I didn’t grow up watching Disney TV shows or eating Pop Tarts, two of the most patriotic activities I can think of. I did go through a toaster strudel phase because I liked the power rush of deciding how I wanted to spread the frosting. If my brothers and I really fought to have Pop Tarts in our house, my parents probably would have bought some, but we never did. Matt, who’s seventeen, doesn’t like them. Troy, who’s still in middle school, says he likes them, but when you’re the youngest sibling, the shopping list traditions are entrenched.
A few weeks ago, my friend Spencer bought two kind of Pop Tarts for me to review: Frosted Crush® Orange and Dunkin’ Donuts® Frosted Chocolate Mocha. Both of these are trademarked drinks converted into Pop Tarts. They also sounded viscerally unappealing.
We started with the Frosted Crush® Orange Pop Tarts. Although orange soda might be my favorite soda, I wasn’t optimistic about this flavor. Converting a sugary drink into paste sounded like an example of groupthink gone wrong. We made sure to try it both untoasted and toasted so that no one could claim that we were eating it the wrong way. Upon further research, I noticed that some people freeze them, so feel free to sue me.
“Oh my god, this is horrible,” said Spencer, as he chewed the untoasted version. I didn’t think it was quite as horrible, but it’s hard for me to imagine anyone actually enjoying it. It’s too high in calories to taste as bad as it did. I have nothing against eating food that will hasten my death, but when I do, I want it to taste good. Each Orange Crush Pop Tart had 200 calories and provided the strange sensation of eating soda that had completely evaporated into flat sugary goo.
If you thought the untoasted version was a strange appropriation of orange soda, toasting it added a whole other dimension. I was eating viscous, scalding orange soda, and I was having a bad time.
Untoasted: 3.3/10 | Toasted: 2.8/10
The other one wasn’t so bad. It tasted like a chocolate Dunkin’ Donuts donut with a coffee aftertaste. If you are a fan of Pop Tarts and coffee, you’d probably enjoy this. If you’re like me and don’t like the saliva-consuming dryness of Pop Tart pastry dough, then you probably won’t. The toasted version tasted pretty much the same.
Untoasted and toasted: 5.0/10
This Pop Tart’s probable score if you like the general Pop Tart premise: 7.5/10
Spencer, who was kind enough to donate these Pop Tarts for me to write about, wrote a poem about Pop Tarts that he wanted me to include here, but I left the notebook at home. I’m sorry. If you want to message it to me, I will include it.
Dear Jacob, I am curiously craving the mocha ones now. I wish I had read this earlier as I would have asked you to bring them today. That is, presuming you and Spenser didn’t finished them? And which milk would best accompany said pop tarts? Finally, what did you drink to wash down the orange ones? I would imagine milk would give it a creamsicle like flavor, which would then allow for the contemplation of eating them frozen. So much to think about tonight…..