food you drop into the toaster in the form of a different "breakfast" food you drop in the toaster. I'm really not sure what audience this is intended for. If you are a healthy eater who doesn't have Eggos in your freezer, you aren't likely to buy PopTarts any time soon (and vice-versa). But, setting that aside for the moment, how does it taste?
In a word...not very good! Once again, as with all of the other junk food confectioners, Kellogg's equates maple with waffles. And, yes, like many people I do use maple syrup on my Eggos...although I'm not above a good boysenberry syrup from time to time...but that's not the only taste associated with waffles and pancakes. Even the "wafflesque" cross-hatched pattern on the icing isn't going to fool anyone. This PopTart tastes like smoky maple and not a waffle.
RATING: 2 / 5
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FROSTED APPLE FRITTER:
Okay, so at least this second PopTart flavor had promise. An apple fritter is a delicious morning treat, as are apple cider donuts, so why not an apple fritter PopTart?
In this case, the problem isn't so much the flavor as the texture. A "fritter" isn't a taste anyway, but the type of snack--fried dough, which gives a satisfying crunch that PopTarts sadly lack. So, yeah, you could fill the toaster pastry with cinnamon apple flavoring and it tastes pretty good. Especially heated up. But does it taste like an apple fritter? Not at all. It doesn't even taste as good as Pillsbury's competing Apple (or Cinnamon) Toaster Strudel.
RATING: 3 / 5
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BOSTON CREME DONUT:
Okay, now this is interesting. Why is this PopTart is specifically named "donut" and not "pie." I would expect that Kellogg's would have preferred to be associated with a classier dessert. Does a Boston Creme Donut taste all that different than a Boston Creme Pie? (Note that Kellogg's cannot use the word "cream"). And, by the way, a Boston Cream Pie isn't even a pie in the first place, it's a cake! Not just any cake, but the official dessert of Massachusetts since 1996...a little late, considering that it was first created about 140 years earlier.
But I digress...
For those of you who might not be familiar with desserts, the Boston Cream Pie (cake) consists of chocolate fondant covering two layers of sponge cake filled with custard. And the Boston Cream Donut consists of chocolate frosting over a custard-filled raised (not cake) donut. What's not to love?
And the PopTart? Well, it can't offer either a cake or a raised donut...just the dry, enriched flour toaster pastry. But since PopTarts typically have frosting and filling, how hard would it be to replicate the chocolate frosting and custard filling? Harder than I imagined, apparently! The chocolate frosting is not thick or rich enough and the filling is not only too thin (compared to a Boston Cream anything) but it also tastes nothing like custard. I have no idea what it is, to be honest.
The result is quite disappointing to anyone who thought they could get a Boston Cream fix in their supermarket's PopTart aisle rather than having to head over to the bakery section.
RATING: 2 / 5
