Pumpkin pie Pop Tart. Don’t be fooled by the appearance.
Someone once told me “There is no difference between the best pumpkin pie you’ve ever had and the worst pumpkin you’ve ever had.” While not entirely true—I’ve had some genuinely terrible pumpkin pie—I get the point. There isn’t a single pumpkin pie I’ve tried that stood out as the best; all the good ones have merely been adequate. Pumpkin spice owes its popularity not to pumpkin but to its ability to elevate a tasteless, overcooked vegetable to something that’s moderately enjoyable enough that you want to eat it once a year, unlike, say, pecan pie. I will go through a brick wall for good pecan pie, but that’s another story.
So when I picked up pumpkin pie Pop Tarts I had pretty low expectations. And I had low expectations even though I like Pop Tarts. And some are definitely better than others. Chocolate Pop Tarts are better than plain ones, although I prefer the plain ones for breakfast because the chocolate ones seem too much like a dessert. I also felt compelled to defend Pop Tarts when a recent lawsuit came up alleging that the strawberry Pop Tarts don’t have enough strawberry in them. I’m impressed that they have any strawberry in them and I think the only reasonable grounds for a lawsuit would be if there was something in them that was truly unexpected, like catfish.
Also raspberry Pop Tarts are superior to strawberry Pop Tarts, regardless of the actual quantity of raspberry.
As I said I had low expectations for the pumpkin pie Pop Tarts and they failed to live up to them. Imagine taking a pumpkin pie, scraping out most of the filling, then folding over the leftover crust. Add some sugary Pop Tart icing (it’s not frosting) and that’s what you’d have.
They’re honestly the worst Pop Tarts I’ve ever had.
I can’t imagine heating those things in an actual toaster. As a kid, my mother bought them exactly once and never again after trying to clean the icing off the coils. That was before toaster ovens though. Although you couldn’t get me to eat anything pumpkin – I don’t see (taste) the appeal.
Maybe they’ve changed the icing formula, or maybe your mother’s toaster was a bit too warm, but I put Pop Tarts in a regular toaster–albeit on a very low setting–and the icing never melts. There are some other toaster pastry brands where you apply the icing after you toast them but who wants to do that much work that early in the morning?
I love everything about this post! I feel the same about pot roast. Crockpot pot roast, good. Cracker Barrel pot roast, good. “You gotta try Grandmama’s pot roast”, good, but Dinty Moore in a can, tastes the same 🙂
Wow, I haven’t had Dinty Moore in a can in decades. Not since I called up the grocery store and asked if they had Sir Walter Raleigh in a can. Anyway thanks for dropping by and I hope you’re doing well!
Thanks for taking a pumpkin bullet for us, Chris.
I’ll probably do it again next year because by then I’ll have forgotten it was like this:
