When you can’t get to Grandma’s house for a fresh baked apple pie don’t worry, there are a variety of options that are… nothing like a real homemade apple pie, but these brands have taken a swing at a portable, single serving of something they like to call pie. Finding people to try these was more of a challenge then I thought it would be. Ethan wasn’t interested, so I brought them to work and figured this guy who always has a Mountain Dew at his desk would be up for the challenge. Somehow he was freaked out by these though. So was our intern when I asked her. Finally, the IT guy and a project assistant came through, and so the tasting began…
Hostess:
The crust on these were pretty thick, so was the filling. We felt it had a consistency of “goo” and it was very sweet, almost too sweet. Dave thought it at least smelled like apples. The sugary glaze was okay but seemed unbalanced with the overwhelming sweetness from the filling inside. There was some apple flavor, it wasn’t as disgusting as we thought it would be and might be good for someone who like things really sweet.
Drake’s:
This was the only pie that came as two separate pieces. Right away we noticed that the crust on this was harder and had no flavor. Becca thought the filling was “tangy” in some way but we all agreed that the apple bits were little pieces of dehydrated apple preserved in the thickened corn syrup.
Entenmann’s:
We liked the color of this – which is not shown properly in this photo – it was a nice golden brown. The filling wasn’t too goopy and was actually flavorful. It clearly had a good amount of apple pie spices and a nice filling-to-crust ratio. The crust itself was good, and glazed with a light coating of sugar. Also worth noting was that this the only pie of the four we tasted that listed “apples” as its first ingredient.
Little Debbie:
This was shaped like the hostess pie and looked okay on the outside, and even on the inside, but we were unimpressed with its taste. The crust was passable, but the filling had no taste at all and we felt like were just eating flavorless corn syrup with fake apple bits.
Wrap up:
Entenmann’s stood out from the rest. Its decent crust and flavorful filling most resembled apple pie, and the cinnamon smell/taste really contributed to the win. We wondered if the others had added more cinnamon or other spices if they would have been better. Little Debbie is O for 2 so far but I have faith in her since her Swiss Rolls are so awesome – maybe devil food cake (and nutty bars) are her specialty. So the results are: Entenmann’s on top, followed by Hostess, and then kind of a tie between Drake’s and Little Deb for being the worst.
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These were original flavor although the color was kind of red in color. The smell was really weird to me, something very familiar, yet I couldn’t put my finger on it. Ethan described it as smelling like deviled ham, but that wouldn’t be familiar to me so I don’t know how I would describe it.
Mr.Z’s product was considerably darker I wonder if it is because this is grass-fed beef. The pieces were smaller, which were easier to pop in my mouth just the way they were without any caveman pulling and tearing. There were smokier than Jack Links and a little peppery. Ethan thought the smoke was too much and the texture was too dry. I felt the opposite, I thought Z’s was much more enjoyable and not plasticy like Jack’s. The flavor was better even with amount of pepper in them, and I hate pepper.
I had to admit it but I thought these looked pretty good. They had a nice color and the glaze was proportionally distributed across the textured top. When we opened these from the wrapper, Ethan thought they smelled like McDonald’s cookies. Biting into these, we noticed a slight lemon flavor in the glaze. The crust was nice and crunchy although the inside didn’t have a lot substance, almost like a dry cup cake but not as bad as I we were expecting.
Oh Deb, we both done some changing over the years but, what happened? This stick was very pale and pasty looking. When we bit into these, they crumbled and fell apart. There is no donut taste, actually none at all, they only tasted like sugar and flour. I was really surprised that these were no where near the addictive sticks I remembered from the days of yore. I took two small bites and that was all I could handle.
Unsurprisingly, this was kind of hard but still a little bendable. I also would like to note that it did smell like bubble gum and I think the initial stiffness was the only result of being so old. The flavor was what I remembered, I can’t describe it but there is something that makes it uniquely “carefree”. Unfortunately the flavor seemed to only last a few seconds. There wasn’t a lot of “bounce” and the end result was a kind of dense nugget with no flavor- all in about 30 seconds.
This (also unsurprisingly) was soft and bendable. The initial bounce was way better and the bubble gum flavor is stronger. It’s almost overwhelming at first, but this lasted a minute before going the way of Carefree and losing most of it’s flavor and bounce. Although with some work, I could blow a bubble with this.
I’m probably not going to chew this but just thought I’d share it since I’ve never seen it before and probably never will again.
Sara noted that the pasta had no flavor and seemed just be there for texture in the sauce. On that note, we didn’t feel the sauce had that much flavor either although it was pretty sweet, not exactly like ketchup, but similar. It was also kind of soupy. We noticed that the meatballs were squishy and tasteless. Not the worst thing in the world, but it was just ok.
The first thing we noticed was that the sauce was much thicker. The meatballs were firm and had more flavor than the Spaghettios. Mark pointed out the sauce had a much stronger tomato taste and I thought maybe they put more tomato paste in it to give it flavor and thickness. The pasta was a little chewy but held on to the thick sauce nicely. 
Like I mentioned before, these aren’t as good as I remembered from the days of yore. These are just ok but really bland. Ethan said they don’t taste “real”. The only taste was from the chocolate chips which were very sweet, especially with the blandness of the cookie. The texture was a little dry too.
These were also just ok. They were very similar, bland cookie but the chips were not as sweet and there was a teeny bit of saltiness detected but it was good. The cookie is a little more moist too, which gave it an extra points.
These have a nice smell to them, when unwrapped. We couldn’t really say that they taste like strawberry though. Ethan said they “taste red”. The Twizzlers had a nice firm chew, yet broke down nicely after two bites. And we liked that they’re mild and not overly sweet. We also thought the diagonal ‘tread’ added to the enjoyment of this treat and while they looked plasticy, they were nice and soft and we found ourselves really enjoying them.
Ethan thought these looked looked like they came out of the Playdo Fun Factory. The RedVines didn’t have a smooth sheen like Twizzlers and were stickier when chewed. There was also a noticeable difference in flavor: these tasted very artificial. We tried to identify the taste and came up with soap. Not a fancy berry-vanilla-waterfall-fusion soap, more like a dissolve-puke-on-the-cafeteria-floor-industrial strength cleaner. These were not enjoyable at all.
I found 5th Ave. to have a great PB to chocolate ratio and very peanut buttery flavor. The salt and sweet contrast was perfect and the middle was nice and flaky. Ethan however felt there was too much chocolate and the peanut butter did not have a lot of flavor.
I thought Butterfinger had much less peanut butter taste and was more like hard toffee, which stuck in my teeth. I thought there was not enough chocolate to balance it out either. Ethan thought this had more PB flavor than 5th Ave. and a more enjoyable amount of chocolate and in general thought this was a much better bar.
This is the first of occasional posts about a product that there is no second rate version of and maybe it’s a good thing. I first saw this product called “Chelada” last month at a drug store and did a double take. Budweiser and…Clamato?? Why? How?…Why? The curiosity stuck in my mind though, so while I’m visiting my sister and brother-in-law, I had them test this out with me.
Everyone got their own little tasting cup of the pale, pinkish-redish bubbly liquid.
The first thing we noticed was that these were much lighter in texture and much “airier”. Because of the airiness it was kind of like biting into styrofoam. These did not taste like onion very much. Zac felt they tasted a little like ranch. Elaine said she had to eat another Funyun just to get the taste of the Onyum out of her mouth.