Blue Raspberry Pop Tarts - Target - Marlton, NJ
Blue food means blue pop culture references! I've already linked Eiffel 65's smash hit in other posts, but that's a pretty obvious one to go with, today's reference is a bit more obscure.
Did any of you ever watch Dinosaurs? For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it focuses on a family of dinosaurs. (Surprise! totally not obvious at all, right?) They have the typical family sitcom problems, but the social commentary is still fresh after all these years. I grew up loving the show and I own every episode on DVD. If you're not a crazy DVD hoarder like me (mine are organized by color, but this isn't even half of my collection) the entire series is available on Netflix. If you ever have a free moment, watch the season 3 episode titled "Germ Warfare." In this specific episode, Baby gets sick, and his parents spend a ton of money on fancy medicines to make him better, one of which happens to be blue and costs $1000.00. The entire series is really hilarious and very well written, and I honestly feel like it never got the credit it deserved. Anyway, my sister and I make references to it all the time, one of our favorites being "it's blue."
Okay, on to the food part of this post!
Every single package of Pop-Tarts has the same layout. It makes for a very cohesive product-line, but there's not much for me to critique. The only difference between this and the Chocolatey Strawberry version is the flavor related imagery and the photo of the actual Pop-Tart. Even if it's a bit boring to photograph the same thing over and over as a food blogger, it works from a marketing standpoint.
The pastries are inside the familiar silver foiled plastic that all non-peanut-based Pop-Tarts are wrapped in, nothing much to discuss there.
I opened up the packet, and these aren't terribly blue right off the bat.
The pastry portion is the same dry dough that a lot of other Pop-Tart flavors use, and the icing is white with a blue drizzle just like the photo on the packaging. I'm a bit surprised that the company didn't go crazy with the blue food dye and make the icing blue with a white drizzle instead, but I think the days of crazy bright colored food are coming to an end. With natural coloring catching on, and people becoming more concerned about what they're eating, I could see intensely blue Pop-Tarts not selling all that well. (It's not the 90's anymore.) While I'm not a huge fan of food dye myself, the kid and the photographer in me was hoping for something more.
It smells doughy, but sweet, with a hint of artificial fruit filling. I broke the Pop-Tart in half, and the filling was a lot paler and opaque in color than I thought it'd be. Look at this stuff!
The filling looks more like blue cake icing than a jam or jelly. Is there any raspberry in this at all? Also, I feel like this was a HUGE missed marketing opportunity for Frozen. This filling is Elsa-blue. Of all the unreasonable Disney branded food items, this would have actually made sense!
I took a bite, and I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. The outside crust is still as dry as ever, the icing on top is sweet and sugary, but the filling is very reminiscent of the Wildberry Pop-Tarts I ate as a kid. For something that looks so blue, it tastes surprisingly fruity. It's still terribly artificial, and nothing like eating actual raspberries or raspberry jam, but it's a Pop-Tart. It's going to be artificial, and you know what? I actually really like this.
Even though it's not something I would eat all the time, I do think I'll be buying myself another box in the future. Pop-Tarts are a super easy lazy-breakfast for me to take to work, and I really do enjoy the flavoring of this quite a bit. I actually hope this new flavor is permanent, because I'll be sad to see this one go.
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This is my first time reading a pop tart review and just an observation. Given that a pop tart can be consumed straight out of the package or warmed in a toaster, do you think this particular flavor could have been different had it been toasted? Speaking for myself, I really enjoy the S'mores poptarts warmed in the toaster.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point! Normally I do try them both ways, but with this specific flavor being some freeze-pop-y I didn't really want to try them toasted. However, these might be a good flavor to try frozen, like those milkshake Pop-Tarts. I'll let you know if I give them a try. (Toasted or otherwise.)
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