REVIEW: Honey Bunches of Oats Pecan & Maple Brown Sugar

June 28, 2017June 27, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

I’ll never forget when I was first introduced to Honey Bunches of Oats. Although I don’t remember the exact day, I remember being taken aback by a cereal that was a legitimate bridge between the sweet technicolor bowls I always wanted and the boring brown clumps my dad tried to force feed me. Honey Bunches represented a turning of the tides, an exercise in compromise, and a cereal that was legitimately tasty without any marshmallows. I loved the original Honey flavor and Almond, and have dabbled in the various berry editions as well, but when Post dropped their latest creation I knew I had to try it. Honey Bunches of Oats Pecan and Maple Brown Sugar combines all of the best elements of breakfast (except donuts) and puts them into one crispy crunchy bowl.

The cereal is a tonal range of tan colors and has a relatively short list of ingredients to achieve this brown-bo of sorts. There’s straight ahead corn flakes, lightly sweetened corn flakes, some somehow crisped up looking whole oats, and those beautiful little pecan bunches. Some of the bunches are more granola-heavy and some of them have more visible pieces of pecans. The mixture carries a lovely sweet and nutty maple pecan scent with a cutting undercurrent of corn.

Tasting the cereal dry is everything I want it to be – crunchy, nutty, maple-y, and only slightly sweet. As with all Honey Bunches varieties the different elements compliment each other very well and balance each other out for consecutive cohesive bites that pop with the occasional big cluster. I’m not sure how they do it but I always felt there was a creaminess to Honey Bunches cereals that not many other had. Maybe it’s the inclusion of small pieces of nuts, but I get a wonderful smooth vanilla presence here that I also get in the original Almonds flavor and it’s a real treat.

Bringing milk to the party softens some of the sweet maple notes and drives up the corn-y flake flavors. While I feel like the sweetness was perfect in the dry cereal, with the additional moisture I could use just a touch more sweetness, especially in regards to the maple, to hold up to the sogg-ing effect of the milk. The corn flakes are very thin and soften pretty quickly, while the clusters hold their own and stand strong against the milk. The more that I eat the cereal the more I realize I want more pecans. The pecans are mostly in small pieces and end up getting lost in the flurry of milk and flakes. I wish they were bigger and I wish the corn flakes got less floppy but I also wish my bowl would refill itself automatically because I just love eating this stuff.

Honey Bunches of Oats are a classic cereal that should hypothetically please all palates at the breakfast table. I love the maple flavor in this new version but don’t think I would put it above the OG Almond because of the backseat the pecans take as compared to the prominent amount of almond slivers in the classic blue box . All in all you will not be disappointed putting this cereal into milk, onto ice cream, or simply into a ziplock bag for snacking all day long.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Safeway ($3.99)

REVIEW: Salted Caramel Oreo Thins

June 26, 2017June 26, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

It’s already been well established that sweet and salty is one of the greatest flavor combos known to man, so naturally, salted caramel is one of the more readily available flavor profiles that really gets my digestive juices flowin’. Shockingly, as popular as this pairing has been in recent years, Nabisco overlooked making a salted caramel Oreo in favor of, you know, cotton candy, root beer float, and rainbow sherbet – BUT NO MORE!! …sort of. To get our beach bods prepped for long summer nights, Oreo have hit us with Salted Caramel Oreo Thins.

I like Oreo Thins, but straight up the flavor on these limited slimmies is simply not strong enough. The package lets out a nice artificial caramel smell that channels packaged caramel corn mixed with the golden vanilla of the Oreo wafer and a hint of carnival nostalgia. Biting in as a whole the cookie has a verrrry subtle caramel flavor with a touch of saltiness that makes the overall experience a bit less sweet than the regular Golden Thin but not really venturing into the “salted caramel” territory proper. They actually remind me of a more muted version of the recent Waffles & Syrup Oreo the way that they hint at graham cracker and are generally sweet but with a deeper flavor than you would find in white cookies with white creme.

Isolating the creme on its own is similarly disappointing. There’s definitely more caramel flavor that comes through without the two cookies, but even on its own the flavor isn’t particularly pronounced. It’s almost as though even on its own there isn’t enough creme to properly translate a more complex flavor like salted caramel. Eating the cookie open faced style is more of the same, but with the saltiest presence of the different methods – maybe the hint of cookie plus creme gives the best sodium punch as this is the only way any kind of “salted” caramel comes through for me. Fortunately the creme is very easy to peel off and when I stacked two layers of creme into one sando the combo worked surprisingly well. The flavor was both salty AND caramel-y and the texture felt thick and dense like caramel too – an easy, successful fix!

While I was initially pretty excited to see some flavor twists on the Oreo Thins line, the execution here makes me wonder if doing special releases with so little creme and cookie to work with can actually be successful. If Nabisco wants to venture down this path again they need to use bolder flavors that will cut through in smaller quantities like their Lemon Thins, rather than flavors that can be easily muddled like salted caramel. The recently re-released full size Key Lime Pie and Blueberry Pie Oreo creme’s would work really well here, making a light, crispy, refreshing cookie treat, and I’m confident the smaller amount of filling would still pop against the thin golden wafer.

Rating: 7/10
Found at: Target ($2.99)

REVIEW: Salt & Straw’s The Roxie Road

June 21, 2017June 20, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

Popcorn is one of my favorite foods. It’s a volume snack I can put back with light crunchy ease that tastes fantastic AND actually has some fiber and protein to go along with its deliciousness. Whether its the straight ahead low fat sea salt bagged variety, or the naughty oil drenched stuff in a dark movie theater, or a crunchy drizzled sugary treat, popcorn is a mainstay in my diet and I love it. As popular as it is, it rarely finds itself incorporated in my, and America’s, favorite dessert – ice cream. While it may sound kind of strange, the roasty, buttery, sweet and salty potential of popcorn is actually an amazing mashup for making a wonderful ice cream, and for the June Rescued Food series Salt & Straw did just that. Utilizing leftover popcorn from the Roxie Theater, S&S created a popcorn ice cream base and mixed it with their house caramel and a coffee-flour cookie crumble to create The Roxie Road.

The popcorn flavor in the base is fairly subtle, but comes across in initial bites when I search for it. Beneath the layers of silky smooth high quality dairy are gentle corn notes that finish with a slightly roasted butter flavor. Much more apparent than a straight ahead popcorn flavor is an overall butteriness that aids in the texture and makes it feel and taste like an elevated corny sweet cream. The execution and overall effectiveness of the popcorn experience would have been greatly amplified by a saltier presence, which we know Salt & Straw can do extremely well in their Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons and countless other stellar releases. Even though it’s lacking some salty pop there’s no doubt this isn’t vanilla and it’s a really tasty ice cream.

The caramel in this pint is the same fantastic S&S caramel that I know and love – thick and rich with an impressively dark burnt flavor that is my absolute favorite caramel in any ice cream. It isn’t particularly salty but does reset my tastebuds to be able to taste the popcorn flavor in the base more prominently, and is a wonderful compliment to pretty much anything it touches.

The surprise factor in this flavor, and my favorite element, are the coffee-flour cookie crumbles. There are some smaller “crumbles” sprinkled throughout, but also big hunkin’ chunks that explode with a gritty cookie texture and robust coffee flavor that are unexpectedly delicious. The chunks are hard, almost like a piece of toffee, and are equal parts intense coffee grounds and bitter chocolate notes. It’s almost like a super coffee-forward shortbread, crumbling beneath my teeth, and the bitter coffee flavor is very welcome in the sea of sweet creaminess.

I was ecstatic when S&S announced they were doing a popcorn-infused base, and while it is a fantastic ice cream, I wish it was a bit more popcorn-y. The best popcorn base I’ve ever had was in a Humphry Slocombe seasonal last year called Peaches and Popcorn, and I feel as though I will be forever chasing that buttery salty memory. Regardless of any small flavor preferences, if you like buttery ice cream with sensational caramel and bursts of bitter coffee and are fortunate enough to live in the Bay Area this one is definitely worth at least a scoop, and probably a pint to boot.
Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Salt & Straw (San Francisco)

REVIEW: Hostess Cinnamon Sugar Crunch Donettes

June 19, 2017June 19, 2017 / seansskillet / 1 Comment

As a weekly host and attendee of Cinnasluts Anonymous meetings I’m always on the hunt for new ways to get my fix. I’ve got four different types of cinnamon on hand to sprinkle on everything from fruit to chicken to vegetables, and of course a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cinnamon Bun Oreo’s, a couple stocked bags of Cheetos Sweetos, some apple cinnamon yogurt, a bottle of Pepsi Fire…and the list goes on and on. As I was perusing the grocery store to stockpile more cinna-goodies my body came to a jolting stop right after passing the cinnamon swirl bread and into the snack cakes…Cinnamon Sugar Crunch Donettes. That’s right, Hostess have put a spicy spin on their tasty crunch mini donuts, and to be honest it’s such an obvious twist I can’t believe this hasn’t already been done.

Opening the tall white bag it’s no surprise I’m greeted by a sweet wafting cinnamon sugar smell that is fresh and lovely. The donuts look soft and glisten with a locked in moisture that is a great sign for $2 grocery ‘nuts.

Biting in the two stated flavors, cinnamon and sugar, and very well represented and lean towards the sugar with a nice crystallized crunch, completing the trinity of living up to their names’ description. The prominent flavor is sweet, but the lovely aromatic spiciness of cinnamon lingers in the back and keeps them from being too sugary. While I love a good punchy, almost spicy hot cinnamon, the balance here is spot on and reminds me of a well executed streusel crumble on top of an apple crisp.

The texture inside is soft and moist and tastes very fresh. The donette doesn’t crumble at all and has a perfect squish as I chew that works well with the sweet crunchy exterior. These are basically exactly like the classic coconut-leaning Crunch Donettes but with cinnamon, which makes them automatically better, and feel much more authentic to a real donut than a gas station pick-me-up.

I always loved the straight forward cinnamon sugar cake donuts at mom ’n pop shops for their simple flavors and emphasis on the crispy cake-y dough. They were also the most successful donut I ever made the few times I tried going from scratch at home, and as a result they will forever hold a special place in my heart. While these donettes aren’t as good as the real deal, they’re closer than any other variety I’ve had from Hostess, Little Debbie, or TastyKake at channeling the classic flavors of a bare bones donut shop, and they don’t taste cheap or artificial at all. Whether you love cinnamon or just a quick fix to go with your morning cup, these are one of the strongest baby cakes you can buy.

Rating: 9/10
Found at: Walmart ($2.00)

REVIEW: Trader Joe’s Sweet and Salty Granola Bars

June 15, 2017June 14, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

My first name is Sean, and my last name is Skillet, but my middle name may as well be “SweetSalty” for how much I really love that combination. Opposing flavors that can compliment each other AND make one another greater is a thing of true beauty, and I’ll take sweet and salty in my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Understanding this wonderful yin and yang of tastebuds, Trader Joe’s are helping me amp up my S&S at snack time too, with their new Sweet and Salty Granola Bars, which they describe as a nutty granola bar dipped in almond butter and Greek yogurt coating.

This bar is fairly straight forward but very well executed. The saltiness is just enough to warrant the “salty” part of the title, and isn’t overwhelming but comes through in small bursts of little salt crystals evenly distributed throughout bites. They aren’t big and crunchy like sea salt but stand out more than your average table salt mixed into a recipe for balance. The sweetness comes through in the Greek yogurt layer and is a different and refreshing spin, rather than raisins or some other form of squishy sugary burst.

The mixture of crisped rice, whole oats, wheat flakes, and whole almonds gives a great chewy texture with pockets of crunch and a slightly golden flavor that reminds me of graham crackers. The graham-y-ness is accentuated once again by the Greek yogurt with some tasty vanilla notes and a great soft sweet and salty profile without the aggressive use of chocolate or caramel or another decadent flavor you’ll often find in S&S. The almonds help liven up the bites and add small pockets of fattiness that keep all of the components in check and interesting from beginning to end.

The prominent finishing note on the bar is almond butter, and it’s a really nice way to seal the deal. The smooth creamy butter flavor enhances the presence of the actual almonds and has just the right amount of fatty flavor to keep it more interesting than your average granola bar. The ingredient list has not only almond but peanut and cashew butter, and while those butters aren’t super apparent there’s a depth to the richness that is great and much more complex than I was anticipating. Overall these little bars surprised me – sweet enough to go with a nice cup of coffee but not so sweet that they feel like candy. If sweet and salty is your thing, let these push your little impulse purchase button the next time you’re in line at TJ’s.

Rating: 8/10
Found at: Trader Joe’s ($2.99)

REVIEW: Fudge Stripes Lemmy Num-Num’s

June 12, 2017June 11, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

When it became apparent that Keebler were going to enter the Oreo game and have limited Fudge Stripes chase after what Nabisco has been doing for years I was stoked, but I didn’t anticipate having to chase down the flavors myself with such difficulty. Sometime in April Keebler released Lemon Cream Pie Fudge Stripes and after looking everywhere from Target to Walmart to Safeway they just never popped up, and instead it seemed like 500 new packs of Cinnamon Roll were birthed every time I went back to check. With the release of Despicable Me 3, the cross-promotion between the cookie company and film includes an apparent rebranding of the pie flavor to “Lemmy Num-Num”, and this version has decided to make its way to the bay so I can finally try them. Of course, since this release there’s already been two more Fudge Stripes that I haven’t seen, but, that’s another story…

Opening the package the cookies have a nice, soft, lemony scent that remind me of an amped up version of Barnum’s Animals Crackers. The flavor mimics the smell with a gentle lemon flavor that isn’t too bold or tart, with a slight butteriness and smooth creamy finish. There isn’t a huge amount of sweetness either, and these cookies kind of just “exist”, without any super dominant or super offensive flavors, which is kind of rare for lemon. The texture is nice – soft and crumbly with a little bit of crunch just like all other Fudge Stripes.

I like these, they’re very tasty, but ultimately they don’t deliver as big of a lemony wallop as I would like. It’s tricky with the renaming and rebranding of a cookie that was Lemon Cream Pie now being “Lemmy Num Num” because if they were trying to channel a lemon pie they did a pretty decent job. While I still wish they were zingy-er and more tart, there is a solid lemon flavor for the filling, the crumbly cookie for the pie crust, and the “fudge” dip and drizzle to emulate the cream or meringue that would top the pie. All of the components work well together, albeit a bit muted, and putting back many of these in a row is no problem at all. Snack on.

Rating: 7.5/10
Found at: Walmart ($2.99)

REVIEW: Butterfinger Limited Edition Smokin’ Hot Peanut Butter Cups

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

The candy world has a new obsession, and it’s one I can get behind – spice. Generally reserved for savory items, the addition of spiciness to usually sweet leaning products has advanced from small gourmet stores to mainstream brands like Jolly Rancher, Nerds, and now, Butterfinger. Mixing fruity flavors with spice is very common in countries like Mexico, where sweet and spicy is the preferred profile over sweet and sour, and with that creeping its way into American culture, so is mixing spice with even less conventional flavors – like peanut butter. Butterfinger’s limited edition Smokin’ Hot Peanut Butter Cups take the established combination of PB and chocolate and crank it up a notch with some heat.

Biting into the cup I get the great creamy texture with a little bit of crunch that I expect from Butterfinger Cups and immediately there’s a hint of smoky flavor creeping after the chocolate sweetness. It doesn’t take long for the smokiness to transform into a little spicy dance that tickles my tongue like perfectly executed cayenne pepper. What I mean by perfectly executed is cayenne is one of those ingredients that adds a fantastic kick without too much flavor, but when you go too heavy handed with it whatever you’re cooking can get out of control really fast, and this has a spot on amount of spice. The heat creeps up after the creaminess of the peanut butter has died down and last about 10-15 seconds before fading away without any serious lingering effect.

The addition of the heat to the mix reduces the overall sweetness of the cups and puts more emphasis on the rich creaminess of the peanut butter. While the flavor is still far from savory, it adds another layer of complexity to the sweet, salty, and fatty mix that PB cups always bring to the table.

While these cups are very well executed, I’m glad that they’re a limited edition because they come off as more of a novelty treat than something I would want to seek out and buy again. As is the case with most Reese’s products, it’s hard to improve on the original, and as a fan of regular Butterfinger PB cups I don’t think the addition of spice makes the cup any better. In fact, because it takes away a little bit of the sweetness from the chocolate, it might actually be worse, but it’s still a fun candy that I would recommend to anyone who likes a little kick with their fix.

Rating: 7.5/10
Found at: 7-11 ($1.99)

REVIEW: Baskin Robbins Made with Twix Bars

June 7, 2017June 5, 2017 / seansskillet / 1 Comment

Twix are an all time top 5 candy bar for me, and with the recent release of the very successful and delicious Twix Dark, it feels like the cookie candy hybrid bar is getting some legit time in the limelight; but still seem very underutilized in the ice cream world. While it’s fairly common to see M&M’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and even Snickers churned into succulent scoops, the layered caramel magic of Twix rarely finds itself mixed into any decent cream – until now. Following up on their core lineup’s “Made with Snickers” and last years June Flavor of the Month “Made with Milky Way”, Baskin Robbins are back in the candy cream game via Made with Twix Bars, which combines Twix bar cookie pieces, chocolate flakes, and a caramel ribbon with both caramel and chocolate malt ice creams.

The base ice cream is different than I expected, with a bit more cohesion and blending than two separate flavors being put into one scoop. I anticipated something more along the lines of Gold Medal Ribbon, where there are distinct layers of chocolate and vanilla, but here the caramel and chocolate malt have fused together to make more of an off-white, and ultimately pretty Twix-y flavor. There are traces of malt, but the chocolate is pretty light and subdued, with some sweet and also subdued caramel notes lingering underneath. The taste really is reminiscent of a Twix with an overall sweet and slightly bread-y (malt) flavor that channels the marriage of the cookie and caramel in the bar, but overall it’s lacking a little bit of pop.

The caramel swirl is a tasty and straight-forward sweet with no salty or deep burnt tones. It’s well-executed and again, very reminiscent of the caramel in a Twix, but I wish there was more of it. The ribbons are a bit thin and too scattered throughout to add the layer of richness that I want, and with caramel being such a prominent note in a Twix I’m searching for more of that gooey goodness, especially with the base not carrying as many strong caramel notes as I would like.

The mix-ins are also a little different than I imagined, and rather than being pieces of chopped up regular Twix bars, it’s just the cookie portion of the Twix covered in chocolate with no caramel. This was a actually a pretty smart move, as sometimes thicker chunks of caramel can freeze hard in ice cream, and the cookies maintained all of their crunchy crumbly texture without being compromised by anything tough and tooth-threatening. The chocolate flakes are pretty big by BR standards and do good to add a solid milk chocolate flavor to most bites.

Overall this is a pretty solid interpretation of Twix in ice cream form, with actual Twix mixed in and a base that mirrors the flavors of the candy bar itself. I really appreciate it when an ice cream can operate on multiple levels rather than just throwing something into vanilla ice cream (an issue I have with BR’s Reese’s flavor), and this scoop is testament that a little extra effort can go a long way. With more caramel and a couple more cookie pieces this could have been one of Baskin Robbins’ more impressive LTO flavors, but as it stands it falls a bit short of being a classic.

Rating: 7/10
Found at: Baskin Robbins

REVIEW: Little G’s Fluffer Cookie

June 2, 2017June 1, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

A fluffernutter sandwich combines two of the world’s best lip-smacking creamy stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth ingredients that you can dig up in your grandma’s pantry – peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. While I was always more of a traditional peanut butter and jelly kind of kid growing up and am now very much in the peanut butter and banana camp, I will never shy away from peanut butter plus anything, and I mean that quite literally. My girlfriend recently challenged me to try peanut butter with mustard, and I did it, and guess what? I liked it! For the limited spring fling run of pints Little G put their own spin on the fluffernutter universe, but luckily for us all, did not include mustard. Fluffer Cookie combines peanut butter ice cream with a marshmallow swirl and chocolate sandwich cookies.

I’m going to guess that the peanut butter ice cream itself is up to the usual Little G standards, but as is the case with some of their flavors, this one is so mix-in dense I can’t even really tell. The peanut butter definitely takes a backseat, not only in texture but in flavor, to the insane amount of Oreo cookies smashed into the base. What is really beautiful though, is the way the cookies have softened and taken on a dunked-in-milk kind of texture, that while it’s different than your usual melty creamy ice cream, it’s still insanely delicious and fun to eat. Make no mistake, these aren’t just wafer cookies, these are entire Oreo’s, and the ample amount of creme filling is also present, fusing with the base and the softened wafers to create a decadent, almost cake-like experience that is delicious and downright intense.

The slightest hint of peanut flavor peeks its head through the onslaught of aggressive sweetness and cocoa creme, but most people probably wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the PB versus vanilla or sweet cream. Composition-wise this pint is very similar to the core lineups’ Chocolate Milk & Cookies, with a bigger emphasis on the creme flavor than the chocolate because of the base switch up.

The marshmallow swirl is thick and also very intense, with a dense yet fluffy texture that is pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to an authentic and delicious marshmallow presence. Once again Little G is up there with Salt & Straw for taking the swirl game to another level, and this one, while it tastes predominantly sweet, does have a touch of roasted flavor to it that gives it an added layer of complexity and aids in bringing out a hint more roasted peanut flavor as well.

Through and through this pint tastes like eating an ice cream-ified version of an Oreo. The fusion of the marshmallow swirl with the cookies’ creme emulates the iconic filling, and the plethora of cocoa wafers in every bite makes the Oreo vibes absolutely inescapable. For my personal tastes, and to be true to the tradition of the fluffernutter tag, I want a bit more peanut butter, more salty contrast, and some relief from the intensity of the sugar, but this is one of those flavors that will leave you thinking about it when your bowl is empty, and becomes dangerously addictive.

Rating: 9/10
Found at: http://www.goldbely.com (use code seanpancake0 for $25 off of your first order!)

REVIIEW: Phin & Phebes Vanilla Malt Cookie Dough

May 29, 2017May 28, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

Phin & Phebes are a Brooklyn, NY based ice cream company founded in 2010 on the basis of churning out a small-batch product using all real non-GMO and fair trade sourced ingredients with no stabilizers or corn syrup. I’ve been seeing their name floating around for awhile but never gave them too much notice until a couple of flavors popped up at a local store that sounded too good to pass up. The first flavor I decided to dig into is Vanilla Malt Cookie Dough, which simply enough combines a vanilla malt cream with chocolate chip cookie dough.

Immediately the base hits me with a very intense sweetness, which normally I embrace in ice cream but for some reason is coming off as too sweet, almost cloying. The texture starts pretty creamy but finishes really thin and off-putting, like odd tasting cereal milk, and I gotta say I really don’t enjoy it. What I do enjoy, though, is the intense malty flavor, which has just the right amount of funkiness to distinguish it from a traditional vanilla or sweet cream. Unfortunately the malted flavor isn’t intriguing enough to offset the aggressive sweetness and lackluster texture that dominates the overall profile.

The cookie dough chunks are of average good size and have the gritty chew you would expect from this kind of mix in, but again, they taste incredibly sweet and don’t help push the flavor in any kind of enjoyable direction. While there is a nice brown sugar sheen coming from the dough I’m not getting any prominent butteriness or saltiness and the small chocolate chips are the only hint of complexity I’m getting out of this pint at all.

As an introduction to a new company I’ve been left extremely underwhelmed by Phin & Phebes and hope that this is an outlier miss flavor from a brand I was really looking forward to trying. There is nothing about this ice cream that makes me want to eat more of it and the onslaught of sugar without any kind of redemption becomes incredibly single-noted, and quite frankly, boring.
Rating: 4/10
Found at: Grocery Outlet ($2.99)

Sean's Skillet

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