Sometimes Foodie: Sugar Cookie Shakedown - Hershey Sugar Cookie Kisses

Hershey's Sugar Cookie Kisses - CVS

I don't get the appeal of all this "Sugar cookie" flavored stuff. With a few exceptions, like Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch or Sugar Cookie Pop-Tarts, I think most sugar cookie products are a sham. Especially when it comes to chocolates and candy bars. Brands just make a vanilla version of their product, throw some colorful sprinkles on it, and call it a day.

Will these Kisses be the exception to the rule?

Turning the bag over, we have a suggested recipe for sugar cookie blossoms, but wait...it just tells you to buy sugar cookie mix, add these in the center, and then roll them in sprinkles. That's it. That's the "recipe." More of a decorating suggestion really, which is all well and good, but why not include a sugar cookie recipe on the bag? This is a winter holiday product, that is cookie themed, with all the holiday baking taking place, it just makes sense. Guess I'll be sticking with my favorite (lazy) sugar cookie recipe this year.

When opened, the candies are dressed in silver foil with colorful seasonal shapes in shades of red, blue, and green. It will be a sad day for me when Kisses and Hugs no longer come in tiny foil jackets, but hopefully, if that day ever does come, it'll be because they switched to a more planet-friendly option.

The pattern for these is really adorable, with their bright colors and simplistic shapes, they give me Mid Century Modern vibes, which I have totally been into this year. (Me and pretty much everyone else.) Very candy-dish friendly.

Sadly, here is where my compliments come to an end.

They look super cute wrapped, but unwrapped they look a little ghostly and awkward. The colored cookie mix-ins don't shine through the white chocolate base as much as the images have you believe, or these photos. To the naked eye they have a ghoulish pastel-look to them, which, if pastels are your thing, great, but they look awkward mixed up with my other holiday cookies and sweets and kind of unfinished.

Then there's the taste, they're not bad, but are not sugar cookie.

The base is sweet, sugary, and vanilla'd, but not unlike the normal white-base used in Hershey's Hugs, Cookies n Creme bars, or Kisses. According to the bag, all the flavoring for these is in the base, and I tried savoring it, and comparing it to a normal Cookie n Creme bar I had leftover from Halloween, but if there is a difference between the two (other than vanilla vs. chocolate mix-ins), it's almost indistinguishable. Maybe you can argue this is more vanilla-heavy, but I can't tell if that is a flavor addition in and of itself, or just the absence of chocolate cookie pieces.

Speaking of cookie pieces, they add a nice crunch, but not much flavor. All in all, these are more-so white chocolate Kisses with non-chocolate cookie bits. In my opinions, they're not "sugar cookie" at all, and lack the distinct buttery flavoring and texture of their namesake.

Seems like these ended up being the rule. A seasonal rebrand. If you really like Hershey's take on white chocolate, you'll really enjoy these, but if you're looking for something truly new and unique, these are just more of the same.

I'm going to add them to my holiday cookie platters and to some of my sugar cookies, but that's more-so because I want to use them up rather than thinking they'll truly enhance any of my baking. If these return next year, I won't be re-purchasing them.

What's your favorite non-cookie sugar-cookie-product of all time? Mine might be Pop-Tarts.

Update: I ended up making some sugar cookies for my holiday cookie trays with these.

They looked really cute, but honestly, I think the cookies tasted better without them. They're so sweet they overwhelm everything else, do not recommend.