Snack Review: Sweet Street Desserts

I was a tough customer for these. First of all, I bake from scratch. Second of all, I live in a big city with access to plenty of bakeries, and don’t really need to order cake in the mail.

Third of all: They make a big selling point of the fact that these are the same desserts that you get in restaurants, and now you can get them at home! Note that what this means is that they are the desserts you get in restaurants that don’t make their own desserts, but instead buy them frozen. Since I am highly suspicious of any restaurant that doesn’t make its desserts in-house, I am extremely unimpressed with this selling point.

I’m just putting my cards on the table here, so you know where I’m coming from, to be fair to these products. But I figured, hey, maybe I have been going to the wrong chain restaurants. And I never met a baked good that I wouldn’t try at least once, so I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at these when they arrived at my door.

I got two kinds to sample, Toffee Crunch Blondie, and the Summerberry Stack. My assistant at the Snackerrific Silver Spring outpost, who is not that big a fan of dessert, insisted on defrosting and trying the blondies immediately, they looked so good to him. They definitely looked pretty. Remember, these are made for the restaurant trade, so the way they look on the dessert tray or in the glossy color pictures in the dessert menu is critical. If the goal of these products was to have us look at them and think OOO, WANT NOW, it worked.

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Snack Review: Colossal Cookies from Bristol Farms

After my last stomach-churning encounter with oversize cookies from an overpriced market, I promised myself I’d abstain from such indulgences. I was forced to eat my silent words a few days ago, when a bevy of mountainous, delicious-looking cookies entered my line of sight at Bristol Farms. Trapped within their deadly line of influence, I had no choice but to obey their siren song. I drew steadily closer to the bakery counter, wanting to resist but unable to break the spell.

Entrancing though these cookies were, I needed to perform a litmus test before falling victim to another disgusting-snack swindle. Tentatively, I cupped one of the cookies in my hand. It was as heavy as it appeared, being of a texture that was simultaneously rock-like and slightly yielding. I held the sample specimen, a Pike’s Peak of chocolate chip delight, to my nose, and was rewarded with the scents of genuine butter, brown sugar, and chocolate. This cookie passed muster, as did the other three varieties (Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter/Chocolate Swirl, and Colossal Toffee Crunch). Whole Foods nasty-cookie legacy be darned; I was sold.

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Snack Review: Bentley’s Premier Popcorn

Think of the tastiest kettle corn you’ve ever eaten in your life. Got it? Now take that, increase the deliciousness by ten to the power of yum, put it in a single-serving fresh-lock bag with a label featuring a full-color illustration of Bentley, a cute little Wire-haired Fox Terrier, and you have the eponymous Bentley’s Premier Popcorn.

The fresh-lock bags (in 3 and 4 ounce sizes) are no gimmicky ruse — this is some über-fresh popcorn. The Butter Pecan sample featured six large pecan halves tossed in with the lightly coated popcorn. Bentley’s is kettle roasted using only natural ingredients, and it shows: the result is a subtle yet satisfyingly sweet and buttery mixture, not overpowering or artificial.

The two available flavors, Toffee Caramel and Butter Pecan, feature the same secret recipe, but with the deceptively simple addition of roasted pecans to the latter. A new Cinnamon Almond flavor is expected soon.

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