One of the things you’ve likely noticed here on our 31 Days of Halloween is a fair amount of candy and “treat” reviews. The reason is rather simple, it’s the season of lots of new flavor candies and treats. Probably moreso than any other time of the year. Christmas brings in a fair amount too, but Halloween takes the proverbial cake.
Thus far though, things have not exactly been that good. The Candy Corn M&Ms sucked and so did the nearly revolting Pumpkin Fruit Pie So can Milky Way bring us out of the abyss with their latest Halloween candy?
I am not actually a very big fan of Milky Way candy, as it’s basically the same as a Snickers but without the peanuts. I like more for my money, so I go with the Snickers more often than not. Oddly enough I like 3 Musketeers, so who knows what’s wrong with me. Anyway, the premise of “caramel apple” sounded intriguing.
It’s no secret that I love pumpkin flavored stuff and that I consider pumpkin a traditional fall flavor that ties into Halloween. Through previous Halloween seasons I’ve reviewed a ton of pumpkin snacks, like the Jamba Juice Pumpkin Smash, Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, Culver’s Pumpkin Pie Spice Shake, and even Pumpkin Pie Rice Krispie Treats. So it should come as no surprise that I decided to try my hand at tasting JJ’s Pumpkin Fruit Pie.
Even though I recently began eating healthier, the allure of a small fruit pie with pumpkin filling was too much to pass up. Obviously Hostess is the most famous brand of fruit pies, but JJ’s have been around for quite a while too. I can’t recall the last fruit pie I had prior to this one, but it’s probably been several years.
On the surface, this Pumpkin Pie appeared the same as any other fruit pie. I knew going in that a pumpkin pie without whipped cream of some sort, is already at a disadvantage but I figured the good folks at JJ’s had some sort of solution for this problem. I should mention that at 410 calories for one pie (only 130 calories less than a Big Mac), I was pretty disgusted before I even bit into this Special Edition pie.
And things did not get any better. This pie is gross. It seems to be filled with plain old pumpkin pie filling, with no real flavoring or added taste. In fact, it actually tastes much worse than regular pumpkin pie filling because of the added preservatives that allow it to remain “fresh” in that box. It was just absolutely dreadful.
I choked down a bite or two, but that was it. If a guy like me who loves pumpkin pie and various pumpkin products, can’t enjoy even a few bites of this pastry, you know it’s terrible. Even at less than a dollar, this fruit pie isn’t worth your time.
I will confess that it does say you can microwave it and perhaps that would make it taste better (with a big glob of Cool Whip!) but I’ve only ever eaten fruit pies straight out of the package and this one failed that test. This is some serious zombie food.
Is it wrong to not like Jell-O? I’m not really sure, because I haven’t come across too many people who don’t enjoy it, except myself. Who knows, some may even consider it Un-American. But, in the spirit of Halloween, and all those super holiday inspired goodies out there, I am experiencing, with you, how to make Jell-O Jigglers. Look, don’t consider me completely weird. I’ve made Jell-O before. I have just never actually made the Jigglers.
I bought this package at Wal-Mart for $2.98, and, was actually pretty excited about it, since it included not only the Jell-O, but the mold too. I like these kinds of all-in-one packages. It included:
Grape Jell-O
Orange Jell-O
6 Figure Mold of Halloween Characters
Upon opening this, I could already tell there was going to be an issue. I’m not a rocket scientist or anything, but I’m pretty clever when it comes to measurements of food and what fits and what doesn’t. It was pretty apparent there was entirely too much Jell-O for these 6 molds.
It was slightly upsetting that you could only make 6 Jigglers at one time, and really, to be completely honest, I’m not sure you could make more than that with this batch, unless you happen to have another mold. I was ultimately left with tons of additional Jell-O.
After heating the water, you have to pour it into the molds. First the grape…
Then the orange…
You have two whole boxes for six Jiggler shapes. It’s kind of absurd.
I tried, mind you. But, as you may know, Jell-O, well, it’s got gelatin in it, which means, of course, it gels. And, I tried to leave it out on the counter, warm, to make sure I could still “jiggle” with it, but, alas, it didn’t work. The bottom of my container was all Jello-y (not a real word) and stuff, and I had to give up and accept the fact that I could only make those 6, especially since I was informed by the package that I was supposed to refrigerate the first set for 3 hours.
This is how much extra Jello liquid was in each batch!
The other concerning issue is using Pam on my Jiggler tray. I don’t really care for Jell-O, but it seems even less appealing when it’s greasy.
I followed the directions, lightly spraying the molds with Pam (technically, instructions called for cooking spray, which is the same difference), boiling water and mixing with the Jell-O. Couldn’t be simpler. And, when they were set up, they were super cute. Greasy, but cute.
And as for the giant amounts of Jell-O I had left over, I layered it in a container to not waste it. The Grape and Orange Jell-O made for festive Halloween colors.
They look cute, but taste kind of nasty because of having to use Pam to unstick them from the molds.
And, you could probably get pretty creative with this package, because you can make creamy Jell-O, and that’s pretty cool too. All in all, besides obviously having too much (and if any of you have some suggestion of how it should have been done, let me know), they were neat little molds that probably would go over well with anyone for Halloween.
Extra combined leftover Jell-O!
And, if you like Jell-O, leftovers probably aren’t a problem. If you do, I’m sending mine to you.
The 31 Days of Halloween is in full swing here at InfiniteHollywood.com and today we’re taking a look at one of the most important parts of the season… CANDY!
I love candy, but about a month ago I started a pretty rigid diet and exercise plan, so every time I eat some sort of fattening candy here on the site, I’m doing it for you, the readers. One of my favorite Halloween candies is the old staple of the season, candy corn. I know a lot of people don’t like candy corn, but myself, I love it. I’m less of a fan of white chocolate, however.
When I saw that M&Ms had a new candy corn flavored treat, I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, this new product from M&Ms is more a trick than a treat. It’s labeled as “White Chocolate Candy Corn” but it doesn’t exactly say what that means. I assumed it meant that this was a combination of white chocolate and candy corn. You know, since that’s what the label says.
One of the first things I noticed when dumping out the contents, was a disproportionate number of orange M&Ms in comparison to the others. That reminds me of the very low number of dark red colored M&Ms I got during last Christmas season’s Cherry Cordial M&Ms.
When I opened the bag, I was greeted with the faint scent of candy corn. I got excited. This might be better off than I originally thought. Would some of the M&Ms be white chocolate flavored and the others be candy corn? Would they all be a mixture of the two flavors? I decided to bite into a white one first, to see what flavor the whites were.
The first thing I noticed was that the white ones taste like white chocolate. I pretty much expected that. The taste of white chocolate is pretty strong and I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate in general. However, I believe that when it’s tempered with other flavors, it can be quite nice. Since this piece was pure white chocolate, I figured the others would have the candy corn flavor.
So I bit into a yellow one. It was also plain white chocolate. So then I tried the orange, the rarest of the colors. Surely orange would come through for me, right?
Nope, it’s also plain white chocolate. So where the hell is the CANDY CORN?!? I assume the candy corn is simply in “design” because these are the colors of candy corn. Totally weak and a complete cop out by M&Ms.
Of course this begs the question on where the faint scent of candy corn came from when I opened the bag. Was the smell sprayed into the bag? Was my subconscious projecting that scent into my mind because I wanted these to taste like candy corn? Was it because I had these resting in a grocery bag that had real candy corn in it? The world may never know.
But yeah, anyway these suck. Unless you don’t like candy corn and love white chocolate, then you’re in luck. But why even bother calling them candy corn, if they don’t taste like candy corn?! I hate that sort of marketing.
Originally this year I planned a bunch of Christas themed reviews, as I usually do with my “Christmas in Hollywood” celebration each year. However, because of the damned Lego Advent and the 12 Days of Gamera, I’ve had to cut a bunch of that stuff out. Most of it I’m just shuffling off into things I’ll review for next year, but some of this stuff I need to get up so that it won’t be dated.
Such is the case with these two types of holiday M&Ms. I believe that they may both be new for the season, but I feel fairly confident that at least the cinnamon M&Ms are. So here’s my brief review of both the new Cinnamon M&Ms and the Cherry Cordial M&Ms.
First up is the cinnamon M&Ms. Let it be known that I’m not really a huge fan of cinnamon, but for whatever reason as I was looking through the sales papers on Thanksgiving, I saw an ad for Cinnamon M&Ms at Target and I thought they sounded good. So I then began to search for them. I’m convinced that they are Target exclusives, because I went to every other retailer and local grocer in town and ONLY Target has them.
Anyway, when I finally bought them at Target (M&Ms were cheaper elsewhere, which is why I searched around) I picked up a bag of the Cherry Cordial ones too, because Target was doing one of those Buy 2 for $5 deals.
Cinnamon and Chocolate is not exactly a new idea. I’m pretty sure that the Aztecs or the Mayans or some other ancient civilization used to mix the two together all the time. Granted they also used to sacrifice babies and virgins and pierce their testicles, but hey we got Twilight, Rap music and Jersey Shore so no era of civilization is not without it’s flaws. Anyway, it sounded like a interesting new way to eat M&Ms.
The first thing that you’ll notice (and this is true of both holiday M&Ms) is that they’re huge and misshapen. These are about the size of Peanut M&Ms, yet there isn’t anything in here but chocolate. There’s no reason that Cinnamon M&Ms should be any bigger than M&Ms original recipe. And yet, they are? My theory is that these are made in a bootleg M&M factory and not in the REAL factories where they produce their top quality products.
Which brings me to the candy themselves. The Cinnamon M&Ms are a ripoff. Only the red ones taste like cinnamon and even then it’s only a hint of cinnamon. The rest of those M&Ms? The slightly red and brown ones? They’re just filled with regular chocolate. So not only can you barely taste the cinnamon in the ones with the cinnamon in them, but they’re packed with an asston of giant misshapen regular M&Ms that drown out any cinnamon flavor you might have tasted.
There’s also some odd thing on here about starting your own chocolate business. WTF is this about? If I’m starting my own business, I’m sure as hell not going to give my secrets to Mars! Or Dove! Or whoever the hell owns M&Ms! Screw you Cinnamon M&Ms!
The Cherry Cordial M&Ms fare a bit better as they have an overwhelming taste of cherry cordial. In fact I think they’re far too strong. You can eat one or two, but you can’t eat handfuls. It’s just too strong of a taste. It’d be like dumping a whole box of Queen Anne’s down your gullet.
Yes I’m well aware that I just complained that the Cinnamon M&Ms were too faint and now I’m bitching that these are too strong, but it’s just a fact. Also for some reason, these have less sodium and less fat, even though they’re essentially the same thing.
Also notice how there’s one darker Cherry Cordial M&M? Well there’s supposed to be two colors (they both have the same flavor) but I had a grand total of TWO of the darker red M&Ms in the whole bag. TWO! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?! What the hell is up with that?
Bootleg M&M factory, I’m telling ya.
Do you know my spell check says “krispie” is spelled wrong? Clearly this is not the case. And, clearly, these are not your regular rice krispie treats.
With it officially being Fall, and Halloween around the corner, stores are starting to fill their shelves with seasonal pumpkin items. I mean, really, I’m just going to be honest and say it’s slightly out of control this year. Everywhere I turn around there’s something new, and I seriously might go broke, if I tried to get them all. However, I could not resist pumpkin marshmallows. No, not just shaped like pumpkins. They taste like it, too. Pumpkin flavored marshmallows?! Excellent!
Kraft makes these little dudes.
They look like little soft pumpkins and you can smell the pumpkin scent as soon as you open the bag.
And then well, they taste like pumkins too. But you can’t just eat a whole bag of marshmallows! What’s the best thing to do with marshmallows? I mean besides just stuff your face with them. Make Rice Krispie treats. So, that’s the plan, man.
¼ cup butter
1 bag (10 ounces) pumpkin marshmallows (minus 2)
5 ½ cups krispie rice
Non-stick cooking spray
Don’t worry, if you are a visual person, look here. Here’s what you need:
You are allowed to make rice krispie treats without actually having Snap, Krackle and Pop. I used the off brand to save more money to buy more pumpkin crap.
Also, as a side note: I like mine gooey, marshmallowy and stuff. If you are turned off by this (you might need help) or you can just add another ½ to 1 cup of rice krispies. Melt butter in a big pot.
Throw in whole bag of marshmallows.
This is what 5 ½ cups of krispie treats look like. I pre-measured mine.
Once your butter/marshmallows look like this:
Gingerly put in your rice krispies.
Maybe give it a stir.
Spray a pan with non-stick cooking spray, and then poor mixture in.
Smoosh down.
Let sit for a couple hours, and wah-la! Pumpkin Rice Krispie Treats.
