On my two-hour break between work shifts yesterday, I went out to a couple seldomly-visited grocery stores in search of the dwindling supply of original diet Pepsi (I know I’m going to have to give up on it soon, because Pepsi appears to be sticking hard to their awful business decisions, but NOT YET). One store was, as usual, completely useless, but the new Food Lion in town not only had several 1.5L bottles of non-sucralose/non-disgusting diet Pepsi, but while wandering the aisles, I glanced at an endcap and discovered...

...the Pumpkinning! It is finally upon us!

Though I started doing the math in my head if I were to get one of each thing (besides the coffee; I don’t own a coffee maker), the only reason I didn’t was because my basket was already full. However, I did get just one thing.

The pumpkin pie Pop Tarts!

These have been out for several years, but somehow I’ve never gotten hold of them until this weekend. When I opened the foil packet and smelled them, they actually did smell like pumpkin pie, so I was pleasantly surprised. Listen, I’m glad so many pumpkin snacks are available now, but let’s face it: some of these companies just do not get it right, so it’s great when one does.

I popped them into the toaster and here we are:

Naturally, they only vaguely resemble the picture on the box. Hardly any little sprinkly bits things on these.

I liked them okay. The bland, floury standard Pop Tart pastry is reminiscent of the bland, floury ready-made pie crusts used for many a pumpkin pie, so they really nailed that, even if by default. The frosting on top is nothing special: just a generic white glaze that tastes of sugar. I can’t imagine it’s truly meant to represent the whipped cream put on top of a slice of pumpkin pie. The filling does taste like pumpkin pie. However, it’s not flavorful enough, unlike almost every other Pop Tart variety. Strawberry? In your face sweet strawberry filling. Cookie dough? Unmistakable taste of cookie dough. S’mores (arguably the best Pop Tart flavor of all time)? You get the two distinct flavors of chocolate and marshmallow inside the graham cracker-ish shell. These have the same problem that a lot of pumpkin baked goods do: they taste of pumpkin, sure, but they’re not aggressively spiced enough to really bring it out. It’s like not having enough salt on fries: they still taste okay, but the salt is essential to properly enhance the flavor. This might just be a “me” problem -- I’ve admitted to liking foods spicier than the average person, and when I make gingerbread, I double or triple up on the spices because I like gingerbread to be really flavorful -- but I don’t think it is. I’ll eat and enjoy the rest of the package, but I doubt I’ll buy them again.

Kellogg’s Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts

Verdict: fine, but in need of improvement