Pecan Pie m&m's - Walmart

Pecan Pie m&m's - Walmart

Despite my own personal pumpkin obsession, the fall season is more than just pumpkin spice, there's also pecans and pecan pie! (Sweet potato is out there too, but it doesn't get enough love to warrant it's own m&m.)

These seasonal Pecan Pie flavored m&m's were the Walmart exclusive companion-product to the Target exclusive Pumpkin Spice Latte version, and I stalked several Walmarts for WEEKS trying to find these. Finally, after all the other foodbloggers had already reviewed them, my local Walmart got them in stock. Oh well. They aren't new anymore, but I still wanted to give them a try! So here we are!

The packaging for this seasonal flavor features the (uncomfortably) sexy Green m&m in her cowgirl boots chewing on a piece of straw. This year both of the seasonal packages feature female m&m characters, which is pretty new for the company. Usually one of the seasonal products features the ever nervous Orange (male), but this year the fall season is all about the ladies. (Since the Pumpkin Latte version featured the female Brown m&m getting her basic on.) I personally find the Green m&m mascot to be creepy, since they made her "sexy" to match the rumors about the side effects of the green m&m's...but other than my disturbance over a sexy piece of candy, the overall the layout and design for this bag is pretty good. We've got another cream colored backdrop, the typical scatted leaves signifying that this is a fall product, and the rendering on that little slice of pie is absolutely beautiful. It's not as sleek and pretty as the Australian Banana m&m's, but it's better than last year's Pumpkin Spice fiasco.  

Inside the bag are three colors of candy. We've got the classic bark brown, which has been in the last three flavored mixes I've reviewed, and off white which is the same as the white in the Latte version, and a new goldenrod/caramel color. The new color is reminiscent of pecan pie filling, but I gotta say, it doesn't look all that appealing in real life. The mix isn't as visually appealing in a candy dish as the Pumpkin Spiced Latte version, but I like that they switched things up.

The candies have a vague nutty smell to them which reminds me of roasted coffee beans and pecan scented candles. It's not a terribly off putting scent, but it is kind of processed and it remind me of a seasonal Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer I have in my purse called Pumpkin Pecan Waffles. Since the candy base for these is milk chocolate, I'm a bit concerned about how this is going to taste. Pecan pie isn't chocolate-y! Will this be as bit of a flop as last year's Pumpkin Spice version?

I gave these a try, and it was not love at first bite. At first I was really disappointed by these. They tasted like my aforementioned hand sanitizer had exploded in my purse and had gotten on my m&'ms. It was a bit candle-y, artificial, and not as pecan and caramel heavy as I would have liked at all. I found myself wishing that they had used a white chocolate or caramel themed base for these candies, because the chocolate was too over powering. This came off tasting more like a pecan flavored coffee than a pecan pie flavored m&m, but don't write these off just yet!

I eat everything I buy, since I absolutely hate wasting food, so I tossed this bag into my lunch box and brought it with me to work to share with my boss. I don't know if it was a foodie variation of Stockholm syndrome or what, but since these were the only thing I had to munch on at my desk...they grew on me! I ended up eating an embarrassingly large portion of this bag while I was at work the other day, and you know what? I think I actually like these after all. The more I eat them, the stronger the pecan after taste gets, and the more I enjoy them. These aren't my favorite m&m's out there, and I don't think I'll be buying a second bag this season, but I do like these more than last year's Pumpkin Spice, and I might even pick up another bag if they return next year. These weren't great at first, but they did grow on me and now I enjoy them quite a bit, so if you really give them a chance you might like them too.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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